Fantasia Orchestra’s Bold Moves at Smith Square Hall: Jazz Meets Classics
Fantasia Orchestra’s Bold Moves was strongest when it let the tension between jazz and classical music stay visible. This was not a concert where familiar jazz numbers were dropped into the middle of an orchestral programme for easy recognition. The evening had a deliberate shape: Bartók’s Divertimento,Shostakovich’s Jazz Suite No. 2: Waltz 2, four jazz standards by Cole Porter,Gershwin and Rodgers and Hart, then Shostakovich’s Lyric Waltz and PianoConcerto No. 1.
Tom Fetherstonhaugh described the structure as a kind of palindrome, withShostakovich at the beginning and end, and the jazz standards held in the centre. That idea came through clearly in performance. The Shostakovich sections gave the evening its nervous frame: sharp rhythms, unsettled changes in mood, and a recurring feeling that the music was tightening around itself.The pieces in the middle then opened the sound out again, giving the programme warmth, recognition and release without making the concert feel safer or smaller.
The anxiety in the Shostakovich was one of the most memorable parts of the evening. It was not just dark atmosphere. It came through in the way the rhythm pushed forward, the way the music shifted quickly between playfulness and pressure, and the way the trumpet could suddenly change the temperature of the room. Those more unsettled passages were punctuated by more hopeful material, so the programme never stayed in one emotional register for too long.
The jazz standards worked because they were recognisable but not treated as museumpieces. I’ve Got You Under My Skin, I Loves You Porgy, But Not For Me and MyFunny Valentine all gave the audience something immediate to hold onto. InHarry Baker’s arrangements, the strings gave the songs depth and sweep, whilethe piano and trumpet kept the jazz character present. The result was not aneat fusion. It was more interesting than that: the different styles stayed distinct enough for the contrasts to matter.
Aaron Akugbo’s trumpet was a real centrepiece. Against Fantasia’s strings, the instrument had a clear, bright edge without becoming blunt. In the Gershwin and Rodgers andHart material, the trumpet brought warmth and shape to the melodies. In Shostakovich, the same sound became sharper and more exposed. That shift waspart of what made the concert work: the trumpet was not only decorative, it changed the meaning of the music around it.
Steven Osborne’s piano playing gave the evening its other anchor. In the jazz standards, his playing had ease and clarity, sitting comfortably inside the arrangements rather than fighting the orchestra for attention. InShostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1, the piano became more restless. The exchanges between piano, trumpet and strings had bite, especially when the music moved from wit into something more pressured and strange.
One of the best things about the concert was hearing the piano and trumpet placed inside Fantasia’s string sound. The strings gave the evening its pulse and weight, but the solo instruments kept breaking through that texture in different ways.Sometimes the trumpet lifted a phrase into something warmer. Sometimes thepiano made the music feel more angular and unsettled. The pleasure was inhearing those changes happen in real time.
The wide view of Smith Square Hall also tells part of the story, which always fits Fantasia's programmes so well. The red curtain, chandelier, columns and formal concert layout gave the evening a traditional frame. Inside that frame, the programme kept moving between Bartók’s tense string writing,Shostakovich’s anxious energy, Gershwin’s lyricism, Porter’s elegance and the direct melancholy of My Funny Valentine. That contrast made the concert feel more alive than a straightforward classical programme or a straightforward jazz evening.
Bold Moves was enjoyable because it had familiar music without relying only on familiarity.The audience could recognise melodies, but the concert kept returning to pressure, symmetry and contrast. Fantasia Orchestra made the jazz and classical elements sit close together without smoothing away the friction between them.That is what gave the evening its force: the anxiety of Shostakovich, the warmth of the jazz standards, and the specific pleasure of hearing trumpet and piano move through a full string texture.
