Classical concert lore is full of great pinch-hitting stories. For example, stardom found a young Leonard Bernstein when he stepped in for conductor Bruno Walter on short notice, and teenage pianist André Watts made his name subbing for another ailing legend, Glenn Gould.
While what happened on Friday night at Minneapolis’ Orchestra Hall didn’t reach that level of career breakthrough, it was pretty thrilling nonetheless.
This weekend’s Minnesota Orchestra concerts were to be the Twin Cities debut of two musicians getting a lot of international attention. On the podium is Jonathon Heyward, who’s just finishing his second season as artistic director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Joining Heyward and the orchestra for a Beethoven piano concerto was to be Alice Sara Ott, a rising star said to be a captivating performer.
But Ott has tendinitis, so the orchestra made a quick shift on Thursday, placing a call to Illinois-born pianist Conrad Tao, who’d previously visited the Twin Cities while curating and soloing on a marvelous 2022 St. Paul Chamber Orchestra concert,and agreeing to replace Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto with his Fourth. Tao was terrific, delivering an electrifying performance that well deserved the instant standing ovation it was accorded.
And Heyward proved quite a fascinating figure as he led high-energy interpretations of the Beethoven concerto, a Carl Maria von Weber operatic overture and a Robert Schumann symphony, doing so with grace, physicality and charisma. It all added up to quite an exciting evening.
South Carolina-raised and London-schooled, Heyward cuts a towering figure on the podium, expressively sculpting the orchestra’s sound with his hands while eschewing the use of a baton. He and the orchestra brought out all of the exuberance one could wish from Weber’s Overture to “Oberon,” immediately establishing some fine chemistry.
But the performance that Friday’s audience will still be talking about come Monday morning was Tao’s Beethoven. Considering their evident lack of rehearsal time, it was especially impressive that conductor and pianist were so simpatico on the dynamic flow of the piece, with Tao’s fluid lines gliding smoothly into the arms of an awaiting orchestra that continued the deeply absorbing conversation.
Employing the piano’s pedals to make the opening movement’s legato sections all the more haunting, Tao consistently contrasted the placid and tumultuous, using weighty silences to invite listeners to lean into his skillful musical storytelling. The interplay between soloist and orchestra was at its most gripping during an explosive finale that culminated in a cadenza suffused with a stormy spirit.
