By Glenn Pillsbury

Special to the Record

November 18, 2006 6:00 AM

In 1926, Manlio Silva took a risk and started the Stockton Symphony. Eighty years later, the orchestra is still taking risks, as evidenced by Thursday's concert at Atherton Auditorium. The program will be repeated today.

The concert opened with the world premiere of a work written for the symphony by Stockton's Max Simoncic. "Juxtapose" draws on a poem by fellow San Joaquin Delta College instructor Michael Duffett titled "A Celebration of Stockton."

In recognition of the piece's significance as a symphony showpiece, Simoncic gave each member plenty to do. The continuous hustle and bustle, however, left few chances for reflection or an exploration of anything deeper.

Simoncic opened the work with an episode of tight counterpoint for the strings and contrasted it later with a dense rhythmic drive. The piece also featured a surprising amount of virtuosic piano writing, which was well played by Esther Kemalyan Roche and at times verged on becoming a piano concerto.

With an expert tone and impressive breath control, William Bennett's performance of Mozart's Oboe Concerto in C major offered an interesting counterpoint to the modern music preceding it.

A relatively new work, given that it was written in 1777 and then lost until the 1970s, its outer two movements danced and weaved with a enjoyable grace. Here Bennett was clearly at ease, floating through the orchestra's accompaniment with confident precision. Alas, not even that could save the deadening effect of the piece's middle movement.

Performers in previous centuries were expected to use the cadenza sections of movements to demonstrate their abilities at improvisation. This risky practice became very rare over the past century as a canon of great cadenzas was usually trotted out.

Bennett's decision to revisit the practice of improvised cadenzas introduced a welcome element to a performance already brimming with personality. Indeed, in a humorous gesture of oboe solidarity, Bennett even inserted his own short oboe trio into the third-movement cadenza, sharing the spotlight with symphony oboists Kyle Bruckmann and Rebecca Secor in a light-hearted tweak of the notion of soloist as individual hero.

Composing music is always a risky endeavor, but in the best cases, risk brings great rewards. Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 in B minor is an example of a risk that paid off, both for the composer and the symphony.

In this work, Tchaikovsky departed from the conventional form of the symphony for dramatic effect. Conducting from memory, Jaffe gave his full attention to shaping each of the melodies that are the essence of the symphony. The orchestra responded with a sound that remained balanced and cohesive, resulting in a solid performance.

Contact Glenn Pillsbury at features@recordnet.com