Guest conductor, violinist hope to make beautiful music with Las Vegas Philharmonic

Playing favorites.

That's the plan for the guest artists joining the Las Vegas Philharmonic's "Masterworks: Rising Star" concert Saturday in The Smith Center's Reynolds Hall.

Stepping into the Philharmonic's annual "Rising Star" spotlight: violinist Elena Urioste , who'll perform Sibelius' Violin Concerto in D minor.

The award-winning Urioste, named in September as a BBC New Generation artist, performed the Sibelius concerto "a few times" last fall, and is "always thrilled to play it," she notes in an email.

"Every time I return to the piece, I am struck by its lush beauty and symphonic nature," Urioste writes. "It is always exciting to collaborate with an orchestra on this piece, as it is truly that - a collaboration, and not just a showcase for the soloist with some simple accompaniment in the background."

Collaboration also ranks as a primary goal for Seattle-based conductor Alastair Willis, who's led orchestras around the world, from Mexico City to Beijing. (To say nothing of the Chicago Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic and Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble.)

"It's not about them," Willis says of the musicians he'll be leading, and "it's not about me. It's all about the composer."

Or, in the case of Saturday's concert, composers.

Initially, the program - which features Ravel's beloved "Bolero" as a finale - included Mozart's "Jupiter" Symphony No. 41.

Because it's written for a much smaller orchestral ensemble, however, Willis suggested a switch to Mozart's "Don Giovanni" Overture as a way of keeping Mozart on the program - without playing "such a long piece with so few players."

The switch left room on the program for another work: Richard Strauss' "Death and Transfiguration," which just happens to be "one of my favorite all-time pieces," Willis acknowledges.

Strauss' orchestral tone poem focuses on "a man on the verge of dying," who takes "one final look back at his life before reaching the heavens," Willis says. "It's such an uplifting piece."

And if it sounds a bit familiar, it should; according to Willis, John Williams "stole the 'Transfiguration' theme and used it as the 'Superman' theme in those wonderful movies from the '80s."

Playing a favorite piece can be particularly rewarding, in Urioste's view.

Yet "sometimes loving a piece so much, particularly one so engrossing, is a double-edged sword," she emails, "but to feel free enough to be a vessel for ... the music to pass through is an indescribably rewarding sensation."

Feeling that free sometimes proves a challenge as well, the violinist adds.

Sibelius' violin concerto "is so fiendishly difficult, technically speaking, that to make it through alive often feels like a triumph," Urioste says. "The music is so intense and all-consuming that it is easy to become tense while performing it."

For her, "staying relaxed and in control of my physical self is one of my personal goals each time," she notes. "When my hands feel strong yet loose, then I can truly get out of my own way and allow the music to come through."

A two-time winner of the Sphinx Competition for young black and Latino string players, Urioste performed in October with her fellow Sphinx Virtuosi at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., earning praise from a Washington Post critic who described her as a "drop-dead beauty who plays with equal parts passion, sensuality, brains and humor."

Willis hasn't worked with Urioste previously, but he's "heard great things," he says. "That's part of the excitement."

The Las Vegas Philharmonic's Reynolds Hall performance home also provides a sense of excitement, Willis acknowledges.

"I love the idea of going somewhere new," he says - which in turn explains why he's not nervous when he conducts a new ensemble.

"You go somewhere where they don't know you, and you don't know them," he says, but "it's a tribute to the musicians themselves" that even a brief collaboration can lead to memorable music.

"As a guest conductor, you bond and gel as best you can," says Willis, who conducted the orchestra for the Pacific Northwest Ballet's "The Nutcracker" last month.

Even so, "building as a guest conductor is impossible," he admits.

But in Willis' new capacity as music director of the Illinois Symphony (based in the Land of Lincoln's capital, Springfield), a regular collaboration enables the ensemble and its conductor "to grow and artistically develop together," he notes.

As for whether he'd be interested in the Las Vegas Philharmonic's now unoccupied music director post, Willis replies, "absolutely," adding that the possibility brings "an extra added component to my work."

After all, he adds, "when I go to an orchestra that's receptive to what I have to offer, making wonderful music, that's my raison d'etre."

Contact reporter Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.