Comet Leads San Diego Symphony With Skill, Style

SAN DIEGO —  As guest conductor of the San Diego Symphony over the weekend, Catherine Comet displayed how a strong leader and stylish music-maker can be another example of the fickleness of musical fate: how some careers blossom and others seem only to wait.

An exact contemporary of the justifiably acclaimed Michael Tilson Thomas--they were both born in December 1944--Comet has worked in secondary conducting positions at both the Baltimore and Saint Louis symphonies; for 12 seasons, she has been the musical leader of the Grand Rapids Symphony in Michigan. A respectable career, but hardly meteoric.

From the latest evidence, a delightful program of Gounod, Saint-Saens and Ravel heard Friday in the acoustically welcoming Copley Symphony Hall, it is easy to reiterate what others have said for some time: The handsome Frenchwoman, who once conducted a ballet company in her native Paris, deserves more.

Comet’s dance background gave authority to her choice of overture for this program, the Ballet Music from “Faust,” which the game San Diego musicians played with bubbly panache and bracing confidence.

Equally impressive was the orchestra’s often transparent playing of a Comet-created suite of Ravel pieces--”Pavane Pour une Infante Defunte,” “Alborada del Gracioso,” “Rapsodie Espagnole” and “Bolero.” There may have been potholes in the execution of the first two--rehearsal time is never what it ought to be--but the “Rapsodie” emerged with all the sheen, clarity and passion it deserves. In the process, Comet managed to assert her own admirable reserve and control over all parts of the work. “Bolero” was then frosting on the cake.

The happy centerpiece of this event was Awadagin Pratt’s leonine performance of Saint-Saens’ Fourth Piano Concerto, which the American pianist conquered with palpable affection and stunning virtuosity, making it his own in every wise. Comet and the San Diego Symphony proved solid and stylish partners to the resourceful soloist.