EILEEN IVERS, UTAH SYMPHONY, Abravanel Hall, additional performance tonight

It takes someone like Eileen Ivers - no, it takes Eileen Ivers herself - to get a Utah Symphony crowd revved up enough to stand up and dance. One overheard patron summed up Friday night's Utah Symphony concert quite nicely when she said, "This is not what I expected." And unless you've heard Eileen Ivers before - well, who would have expected a Celtic concert quite like that?

This was no bland Mancini-arrangement-type pops concert. With the energy - and sometimes sound - of a rock star, Ivers wowed the audience Friday night with her energy and ability on the fiddle. Crossing Celtic music with Afro-Caribbean rhythms and other styles, like rock, blues, classical and even bluegrass, she brought a whole palette of sound to the music. By the end, everybody in the audience - young and old alike - was giving a standing ovation and making comments like, "Can you believe that?" "Unbelievable!" and "Wonderful!"

Of course, the entire concert wasn't at full throttle. Ivers started out the evening with a more traditional-sounding arrangement of a 300-year-old tune, "Loftus Johns." This was followed by the wistful, beautiful aire, "Bygone Days."
But once she got to "Rights of Man," the tune may have been traditional, but the arrangement and performance most certainly were not. Here, she brought out her blue, electric fiddle - able to be amplified and run through distortions like an electric guitar.

She kept quite a bit of variety throughout the whole concert, switching back and forth between the electric and acoustic fiddles, and including things like the more pop-style tune, "Reconciliation," a twist on the classical (joined by concertmaster Ralph Matson as soloist) with "Pachabel's Frolics," a very flashy, showy version of Celtic music ("on steroids," one might say) with "Riverdance," and the bluegrass/blues-infused "Blizzard Train." The encore was particularly memorable, with drummer/lead singer Tommy McDonnell leading the audience in "May the Circle Be Unbroken," high-energy gospel/Celtic style - which ended with him jumping off the conductor's podium.

It's also worth mentioning that new Utah Symphony Assistant Conductor David Cho appears at the helm for this weekend's concerts. He made a promising showing Friday on the pieces that featured just the Utah Symphony. As a rule, he seemed to have a balanced approach to his conducting - not overbearing or bombastic, and also not timid. The selections generally sounded light, crisp and musical.