Celebratory concerts around town

Happy Year of the Rat! On Saturday, I headed over the NKU where the Greater Cincinnati Chinese Music Society presented a wonderful program that included Dance China NY, Percussion Group Cincinnati and an intriguing jazz-fusion trio of pipa, jazz guitar and bass.

Sylvia Lee hosted the show for a near-capacity crowd, noting that this was the 8th annual Chinese New Year concert, and 8 -- in Mandarin "ba" -- is good luck. That's why the Olympics will start on 8/8/2008 at 8:08:08 p.m.

Percussion Group Cincinnati opened with a bang, with Drum of Shi, a celebratory counterpoint of drumming with sticks and palms on three kinds of drums. These superstars of percussion -- Allen Otte, James Culley and Russell Burge -- never fail to amaze.

Then Dance China NY, whose artistic director is CCM's Qi Jiang, performed WuWu, a celebration for the 2008 Olympics choreographed by Jiang. This was Yin and Yang -- a masterful and astonishing blend of classic dance, with all its grace, combined with martial arts. The dancers showed spectacular form, control and characterization, as they journeyed through Jiang's inventive choreography with athleticism and power. (The Adagio was like a pas de deux in Tai Chi.) Later, they performed "Love in Spring," a charming traditional ballet of happy villagers.

The program included the world premiere performance of "Mountain Dream: Songs of Spring," by Chinese composer Pei Lu, who took his inspiration from his mountainous home province of Guangxi. It was a vocal concerto, with an interesting sound palette of cello, oboe, pipa and mallet instruments. A glimmering, atonal fusion of Eastern and Western avant-garde, the CCM performers performed it well, and the composer took a bow.

The evening closed with a wonderful Chinese-American jazz fusion set, performed by Blue Pipa Trio, featuring Min Xiao-Fen on pipa and also voice. Her "Fascinating New Year," inspired by Gershwin, was sort of Chinese scat.

On Tuesday, on one of the worst snow days this year, Elizabeth and Eugene Pridonoff celebrated their 25th anniversary as the Pridonoff Duo. For the event, the husband-wife team programmed some of their chestnuts of the two-piano repertory, as well as a spectacular new "Rite of Spring," in an original four-hand transcription by the composer with percussion orchestration by Allen Otte.

Hearing the Stravinsky score of 1913 in this stripped-down version was a revelation. It was at once earthy, spontaneous and even more primative-sounding than hearing the full orchestral version. Perhaps it was the immediacy of seeing the percussionists of Percussion Group Cincinnati interacting with the pianists. The Pridonoffs journeyed through the ballet suite with fervor and thoughtfulness, with sonorities ranging from brutal to intimate.

The other treat of the evening was Ravel's "Ma mere l'oye" (Mother Goose Suite) for two pianos. What a wonderful piece, of such haunting charm and nostalgia. They played it with delicate tone color and articulation. Again, the Percussion Group added delicate bells and brilliant tam-tams, and the result was simply radiant.

For 25 years, the Pridonoffs have complemented each other musically -- he the patrician, Rudolf Serkin-trained artist, and she passionate and extroverted. They opened with Anton Arensky's Suite No. 1, a bon bon with fullblown romantic tunes and lots of pianistic filigree. They did their signature Rachmaninoff -- this time "Three Songs," including the lovely "Vocalise." The suite was a gift to them from Vitya Vronsky, transcribed by her husband, Victor Babin (remember Vronsky and Babin?)

The first half ended with a whirldwind performance of "La Valse" by Ravel, another revelation, wonderful evoking the disintigration of old European culture in the aftermath of World War I.

It drove home to me how important the duo-piano ensemble is in the evolution of orchestral music. Many composers, such as Stravinsky and Ravel, first wrote their music for two pianos, and often gave premiere performances in private salons this way. It's not quite a lost art, but how many cities, today, even have a "resident" duo-piano team?

The appreciative audience of several hundred in Corbett Auditorium gave the performance an enthusiastic reception.