Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations with his accustomed technical aplomb and elegant phrasing, backed smoothly by Alsop and the orchestra. The cellist also delivered Bernstein's Three Meditations from 'Mass' with considerable expressive weight. Mass is a major component of the BSO's '08-'09 season, and Alsop used this concert to provide a preview of what's in store when the complete Bernstein work is presented next month. (Those Meditations were written for the late Mstislav Rostropovich a few years after the 1971 premiere of Mass, based on orchestral passages in the original.) Alsop spiced the program with other excerpts from Mass and brought the Baltimore City College Choir and Towson University Marching Band into the picture to help perform them. Coordination wasn't exactly dead-on (the band members played in the aisles), but the spirit of the score infused the hall.

There was an off-beat finale, which reiterated both the community-embracing theme of the evening and the humanity-embracing theme of the Ode to Joy from the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. (Bernstein incorporates references to that Beethoven piece in Mass.) In Variations on 'Ode to Joy', created for the gala by BSO trumpeter Phil Snedecor, the orchestra basically stuck to Beethoven's original material, interspersed with kinetic contributions from Charm City Steel, a steel drum band located in one balcony; a rousing, gospel-style version of the big tune sung with infectious enthusiasm by the Harriet Tubman Elementary School Choir, located in the opposite balcony (the BSO's new OrchKids music education program has just started at that school); then some more jazz takes on the Beethoven theme from vocalist MaShica Winslow and trumpeter Dantae Winslow; and, for the big finish, the City College Choir and TU Marching Band jumping in to rev up the decibels. Somewhere in the midst of all that, Yo-Yo Ma had various solos, which were mostly hard to hear. In terms of coherence and substance, the whole thing never quite added up, but the concept had "feel good" and "festive" written all over it. The crowd roared through several curtain calls.   

PHOTO: Colby Ware/Special to the Baltimore Sun