2010 was a good year for classical music in Utah

This was a good year for classical music in Salt Lake City.

The Utah Symphony is riding high with its new music director, Thierry Fischer. And Brady Allred has once again put Utah on the global map by winning the Tolosa International Choir Competition in Spain with his Salt Lake Vocal Artists last fall.

With Fischer, the Utah Symphony finally has the kind of conductor it needs. He understands the potential the orchestra has and what it takes to bring it to a higher level of playing.

After only a few concerts under his baton, the Utah Symphony sounds like a different orchestra altogether. The musicians are the same as before, but this isn't the same orchestra of just a few years ago. This is an orchestra on its way up, and I expect great things will happen in the years to come.

Since returning to Utah several years ago, Allred has raised the bar on choral singing here. While he was head of the choral department at the University of Utah, his choirs won an impressive number of international competitions. Now he's doing the same thing with the Salt Lake Vocal Artists, one of five choirs that he leads as music director of the Salt Lake Choral Artists.

Last October, the Vocal Artists won first prize in the four categories they entered in the prestigious competition in Tolosa, Spain. Next year, they've been invited to perform at the World Choral Symposium in Argentina, and they've received invitations to tour France, South Korea and the Philippines. This is a group that is coming into its own and one to be reckoned with, not only in Utah or in the United States, but internationally.

There were many outstanding concerts in 2010, far too many to list here. I've selected a few and put them in chronological order:

The Turtle Island Quartet is one of the foremost exponents of genre bending music today. Their concert at Brigham Young University in March proved once again that nothing is impossible for the string quartet medium and when TIQ plays it, Jimi Hendrix sounds as fabulous as late Beethoven.

There is a slew of young/youngish pianists out today, most with impressive credentials, but few can match the artistry and technique of Vassily Primakov. His recitals in Salt Lake City in March showed him to be one of the most musical and perceptive pianists of his or of later generations. He is without question a pianist to look out for.