CEDAR RAPIDS - Two words come to mind after hearing cellist Shauna Rolston perform Saturday night with Orchestra Iowa - “passion” and “precision.”

CONCERT REVIEW

Rolston opened Elgar's “Cello Concerto in E minor” with an appropriate attack, setting the tone for the remainder of her performance. The concerto opens with a recitative that appears to challenge the orchestra, and Rolston was more than up to the task.

The Canadian artist's passion was evident as she played with her trademark blazing technique, easily handling the composition's pizzicatos and other difficult passages. Rolston's passionate, animated performance earned a standing ovation from the audience in Sinclair Auditorium on the Coe College campus.

Earlier, Orchestra Iowa, under the direction of Maestro Timothy Hankewich, performed “Rural Symphony,” composed by Jonathan Chenette, a former faculty member at Grinnell College. The three-movement composition evokes the love of farming expressed by row crop and livestock farmers, morning and evening milking time at an Iowa dairy farm and the sights and sounds of an undisturbed Iowa prairie.

The highlight of the concert was Orchestra Iowa's bravura performance of Beethoven's “Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major - ‘Eroica.'” Hankewich, conducting without a score, exhibited his superlative command of the orchestra as it soared to new musical heights.

Kudos are in order for the orchestra's horns, percussion, strings and woodwinds. Their performance kept what is often considered a fairly lengthy composition from losing any of its luster.

Orchestra Iowa repeated Saturday evening's concert at 2 p.m. Sunday at West High School in Iowa City.