After the interval, Aaron Copland’s Third Symphony came across as a more consistently assured work, written in 1944 when its creator was worried that he was too often pigeon-holed as a composer of jazzy and folk-influenced music.
For all its serious symphonic intent — and Guerrero was especially alert to the finely structured fourth movement — there were certainly echoes of clear Appalachian air in its first movement, and Copland’s then-recent Fanfare for the Common Man provided the core of the finale.
Throughout, it was the expansiveness of Guerrero’s vision that caught the ear, aided by players who were aware of every detail and nuance.
The evening had opened with Eve de Castro-Robinson’s Len Dances, a short romp set in 1920s New York, but written in Auckland in 2002. Catching a manic evening of nightclubbing with artist Len Lye, it was a zany and zesty amuse-bouche. Woozy trombones, cheeky swanee whistle, and a final duel between two percussionists, shaking their shimmering sheets of steel, made it an overture to remember.
