TACO and Friends remember composer Nancy Bloomer Deussen

The sponsor for the memorial was “TACO and Friends.” TACO stands for the Terrible Adult Chamber Orchestra. This self-mocking name denotes a local group that, though it gives occasional pops concerts in the Mountain View area, is mostly just an excuse for musicians of all skill levels down to the minimal to get together and play music for fun in informal readings.

Bloomer Deussen met TACO director Cathy Humphers Smith eight years ago and was intrigued at the idea of this atypical community ensemble. Humphers Smith asked to commission a piece appropriate for playing by an orchestra of no professional pretensions. Bloomer Deussen took up the challenge but, unfortunately, she died soon after delivering the completed work. With further delays due to the pandemic, it remained unheard until now.

It’s an eight-minute suite titled “Shoreline to Skyline.” As the title suggests, the three movements are inspired by local landscapes, as are many of Bloomer Deussen’s works. “Shoreline Park” expresses the joy of recreation there with a firm, rhythmic melody. “NASA at Moffett Field” depicts the launching of a spaceship as a rising crescendo. “Rancho San Antonio” is more peaceful, broadening at the end into grandeur suggesting the view over the Bay from the hills.

Under Humphers Smith’s direction, TACO responded well to this composition. Its style is more bold and less ruminative than many of Bloomer Deussen’s works. The performance hung together and gave a winning depiction of the composer’s creativity and the performers’ nonprofessional but gratifyingly adequate musicianship in this piece. The result was worth the trouble it took to get it.

The other orchestral work on the program was Bloomer Deussen’s “Central Coast Concerto” for piano and orchestra, with Ron Levy, a pianist experienced in her work, as soloist. Like the suite, it’s three movements depicting locales: San Luis Obispo as an introduction and scherzo, a quiet and relaxed Monterey Bay and a bustling State Street, Santa Barbara’s downtown shopping hub.

Though Anthony Quartuccio, music director of the Nova Vista and South Bay Symphonies, conducted with a firm hand, the orchestra showed less prowess than it did in the suite. This may have been due to difficulty or length of the composition. But this problem mattered little, as the soloist carries most of the piece, at which Levy was fully adept. From that angle this was a successful performance.

The concert also included some Bloomer Deussen chamber music. Levy participated in a work she had written for him, “Rondo for Ron,” a trio in which most of the leads were taken by flutist Amelia Archer and clarinetist Sue Biskeborn, both from the Mission Chamber Orchestra. All three gave a bright account of this lively little piece.

Bob Sunshine gave a fluent performance of two pieces for solo piano. They were a “Prelude” of gentle rolling phrases and a relatively early piece titled “Amber Waves” (depicting the fields of eastern Oregon), which bears the smallest traces of the composer’s early modernist training. Dissonance was minimal and elsewhere mostly absent. Sunshine also participated in the “Pacific City Quartet” for piano and strings.

Also on the program, a 20-minute film by Kevin Ohlson and Larry Baron, consisting of Humphers Smith interviewing Bloomer Deussen about her methods of composition. She would think of an inspiration and sit in a chair waiting for the muse to strike, writing down the resulting musical thoughts on a pad of paper. Then she would elaborate and fill them out at a computer. She said her music frequently changes meter and key because she finds it boring when these changes don’t happen.

TACO, which celebrated 15 years of existence with this concert, is unlikely to undertake so challenging a program again very soon. But it is rewarding that the group did this one with such overall success by its modest standards.