Osmo in the CAMA Cosmo

CAMA, Community Arts Music Association of Santa Barbara, left one of its best for last when Philadelphia’s Curtis Symphony Orchestra under Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä, former maestro of the Minnesota and Seoul Philharmonic orchestras, performed the penultimate show of its 104th international series season at the Granada with Russian pianist Yefim Bronfman playing Schumann’s “Concerto in A minor.”

Bronfman, who studied at Juilliard in New York, the Marlboro School of Music and the 103-year-old Curtis Institute of Music, received a standing ovation, which led to an encore of Chopin’s “Étude No. 12 in C minor.”

A rousing work “Awakening Lion” by female composer Dai Wei, which was commissioned especially for the orchestra’s tour, kicked off the concert in splendid style evoking a Cantonese traditional dance with unpitched percussions such as Chinese bass drums, cymbals, and gongs.

The highly entertaining show concluded with Rimsky-Korsakov’s colorful “Scheherazade,” which led to even more encores with the orchestra, made up of 100 young master musicians – only five percent of applicants who apply get accepted – playing Prokofiev’s “March,” a suite from The Love of Three Oranges, and Brahms’ “Hungarian Dance in E minor.”

A glorious evening…