Catherine Reese NewtonHilary Hahn came to Abravanel Hall Friday night and showed the near-sellout crowd exactly why she’s one of the two or three best-known violinists in the world. Not only does she possess flawless technique and captivating musicality, she carries herself with the authority of a queen.
Hahn, a frequent guest of the Utah Symphony since New Year’s Eve 1992 (when she was a 13-year-old prodigy), is playing the Dvorak Violin Concerto this time around. Her technical proficiency and the sheer beauty of her tone enthralled the audience.
The mighty ocean wave of orchestral accompaniment, led by music director Thierry Fischer, occasionally verged on overbearing, but Hahn always had enough power to surf over the top. She encored with a flawless performance of the gigue from Bach’s E Major Partita.
Fischer dealt a wild card in the concert’s first half: the world premiere, as it were, of a suite by Dvorak and Haydn. He alternated movements from Haydn’s Symphony No. 8 (“Le soir”) with six of Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances. Solo turns from cellist Rainer Eudeikis, concertmaster Madeline Adkins, violinist Claude Halter and bassist David Yavornitzky highlighted this lively symphonic shuffle.
A graduate of Granger High School and Utah State University, Cathy joined the Tribune staff in 1988. She has been a copy editor, hyphenating compound modifiers and eschewing the serial comma, since 1989; she also has written about music since 1990. Other skills include speaking Spanish, throwing Harry Potter-themed parties and baking lemon bars.