Bramwell Tovey, pianist and conductor, leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in their rendition of "Catfish Row" during "A Toast to Gershwin!" on March 24, 2017. (Brittany Sowacke / Chicago Tribune)
Howard Reich, Contact Reporter (Chicago Tribune)
March 26, 2017
Danger lurks when great symphony orchestras play programs devoted to music of George Gershwin.
Not because the ensembles can't dispatch the music brilliantly, but because not all conductors can finesse the merger of classical and jazz idioms that is at the center of Gershwin's art. Worse, not every maestro approaches Gershwin's oeuvre as seriously as it deserves, regarding his work as light classical rather than as American populism at its most urbanely sophisticated.
Which brings us to the fascinating case of Bramwell Tovey, a British-trained conductor-pianist who serves as music director of the Vancouver Symphony and led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a "Gershwin Spectacular" program Friday night in Orchestra Hall at Symphony Center. Tovey was deeply persuasive as conductor and thoroughly engaging as raconteur but, alas, musically anemic and often technically unsure as pianist. By taking on multiple roles, he diminished what otherwise could have been an exemplary Gershwin program, the music sounding fresh and alive when he was on the podium but flagging when he sat at the piano.
read more at: http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/reich/ct-gershwin-cso-review-ent-0327-20170325-column.html
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