Review: Guitar master Luther Enloe ‘transcendent’ with DeKalb Symphony

Works by composers Camille Saint-Saëns, Paul Dukas and Joaquin Rodriguez were featured in the DeKalb Symphony Orchestra’s concert Tuesday, with guest guitarist Luther Enloe giving a masterful performance of the latter’s Concierto de Aranjuez and conductor Paul Bhasin in fine form.

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The DeKalb Symphony Orchestra continued its 2023-2024 season at its usual venue, the Marvin Cole Auditorium, on Tuesday. Although the performance by the evening’s soloist, classical guitar master Luther Enloe, emerged as the evening’s high watermark, it was also an opportunity to appreciate just how far the orchestra had come under the leadership of conductor Paul Bhasin.

The evening commenced with the opening fanfare to Paul Dukas’ 1912 ballet La Péri. It is a simple and anthemic feature for the horns but served to demonstrate just how far the orchestra has come. There was a balanced richness to the tones that was neither overblown nor malnourished. Instead, the section maintained a modest confidence that served to underscore the work’s thematic grandeur while never seeming overly enthusiastic or distorted.

The rest of the ensemble joined in for the bacchanale from Samson et Dalila by Camille Saint-Saëns. It was quickly apparent that the positive opening statement from the brass was a bellwether for the orchestra’s overall improvement. Here it was the strings that showcased an elegant sense of maturation.

The piece initially builds on a harmonically dense Middle Eastern theme that must be buttressed by careful support from the wider section. To this end, the ensemble’s strings were tender and exquisite while still ramping up support for the eventual shift to a sweeping midsection that switches into the kind of blissful grandiosity associated with early Hollywood film scores. It was clear that the orchestra has grown exponentially under Bhasin’s leadership.

This robust evolution as an ensemble was enough to carry the evening, but the concert’s real standout came in the form of guitarist Enloe. The artist affiliate in guitar at both Georgia State University and Emory University and also a world-renowned performer, Enloe takes the stage with an impressive resume in tow. Still, it was his own delicate flair that made the most impact.

The guitarist was on hand to perform Joaquin Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez — arguably the composer’s most familiar work and one that served to establish him as one of the pre-eminent Spanish composers of the 20th century. Of particular interest is the adagio section, with its haunting and enduring melody that has been performed and interpreted by a wide array of players including Miles Davis, rock guitarist Buckethead and jazz vocalist Kimiko Itoh.

Enloe’s graceful approach to the guitar was readily apparent. It would be tempting to focus on his furious right hand and all of its intricate tremolo picking, but that would only distract from the deft touch his left brings to the fretboard. Despite being amplified and run through the sound system to such a degree that his every musical motion should be nakedly exposed, Enloe’s phrasing was nothing short of immaculate.

Even the most adept guitarists can be heard shifting their fingers between notes or scraping against unplayed strings. None of that was apparent in Enloe’s playing. The sheer purity of the tones was a gift unto itself and a transcendental pleasure for the ears.

That tonal excellence served to make Enloe’s interpretation of the adagio a thing of beauty. The haunting and mysterious melody lets its evocative notes hang in the air and interact with one another in a smoldering slow burn that stirs a shadowy, sinister sense of yearning. It is a melody so distinct and so finely crafted that only a consummate adept can fully encompass its demands.

Enloe’s supremely skilled fretting hand was just the tool to realize that extraordinary feat. With the orchestra now playing with that stirring, balanced tone that had eluded it in previous seasons, the stage was set for Enloe to carry on the weepingly ominous dialogue that is the adagio’s primary melody.

Enloe was decidedly the evening’s most satisfying element, but he delivered its lowest point as well with an unexpected solo performance of Missouri Breaks by guitarist Stuart Weber. The piece is aggressively repetitive at times in a dense and difficult to follow manner — the way Philip Glass’ compositions might sound if they relied on chord vamps instead of arpeggios. Weber’s recorded version features string accompaniment, which makes for a richer listening experience, but, as a stand-alone solo, it lacks melodic character.

The evening’s second half was devoted to selections from Georges Bizet’s Carmen Suites 1 and 2. The themes were as cozy, familiar and crowd-pleasing as ever, but they were only a footnote to the tremendous performance given by Enloe. The DeKalb Symphony Orchestra has always had a penchant for choosing great guest soloists, and this concert was no exception.

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Jordan Owen began writing about music professionally at the age of 16 in Oxford, Mississippi. A 2006 graduate of the Berklee College of Music, he is a professional guitarist, bandleader and composer. He is currently the lead guitarist for the jazz group Other Strangers, the power metal band Axis of Empires and the melodic death/thrash metal band Century Spawn.