On Saturday night, the Brandeis-Wellesley Orchestra, conducted by Prof. Neal Hampton (MUS), performed the first of its two semester concerts in Slosberg Music Center's Recital Hall. Both as the culmination of a semester's worth of work, and also as one of the many events of the Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Creative Arts this weekend at Brandeis, the concert was an impressive show of collaborative effort, expertise and artistry.

The program, which stands alone as an exquisite and complementary set of selections, in many ways embodied the theme of this year's festival, "Imagine the Impossible," as each piece enchanted and transported the audience to another time and place.

The concert's unified aesthetic of expressive and harmonically rich writing made for an indulgent and artistic program, whose every moment was blissful and captivating.

Steven Karidoyanes' "Caf?(c) Neon: Fantasy on Greek Songs and Dances" began the program. According to the composer, its form is a Greek take on Hungarian composer Zoltan Kodaly's Galanta Dances, closely following them in structure, and establishing dialogue between the principle clarinet and the rest of the orchestra through a series of smaller dance-like movements.

Exciting rhythmic changes propel the sumptuous melodies around each bend from one movement to the next and tie the sections together seamlessly into an evocative and dramatic exploration of a unique ethnic past. Karidoyanes describes it in his program notes as a fantasy piece meant to evoke feelings of a smoke- filled tavern or coffee bar, and the piece not only instantly transports the listener to this context but also envelops the listener in feelings of warmth and comfort that one may expect to find in such a setting.

Appropriately, the first movement of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major, op. 19, "Allegro con brio" followed. In this movement, Beethoven contrasts orderly, lyrical, almost Mozartian melodic sections with more triumphant, declarative thematic material.

He played with harmonic and structural tension, both between the piano and orchestra as well as between stormier and more expressive writing that gives the piece momentum and invariably yields great relief in the lyrical sections. Wellesley College pianist Michiko Inouye '14 played this piece expertly, both mastering the piano part's technical challenges and playing it with musical subtlety and grace. While this movement was the program's earliest dated selection, it was still imaginative and transformative in a way that we often associate only with Romantic music and what comes afterwards. The movement's characteristically Beethoven motivic unity reduced the structure in many ways to the movement's basest elements, and in doing so, allowed it to be reconstructed into a texturally and materially diverse musical landscape.

To finish the first half of the performance, Yoni Avi Battat '13 conducted "The Hebrides Overture (Fingals Cave), Op. 26" by Felix Mendelssohn. Inspired by the composer's trip to the Hebrides in Scotland, the piece evokes the sound of the waves in a cave and contrasts tumultuous rising movement with areas of still and serene melody, which join together to create a bewitchingly beautiful sound.

The descending gestures in the strings' accompaniment put the listener in a trance-like state and enhance the sparkling, delicate melodies, while providing a foil for the bright, jubilant statements that punctuate the piece's evocative writing. Melody develops through the pulse of the descending gestures, whose repeated falling motion suggests musical possibility and growth beyond the limits of the musical piece.

For the second half of the performance, the orchestra played Dvorak's eighth symphony, his "Symphony in G Major, Op. 88." Its folk-like musical material and grand, more triumphant themes provided a perfect end to the program as these different musical characters were fully developed through the symphony's four varied movements.

Following a program of rich texture and sumptuous harmony, Dvorak's warm, pastoral sound was absolutely poetic and enchanting.
Music, in its universality and accessibility, is a powerful medium of expression, and this imaginative and uplifting program captured the festival's theme of creativity and possibility beyond all limits.