Maestro Effron is memorable

The Indiana University School of Music's Orchestra concert was impressive, despite the fact that the house was small. Just over 100 people attended, most of whom probably qualified for membership to AARP.\nApplause greeted the first conductor of the evening, Christiaan Crans, who led the players through "Christoph Willibald Gluck's Overture to Iphigenie in Aulide," composed in 1774. Crans was dressed in white tie and tails while he perched himself atop his podium.\nWhile this number played, the stage was filled with a sea of bows moving in unison creating notes with a perfectly pleasant pitch. I heard a few people say the violins didn't hit a couple of notes. That wasn't what my ears heard. Continually, the musicians were on top of the notes, and more often than not the violins led the charge as the most noticeable section of the orchestra during Gluck. This kept with the period because at the time Gluck wrote, it was stylistically and artistically important for a composer of this era to structure the piece as he did. It was essential that an instrument led a particular section, with lower sounding instruments picking up the bass line.\nWhen Crans was finished, he bowed and then walked off stage. As is custom, he then returned for another bow or two and surrendered the stage to Maestro David Effron.\nEffron, in his well-tailored tails, brought to the stage class and confidence in himself. He then led the orchestra in Charles Ives' "1898 Symphony No. 1." \nEffron has a style unique to anything else I've seen. At times he conducted while crouching the way you do when you're playing Tug-of-War. And he tugged the best out of his orchestra the whole way through Ives' "Symphony." The audience saw the bowers bow and the drummers drum magnificently.\nParts of "Symphony No. 1" caused me to bring up images from the back of my mind of a surf hitting the beach with overcast skies and the squawk of the sea gulls flying. I felt it should be the closing moments of a sad film where someone cast another's ashes into the wash. I think it was because a few of the chords sounds a bit like "Amazing Grace."\nIt's too bad there was only roughly a quarter of a house to be as moved by the piece as I was.\nNext came a piece by Edward Elgar called "Nimrod" taken from "Enigma Variations." The selection was dedicated to the late Georgia Marriott and following its end, there was a moment of silence before the intermission.\nThe last work of the night was Robert Schumann and his "Symphony No. 2 in C Maj. Op. 61."\nI couldn't also help but notice Effron reminded me of one of the Bugs Bunny cartoons. It was the one where he mimics the late Leopold of Stowkowski fame. I can only compare him to the Bugs Bunny rendition since I was never lucky enough to see Stowkowski himself. The gestures made by Bugs and Effron included the stern look, the hand that used half the fingers as though they were calling someone closer to them, and the bounce on the platform.\nWhat I'm trying to do is point out not only can Effron lead an orchestra, but he is a fantastic performer as well. He is an excellent bonus to an already excellent orchestra. Without his personality, the night would not have been nearly as memorable.\nI simply can't wait to see Effron lead the School of Music Orchestra again.