Flexibility Serves Young Players Well

Now in its second season, the International Laureates Music Festival takes a core sample of young musicians from far-flung places and shuttles them from hall to hall in Southern California and Taos, N.M., over a four-week period. The programming is unpredictable, often mixing up formats and genres while remaining, shall we say, flexible.

The latter trait was definitely present at the performance of five laureates in the Beverly Hills Public Library’s L-shaped auditorium Saturday night. Romanian violinist Alexandru Tomescu, Israeli violist Misha Galaganov and Spanish cellist Adolfo Gutierrez Arenas had met only a few days before, and they suddenly found that they did not have the time to prepare the anticipated Xavier Montsalvatge String Trio. So they scrambled and came up with an ad-hoc assortment of replacement pieces and, in doing so, picked up some valuable experience by talking personably to the audience about their predicament and choices of music.

With panache and occasional straying of pitch, Tomescu and Galaganov launched the evening with Johan Halvorsen’s clever, even devilish, transcription of the Passacaglia finale from Handel’s Keyboard Suite No. 7. After some reminiscences of his homeland, Tomescu offered Enesco’s “The Violin Player,” a witty, enigmatic solo piece with a folk flavor. And Arenas established an attractive give-and-take rapport with German pianist Luiza Borac in Schumann’s genteel “Fantasy Pieces.”

Now back on the originally planned agenda, the versatile, technically fearless Borac tackled the revised edition of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Sonata No. 2. But her interpretation tended to drift about with little sense of unity, and in any case the Steinway baby grand on hand could not do justice to the thundering notes deep in the bass. Borac then displayed her skills as an accompanist for the 20-year-old Houston soprano LaTonia Moore, who revealed a big, penetrating tone in the “Jewel Song” from Gounod’s opera “Faust,” an aria from Boito’s “Mefistofele,” Richard Strauss’ “Befreit” and Micaela’s song from Bizet’s “Carmen.” She’s got temperament and powerful pipes, though her voice sounded somewhat raw-boned in this small room.

Finally, Borac, Tomescu, Galaganov and Arenas combined forces in the Schumann Piano Quartet Op. 47, producing a good, frisky performance with a lot of energy and even some abandon--welcome hallmarks of youth.

* The International Laureates Music Festival continues Thursday at Bridges Hall in Claremont; Saturday at Zipper Hall at the Colburn School; Aug. 19 at the Lobero Theater in Santa Barbara; and Aug. 20 and 22 at the John Anson Ford Theatre. (310) 281-3303.