Concertmaster

Isidor Saslav, a former Baltimore Symphony Orchestra concertmaster and Peabody Institute violin teacher, died of complications from cancer Jan. 26 at a hospital in Tyler, Texas. The former Mount Washington resident was 74. Born in Jerusalem, he moved with his family to Detroit as a young boy and studied violin under Detroit Symphony concertmaster Mischa Mischakoff. Family members said at 17 he became one of the youngest members of the Detroit Symphony. He earned a bachelor's degree in music at Wayne State University and a doctorate from Indiana University, where he wrote his thesis on the string quartets of Franz Josef Haydn.

Isidor Saslav, a former Baltimore Symphony Orchestra concertmaster and Peabody Institute violin teacher, died of complications from cancer Jan. 26 at a hospital in Tyler, Texas. The former Mount Washington resident was 74. Born in Jerusalem, he moved with his family to Detroit as a young boy and studied violin under Detroit Symphony concertmaster Mischa Mischakoff. Family members said at 17 he became one of the youngest members of the Detroit Symphony. He earned a bachelor's degree in music at Wayne State University and a doctorate from Indiana University, where he wrote his thesis on the string quartets of Franz Josef Haydn.

The National Symphony Orchestra has appointed Nurit Bar-Josef as concertmaster, starting with the 2001-2002 season. Currently assistant concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston Pops, Bar-Josef succeeds William Steck, who retired from the NSO after nearly 20 years. Music director Leonard Slatkin praised Bar-Josef's "great artistic integrity and leadership skills" in a statement yesterday, and also saluted Elisabeth Adkins, the orchestra's current associate concertmaster and one of the four finalists - all women, coincidentally - for the position.

Jonathan Carney puts his whole body into each phrase of music, making it impossible to miss him when he's playing violin from the concertmaster's chair in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Even if you couldn't see him, you'd probably know he was there, from the intensity and commitment of his playing. That approach to music-making has been a boost to the BSO since he was hired by then-music director Yuri Temirkanov in 2002. "Jon is a tremendously effective concertmaster, a very extrovert concertmaster," says BSO percussionist Brian Prechtl.

Christian Colberg, a 24-year-old native of Puerto Rico and former concertmaster and principal violist of the Peabody Symphony Orchestra in Baltimore, has been engaged as the new concertmaster of the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra.A composer and conductor as well as a string player, Mr. Colberg was an assistant to his Peabody violin teacher, Shirley Givens, for the last five years.This summer, he will join the faculty of the Johannesen School of Arts in Victoria, Canada, as professor of viola.

Christian Colberg, a 25-year-old native of Puerto Rico who was named concertmaster of the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra in May 1993, has left that post to accept a seat in the viola section of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.Philip Spletzer, the ASO's principal second violinist, has been designated the orchestra's acting concertmaster for the 1994-1995 season.Mr. Spletzer, a former member of Florida's New World Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas, is known locally as an excellent chamber and orchestral player.

The student: Jennifer Leung, 15 School: Howard High Special achievement: She was concertmaster for the 2003 Maryland All-State Orchestra's March performance. She had to go through three levels of auditions to be placed as first-chair violin, the concertmaster's position in the orchestra. What is a concertmaster? If the conductor wants the orchestra members to play by themselves, "the first stand just leads everybody, and everybody has to watch their motions. They have their violin, and they sort of move it up and down in cues," Jennifer said.

If there was no easily discernible theme to the latest Baltimore Symphony Orchestra program, there certainly was a common thread - concertmaster Herbert Greenberg. He not only stepped front and center for a full-scale violin concerto, but also took on the considerable solo duties in an orchestral showpiece and was even in his usual seat for the opening overture. To Greenberg, this was just an all-in-a-night's-work sort of thing; to others, it might have looked like bravado. Either way, Friday evening's performance at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall before a small house certainly found the concertmaster in expressive form, and the orchestra likewise, under the thoughtful guidance of guest conductor Alan Gilbert.

Christian Colberg, a 24-year-old native of Puerto Rico and former concertmaster and principal violist of the Peabody Symphony Orchestra in Baltimore, has been engaged as the new concertmaster of the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra.A composer and conductor as well as a string player, Mr. Colberg was an assistant to his Peabody violin teacher, Shirley Givens, for the last five years.This summer, he will join the faculty of the Johannesen School of Arts in Victoria, Canada, as professor of viola.

HERBERT Greenberg played Bach on his 1685 Stradivarius the other day and marveled at incongruous things, beautiful and awful -- that the violin was made the year Bach was born and that he could be playing it while a war was on.The violin is particularly special for Greenberg, concertmaster for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, for he first played it when he climbed the concert violinist's Mt. Everest, Beethoven's Violin Concerto, in 1985 at the Meyerhoff Symphony...

In symmetrical fashion, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra has followed up last week's overture-violin-concerto-symphony program with another. Adding to the connection, the soloist last week was the ensemble's concertmaster; the soloist this time is the associate concertmaster. Completing the similarity: sensitive and, in some cases, revelatory music-making. The BSO performs at 8 tonight and 3 p.m. tomorrow at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, 1212 Cathedral St. Tickets are $15-$57. Call 410-783-8000 or go to bsomusic.

Truth be told, I'm not a pops concert kind of guy. But when I heard that Maestro Jose-Luis Novo and his Annapolis Symphony Orchestra were taking a musical tour of Italy last Saturday evening in a program titled "Viva Italia!," I was interested for two reasons. First, the conductor, now in his second season with the orchestra, showed us last Christmas that he takes pops concerts as occasions to have fun with great music, not to woo cultural illiterates into the concert hall with schlock from popular culture masquerading as symphonic fare.

Yuri Temirkanov, who canceled the last two weeks of performances with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra after the death of a close friend, has canceled another two. He will be replaced this week by French conductor Ludovic Morlot, assistant conductor at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, in a Schumann-Mozart-Stravinsky program. Morlot did similar duty earlier this month with the New York Philharmonic, filling in for an indisposed Christoph von Dohnanyi. For next week's all-Mozart program, BSO concertmaster Jonathan Carney will lead the performances from his seat at the head of the violin section.

Sorry seems to be the hardest word, as Elton John observes, but there are some very creative ways around it. Two remarkable examples provide a connective thread in this weekend's Baltimore Symphony Orchestra program, which received a classy performance last night at Meyerhoff Hall. After a three-decade friendship between Johannes Brahms and violinist Joseph Joachim collapsed (the composer sided with Joachim's wife when she was forced, unjustly, into divorce proceedings), Brahms eventually made amends by writing a new piece that Joachim could not resist.

The student: Jennifer Leung, 15 School: Howard High Special achievement: She was concertmaster for the 2003 Maryland All-State Orchestra's March performance. She had to go through three levels of auditions to be placed as first-chair violin, the concertmaster's position in the orchestra. What is a concertmaster? If the conductor wants the orchestra members to play by themselves, "the first stand just leads everybody, and everybody has to watch their motions. They have their violin, and they sort of move it up and down in cues," Jennifer said.

Birds sang sweetly outside and the perspiration flowed freely inside as a new ensemble, the Glyndon Chamber Players, debuted in a Victorian hotel on the grounds of the historic, wooded site called Emory Grove. Starting back in the late 1800s, Methodists gathered at this Baltimore County spot for camp meetings and worship. On Monday night, a crowd filled the main hall of the recently renovated hotel and spilled over onto a porch to witness an artistic kind of service. The room, with its bare wood floors and high ceiling, turned out to be an inviting acoustic space; the bass resonance is particularly rich.

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is wrapping up its regular season this weekend with two debuts - one from inside the ensemble, one from outside. Both are impressive. Roberto Minczuk, making his first appearance as a BSO guest conductor, revealed considerable gifts Thursday night at Meyerhoff Hall. Concertmaster Jonathan Carney, making his first as a concerto soloist with the orchestra, reaffirmed in a big way the value of his hiring. The Brazilian-born Minczuk, co-artistic director of the Sao Paulo State Symphony and associate conductor of the New York Philharmonic, did not just provide clarity and confidence.

VIENNA -- Just before the start of a rehearsal for last night's concert in the famed Musikverein here, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra president John Gidwitz announced the appointment of Jonathan Carney as concertmaster. The news set off a round of applause from the players, who have been getting to know the American-born, London-based violinist during the European tour that wraps up tonight in Stuttgart. Carney alternated in the concertmaster chair with Boris Garlitsky, who played his final program with the BSO here on Wednesday night.