By Daniel Buckwalter
(#CommonManAtTheSymphony)

If you care to remember the 2020 holiday season — and you’re forgiven if you don’t want to — on Dec. 9, the Hult Center and the Eugene Symphony Orchestra brought back some of the pre-pandemic joy of both it and the winter season.

The Hult lobby is tastefully decorated with red, green and white lights. More than one person did panoramic views of the decorations with their cell phones, and even I had to admit feeling a thread of festive spirit for the first time in a long spell.

I was glad to note that.

Inside Silva Concert Hall, the Eugene Symphony walked an appreciative audience through carpets of snow and sheets of ice with a smattering of sadness, cheer,  and soft elegance as well as traditional symphonic music mixed with Russian folk melodies.

Under the expressive and energetic lead of guest conductor Erina Yashima, an assistant conductor with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Eugene Symphony played George Walker’s Lyric for Strings, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 4 (with masterful work by guest violinist Paul Huang) and Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Winter Dreams symphony.

Walker’s piece, just six minutes long, is gently layered snow on a quiet, desolate winter canvas. It was composed in 1946 as a solemn hymn to his grandmother, who died while Walker was a student at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

It is perhaps Walker’s most-performed work, but the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Music winner — and the first African-American to receive that honor — had a rich and productive teaching and composing career before he died in 2018 at age 96. It was nice to hear this tribute to the man.

Huang’s performance in Mozart’s piece had the near-capacity audience on its feet with multiple standing ovations, and the shame of it all is that the Eugene Symphony is no longer taping its performances for later viewing.

This would have been well worth seeing again.

What patrons experienced on this Thursday night was a 31-year-old Taiwanese virtuoso at his commanding best, firmly racing through the three movements, sometimes in lockstep dance with Yashima on the podium.

Other times he stood decisively alone, if not triumphant then certainly in control through spritely and gentle passages. It was beautiful to witness.

Tchaikovsky’s Winter Dreams, four movements in roughly 44 minutes, gave me the decided Russian flavor it was intended to do.

All my cats all have had Russian names, but I have never been to Tchaikovsky’s native country. Still, the Eugene Symphony’s rendition had me mentally walking Moscow streets I hope to see, streets with names like Stoleshnikov Lane, Leningradsky Avenue and Vozdvizhenka Street, streets with history and magnificent architecture.

Elegance alternated with the mournful. There was the harshness of a Russian winter in the second movement (Land of Gloom, Land of Mist) as well as a mix of Russian folk music in the third and fourth movements.

So while I don’t care to remember anything about 2020, the Hult Center and the Eugene Symphony Orchestra did put me in the mood to celebrate the moment.

That’s to be treasured.