Stuart Malina makes Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra's uplifting first concert of 2015 unmissable

Stuart Malina HSO

Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra Conductor Stuart Malina performs Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20 in d minor.

(Photo provided by Curt Rohrer)

Can nostalgia kindle enough warmth to combat the withering chill outside?* The Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra's first concert of 2015 makes a sound argument in favor of reveling in the well-loved.

For "Malina Plays Mozart," HSO conductor Stuart Malina on the piano, revisiting a piece that he has been playing all his life: Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor.

First, though, came Czech-born composer Bohuslav Martinu's "Sinfonietta La Jolla," which also featured Malina on the piano. Conducting duties for the "Sinfonietta" were handed off to assistant conductor Gregory Woodbridge -- for the first time, in fact, since Woodbridge joined the HSO three seasons ago.

Martinu's "Sinfonietta" starts out as sun-dappled as any flight on a bike down a green hill in summer (and wholly evocative of the San Diego suburb). Effervescent in spite of dramatic turns, "Sinfonietta La Jolla" sounds like the kind of days I look forward to the most, and it alone has enough charming qualities to make a listener's day.

Maestro Malina -- with vigor -- resumed conducting from the piano for Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20, which is a spectacular vehicle for Malina's craft.

Within a scaled-down orchestra -- with 42 musicians, including Maestro Malina, seated onstage -- Malina's virtuosic piano work had the means to be as plaintive or sublime as called for by the concerto.

The way his conducting duties, at times, lifted Maestro Malina out of his seat was an excellent visual rendering of the concerto's power -- particularly as evidenced by the audience, which could not wait to deliver a standing ovation and rose up, cheering, as soon as the piece was over.

As Dr. Dick Strawser clarified on the HSO blog, it was in the key of D minor that Mozart could express foreboding, making it the perfect key for the month of January.

January is an opportunity to appreciate what has evolved and what has survived. For instance, when 2014 started, gay marriage was not legal in Pennsylvania, but it was legalized in the spring. Now, in 2015, Pennsylvania is set to lose millions in federal funding to protect its preserved farmland, more than half of which is in the midstate. By next January, will all that farmland be vulnerable to development?

Considering how much can change drastically from year to year, I am all the more grateful for the constant that is the quality in the HSO's vibrant, varied performances. And "Malina Plays Mozart" is no exception.

The concert concluded with Felix Mendelssohn's "Italian" Symphony No. 4, as rich and complex as the country that inspired it.

In its irrepressibility, the Italian Symphony can overtake the firmament on the Forum's ceiling and make listeners feel resplendent in sunlight. Overall, this concert achieves in much the same way.

Do not miss Sunday, Jan. 11's performance of "Malina Plays Mozart" at 3 p.m. at The Forum on Fifth and Walnut streets in Harrisburg. Tickets cost $15, $30, $44, $56, and $71.


* - For those who say "yes," that might explain how, despite the weather, January continues to be such a popular occasion for ingesting milkshakes.