Voyage of variations

Tommy Mesa, guest soloist at the Lansing Symphony Orchestra’s season opener Thursday evening (Oct. 3), is a restless soul. As soon as his singing cello beguiles you with a romantic theme, he whisks you off on a voyage of variations.

Even the variations have variations from night to night.

“An experience is never going to be the same way twice, even in rehearsal,” Mesa said. “Why lean into duplicating? It’s so much more of a special experience if you’re open to asking, ‘How am I feeling today? How is the orchestra feeling?’”

“He has a unique voice on the cello, a beautiful sound and great facility but also that X-factor of nuance and expression,” LSO maestro Timothy Muffitt said. “There’s something very personal in his playing that I think will really resonate with the audience.”

The theme of the concert, if you’ll pardon the redundancy, is the “theme and variations” form. Mesa will perform Tchaikovsky’s “Variations on a Rococo Theme,” an elegant work that harks back to Mozart.

The major work on the slate, Edward Elgar’s “Enigma Variations,” is another voyage of variations, only writ larger.

There aren’t many light works in the cello repertoire, but “Rococo” comes close. Mesa finds it unique among violin concertos.

“It’s light and has this virtuoso quality, the same way a violin concerto might have. It also has that human quality and connection, so you’re getting the full range of what the cello can do,” he said.

Human quality is fine — we all have it — but Mesa will have to do technical things on the cello that few mortals can.

“I’m sure Tchaikovsky was driving the cellists crazy when he wrote this because this is probably one of the hardest things ever written,” he said. “He loves his scales going up, his arpeggios, and there are a lot of challenges that make you feel like you’re witnessing what the cello can do at the highest level.”

Mesa offered a quick road map to the music.

“It unfolds in a very natural way,” he said. “The first and second variations are very light, with champagne bubbling and lots of wonderful fireworks. But then there are moments of repose where you sit back and enjoy the sound of the singing instrument that only the cello has to give. The third variation is very heartfelt and very open and expressive. Then we’re back to the fireworks.”

Mesa’s family came to Miami from Cuba before he was born. In 2023, he embarked on a long-awaited recital tour of the island and found it “eye-opening.”

“It was great to see my roots, seeing the culture I grew up with in Miami in its most original form,” he said. “There was a ton of music in the streets.”

But he was shocked at the country’s dysfunctional government and economy.

“There’s a lot of pessimism right now, and that was disheartening,” he said.

He took up the cello comparatively late in life, at age 12, more or less by accident. He walked into the first day of orchestra class hoping to play drums, but there were no drums in the room.

However, he had friends who played cello and was attracted to its expansive, singing sound.

He fought an “uphill battle” to catch up with more advanced students at Massachusetts’ Walnut Hill School for the Arts. His biggest inspiration was the incandescent young cellist Jacqueline du Pré, one of classical music’s most charismatic and passionate artists, who died tragically in 1987 at age 42.

“That singular, heroic sound we love in the cello — I sort of idolized that,” Mesa said. “I wish I had known her, played with her, and I still brush shoulders with people who say, ‘You should have met her.’”

The cello world was, and still is, endowed with fiercely committed musician-humanists like Mstislav Rostropovich, Pablo Casals, Yo-Yo Ma and Michigan State University’s Suren Bagratuni.

Some musicians might despair at filling such big shoes, but Mesa doesn’t see it that way.

“They’re so inspirational, and they’ve done a lot for the instrument that I’m trying to expand,” he said.

Ma, with his endless and varied musical and humanitarian projects, embodies the ideal of restless seeking.

“You can tell when he’s playing a piece that he’s doing it as a unique experience on its own,” Mesa said. “He’s not recreating something he’s already done.”

Like Ma and Rostropovich, Mesa is a strong proponent of new music. In the 2022-’23 season, he played the world premiere of celebrated American composer Jessie Montgomery’s cello concerto “Divided,” went on to perform the work from Miami to Carnegie Hall and issued a recording last year on the prestigious Deutsche Grammophon label.

In 2023, the Detroit-based Sphinx Organization, which is dedicated to supporting young Black and Latino classical musicians, awarded Mesa its highest honor, the Medal of Excellence.

Mesa is especially proud of “Our Stories,” a duet album with pianist Michelle Cann featuring contemporary works by Black and Latino composers. Two more duet albums with pianist Olga Kern and bandoneon player JP Jofre are due out soon.

Word of Mesa’s cello mastery is spreading fast. This year, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Michael Abels, a major force in the classical, film and opera worlds, is writing a new concerto for him.

“He’s going to ride that line of Hollywood music style and concert music, and that’s really exciting,” Mesa said.

Thursday’s concert opens with “Bravado,” a twinkly, post-modern bon-bon by young University of Michigan educator Gala Flagello, a finalist last year for the position of LSO composer in residence. (“Bravado” is also on the Detroit and Dearborn symphonies’ schedules this season.)

Mozart’s Symphony No. 31, “Paris," rounds out the slate. The symphony is a rouser, written during the composer’s trip to Paris in 1778. When his father, Leopold, saw the large size of the orchestra, he said, “The French must like noisy symphonies.”

Bring on the noise.