Review: Béla Fleck + Asheville Symphony Orchestra at Thomas Wolfe Auditorium
For all his litany of accomplishments — 15 Grammy Awards, ascension to the International Bluegrass Hall of Fame, collaborations with luminaries like bassist Edgar Meyer and mandolinist Chris Thile — banjo player Béla Fleck remains a remarkably modest man. Case in point: The Imposter, the title of the self-composed banjo concerto he performed with the Asheville Symphony Orchestra on May 20, refers to his own sense of unease at bringing his folk instrument into the classical concert hall.
Fleck himself came across as a bit self-effacing as he took the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium stage. He eschewed the traditional dignified handshake with the violin concertmaster for a casual fist-bump, chose a black silk shirt with a subtle floral print over a flashy bow tie and tails. He gave a weak smile and almost imperceptibly nodded along as the orchestra began the concerto’s mysterious introduction.
But there was no hiding his prodigious talent when Fleck finally put fingers to strings. The banjo part he wrote for himself was wonderfully intricate, full of syncopated figures over shifting time signatures and arpeggiated flights across the instrument’s entire fretboard — and performed effortlessly. He didn’t shy away from the jazz sensibilities honed through his work with The Flecktones, but he also showed off the lessons he learned from J.S. Bach and Frédéric Chopin in his previous classical recordings.
As a composer, Fleck has a fine ear for orchestration, combining instrumental forces in ways that brought out the textures of his music. I loved the way his chimes and tubular bells cut through thick layers of strings, as well as his use of high woodwinds for clear melodic counterpoint even in busy passages.
Fleck isn’t formally trained in orchestral writing, and in a pre-concert talk on May 19 with ASO conductor Darko Butorac at Brouwerïj Cursus Kĕmē, he noted how he’d composed the piece primarily on banjo, using the musical notation software Sibelius to convert those lines for other instruments. In a few places throughout the concerto, it seemed like he’d forgotten that not every instrument is a banjo; some of the violin parts in particular were fiendishly angular and obviously troublesome.
Butorac told the soloist at Cursus Kĕmē that the concerto was “by far the hardest thing on the concert.” Despite the challenges, I appreciated ASO’s gutsy programming choice, especially when the concerto’s third movement pitted Fleck against the ensemble in a series of fiery exchanges.
While the orchestra got the last word, the banjo player then got the chance to shine by himself in an extended solo encore. Starting with a swaggering arrangement of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, Fleck then transitioned into a series of variations on “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” — better known as the theme song to The Beverly Hillbillies. As Fleck has noted throughout his career, it’s the song that first drew him to his instrument, and he treated it with a joyful mix of playfulness and reverence.
The concert opened with Butorac’s own arrangement of the Chaccone from Bach’s Partita for Violin No. 2 in D Minor. By turning the solo violin piece into an orchestral work (as previously attempted by British conductor Leopold Stokowski and others), he gave it a viscerally satisfying force in big chord sequences. Arpeggiated string sections with melodic brass yielded echoes between the Baroque composition and minimalist works by Philip Glass.
Unavoidable in the conversion from solo to orchestral music, however, is a loss of freedom and breath. Whereas Bach’s original soars with the seeming weightlessness of cathedral vaults, the arrangement felt too stolidly grounded, like heavy columns around a Greek temple.
However, I had no such quarrels with the back half of the program. First came an uptempo rendition of “Caravan,” the jazz standard by Juan Tizol and Duke Ellington. The ASO brass were in their finest big-band form, and the percussion section got the chance to let loose.
Closing things out was Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, an orchestral work cobbled together by the composer from the popular 1957 musical. Having warmed up with a bit of true jazz, the ASO proceeded to use every bit of its remaining energy on Bernstein’s distinctive blend of jazz, classical, and Broadway.
Every section played with crisp vigor and didn’t lose a beat as Butorac guided them between segments in the nonstop suite. Dynamics were skillfully balanced between parts, even as the percussionists hammered away in Latin grooves, while slower themes like “Somewhere” were rendered with lush beauty. As one of the all-time great crowd-pleasers in modern music drew to a close, I’m pretty sure I saw plaster chips shake loose from the TWA ceiling when the audience rose to applaud.
(Photos by Michael Morel)
