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CSO season ends with rich show

By Jeff Johnson

The Charleston Symphony concluded its season Friday with a poignant rendering of Aaron Copland's "The Tender Land." Scott Terrell conducted a powerful reading of Copeland's richly textured music.

The evening at the Sottile was a personal triumph for Spoleto favorite Courtenay Budd as Laurie, one of those small-town girls common in this sort of bucolic pastoral, who longs to escape the country to New York or Moscow or somewhere over the rainbow.

From Laurie's first aria, filled with emotion, and powerfully sung with perfect diction and tonal purity, Budd embodied this little rustic from head to barefoot.

As Martin, the outsider who wins Laurie's love, Jeffery Picon has a nice, firm tenor voice, which did resonate to the back of the house. His singing in the first act ensemble and his duets with Budd and Michael Mayes were excellent. But with book in hand, he frequently seemed overparted as did Jessie Hinkle, a subdued Ma Moss, until she eloquently sings the aria that brings the final curtain down.

Laurie loses her Martin because of the machinations of Top, his road buddy, powerfully sung and convincingly acted by Mayes. As Grandpa Moss, Matthew Burns, bass-baritone, is a stern but lovable patriarch.

The CSO chamber choir appeared only in the party scene in Act Two, but they sang with their usual polish and made you wish Copland had written more choral music for atmosphere and excitement.

Ryan Taylor's production featured slides of the Depression Midwest that inspired Copland above the orchestra, frequently changing to enhance the mood. He effectively staged most of the action, with a few chairs, a table and bench.