Former Maestro Heiichiro Ohyama returned to the CCO's podium in a concert last week. A number of things about the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra's concert last Saturday were unusual. There were two conductors. There was a concerto for an instrument that almost never gets to solo with an orchestra. There was a new composition commissioned especially for the 25th anniversary of the orchestra, and it got a raving, hoot-n-hollerin' standing ovation, while the classic standard repertory warhorse got only warm applause.

The two conductors were current music director Kimbo Ishii-Eto for the first half, and his immediate predecessor, Heiichiro Ohyama, for the second, this being part of the CCO's anniversary strategy of bringing back as many of their former maestros who would consent to mount the podium again.

Principal bassoonist Lee Goodhew was the soloist in the Concerto in C major by Johann Kozeluh. This was not always the best showcase for her talents. The first movement has very long tuttis and brief solo sections. It has an extended slow movement, though, allowing Goodhew to display her remarkably full, singing tone, and including not just one but two cadenzas. The finale was a test for the fingers and tongue, with Goodhew nimbly leaping through cascades of scales and broken chords.

Kozeluh had a reputation as a master of counterpoint, but you'd never know it from this concerto. Rather it hearkens back to the earlier days of the classical period, when composers reacted against the severe formality of their baroque predecessors by writing music that was as light and airy as possible. In the works of Stamitz as well as Kozeluh, it was often considered sufficient to merely string together a number of graceful melodies as long as the result was pleasant and entertaining. This music could be superficial in its effect, but it laid the foundation upon which Haydn and Mozart built their glorious edifices.

Listening to the Chamber Symphony of Robert Paterson, it became clear that a very similar situation exists in music today. The severe, number-crunching complexity of the post-war avant-garde has no place in his music, though he avails himself of the most sophisticated orchestrational techniques garnered from their example. Likewise absent is the audience-disdaining theoretical purity of the old-guard modernism. This music is post-modern, multi-cultural and multi-stylistic. If you don't like what you're hearing, just wait a few seconds.

The first movement opens with some trumpet fanfares before settling into a string pattern over which winds and vibraphone trade short phrases. This in turn gives way to some hispanic musings, and a little bit of merry-go-round music before the string patterns round out the movement. The trumpets are literally all over the place. They play from the stage, from behind the stage, and from opposite sides of the auditorium. They are featured because the composer thought it was cool that the two trumpet players are a married couple. The slow movement opens with a pyramid of trills, and solos for the composers' friends on various instruments. After a bit of south-of-the-border serenade music the mood becomes tense and Bartokian. The finale is a jazzy romp with wailing clarinet licks over a drum beat. Occasionally the music dissolves into something more Puerto Rican (a nod, perhaps, in the direction of his composition teacher, Roberto Sierra) but the jazz predominates. Kimbo Ishii-Eto was clearly having a ball. The brilliant orchestration kept the players busy, and kept him busy giving cues. He couldn't help but ham it up. And then there was the moment when the low strings twirled their instruments around.

The audience just roared. Never has a new work been given such an ecstatic reception. Robert Paterson is a highly gifted composer, and a few years will no doubt suffice to establish him as one of the major contenders in American music. As his list of commissions grows we may expect him to feel less inclined to throw everything he's got into one piece.

After intermission, Heiichiro Ohyama conducted the orchestra in the Symphony No. 3 by Mendelssohn. Ohyama's conducting style is more formal, more introverted than Kimbo's, and the orchestra responds differently to it. He molds the strings into very flexible shapes. The Allegro of the first movement could stretch and contract in tempo without breaking the shape of the line. Likewise, the taffy-pulling in the violin melody in the slow movement served to enhance its expressive effect. The winds were not nearly as well served. Intonation problems nagged at the woodwinds in the opening Andante, as well as its return later on. There was some disagreement over the length of the dots in the middle section of the slow movement. Overall, though, it was an expertly shaped performance. The horns gave their all to the endearing coda of the last movement.