Auckland Philharmonia Blockbusters at the Bruce Mason Centre

By HEATH LEES

BRUCE MASON CENTRE, Auckland - Last Saturday's concert was probably the best of its type that the Auckland Philharmonia has yet produced.

What made the difference? Perhaps it was the conductor Marc Taddei, who has a real feeling for "stage and screen" music, but conducts with elegant clarity, opening up only at the big moments, but spreading his obvious enjoyment of the repertoire to players in front and the audience behind.

Perhaps it was the lean and hungry, edge-of-the-seat playing by the night's leader, Miranda Adams, utterly committed to the music, adding crackle and bite.

Then again it might have been the choice of music. No low-grade stuff here, only the best of Jerome Kern, Leonard Bernstein, George Gershwin ... often in Robert Russell Bennett arrangements which are expensive to come by, but worth every dollar.

Arresting and varied, they let the orchestra shine through the music, and are full of quirky moments, like the Jerome Kern selection which does a great intro to All The Things You Are only to sidestep first into Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.

Some of the settings are experimental. Without a blink, they'll give solos to the bass clarinet, or become concertos for the energetic keyboardist, whose name we cannot speak, since the programmes never got out of the locker room and on to the playing field.

Still, the sponsors - Clear Communications - got regular applause, and the lack of a running order served to increase the spontaneity up front.

It was exactly right to ask for a moment's silence before Bernstein's Manhattan-based West Side Story, but it unfortunately highlighted the centre's raucous air-conditioning.

Vocalists Tina Cross and Jackie Clarke turned an enjoyable evening into a huge party. Sassy, unpredictable, and in top vocal form, they covered the showstoppers of the past 100 years, sending the songs up lightly yet with great affection, taking possession of each with fun, authority and slick professionalism.

In the end it wasn't any single ingredient that did it. It was a mixture of everything. And it was great.