If you ever want to know what an orchestra is capable of handling, turn it loose on Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A Major and you'll have your answer, which is just what guest conductor Dr. David MacKenzie did with the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra Saturday night at the Zeiterion Performing Arts Center.
The result was nothing less than phenomenal, sending the near-capacity audience into rapturous applause.

The musicians must have been exhausted after playing the four long movements of Beethoven's masterpiece. Maestro MacKenzie, too, knew he and they had accomplished something spectacular, that they might wish to have been recorded, enabling them to listen to it over and over. As far as the guest conductor was concerned, he must have known he had "arrived" with his indefatigable leadship of this work so familiar to him he didn't need to consult his music.

The entire evening was a triumphant one, with the audience so eager to let the orchestra know how appreciative they were of what they were hearing that they applauded after every movement of not only the Beethoven piece, but the concert's opening number, Prokofiev's Symphony No.1 in D Major, "Classical," as well, instead of waiting until the entire pieces had been concluded, as concert etiquette requires.

The frosting on the cake was the performance by the guest piano soloist, Clipper Erickson, of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major. Here again the audience couldn't contain its enthusiasm, applauding after each of the work's three movements.
In this, his second appearance with the NBSO, he again displayed an incredible mastery of his instrument. After waiting for the completion of a rather long prelude, the rippling effect he created with his uncanny fingering carried over from his first interlude of playing without the orchestra's very hushed backup to the last. From my vantage point it was breathtaking to watch his changes in modulation from almost a whisper to the very firm. Every note was clear as a bell. Even conductor MacKenzie looked on in awe whenever Erickson played on his own.

Another element that made this Spring Concert special was the presentation of the 2006 Lillian Lamoureux Music Scholarship to saxophonist Trevor Kellum, an Old Rochester Regional High School alumnus. He was selected from the five scholarship finalists who were invited to come on stage by NBSO President Thomas Hallam. They are, besides Trevor, Allison Lacasse, Sandra Davin, Meyer Brown and Joshua Martin. None of them knew until that moment on the program which of them had been chosen for the award.