Miami Concert a Fine Showcase for Young Conductor

The “clear beat and enthusiasm” of New Jersey Symphony’s assistant conductor New Zealand-born Gemma New, “charged up the Miami Symphony’s crackling brass and percussion sections”, at the orchestra’s “Valentine Fiesta” in February.

“With a colourful impressionistic tone painting by Ravel and crowd pleasers by Prokofiev and Gershwin, the programme at Gusman Concert Hall proved festive indeed and a fine showcase for guest conductor Gemma New,” Lawrence Budmen wrote in a review of the concert for the South Florida Classical Review.

“New conveyed the irony and sarcasm of the ‘March and Scherzo’ from Prokofiev’s opera The Love for Three Oranges. New underlined often overlooked instrumental details, the rapid runs of the two harps in the scherzo particularly lucid.

“She achieved a wonderful sense of ebb and flow in Ravel’s orchestral version of Une Barque Sur L’ocean from his keyboard suite Miroirs.

“With the ensemble playing at peak form, New conjured up the frightening intensity of [Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess] hurricane music and brought gusto and snap to the banjo-inflected ‘I Got Plenty of Nothing,’ the final chords bringing cheers from the audience.”

Original article by Lawrence Budmen, South Florida Classical Review, February 16, 2014.