Concert Review: Old School, Young Baton

Christian Arming conducts the NJSO at NJPAC.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Conductor Christian Arming.
Photo by Koichu Miura.

On Thursday afternoon at the gorgeous (but never full) New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) it was the turn of Austrian conductor Christian Arming to lead the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra in a program of Wagner, Schumann and Brahms. Mr. Arming, a protégé of Seiji Ozawa and the current music director of the Liège Royal Philharmonic in Belgium revealed himself to be a conductor of insight and considerable ability. His skills became apparent early with a slow and transparent reading of Wagner's Siegfried Idyll.