Tom Gorman on an upcoming local symphony performance that is really one for the ages

Friday, March 24, 2006 | 7:16 a.m.

Because some cities are so steeped in their musical heritage, it's easy to fall into stereotypes. Maya Levitt's love for music was nurtured in New Orleans, so you might assume she is most comfortable with jazz.

But for reasons she has difficulty recalling today because of the passage of time, Maya left New Orleans for Las Vegas favoring classical music.

In Las Vegas, she adopted the cello as her instrument of choice, and to build her mastery she retained teacher Jerry Pence.

"In 30 years of teaching, I've never met anybody like her," he told me this week. "She has mastered the cello."

I'm writing about her today because on Sunday you can hear her perform with the Henderson Civic Symphony.

Over the years, many Las Vegans have heard Maya draw deep, rich notes out of her cello. She treasures performing for smaller groups, where the intimacy of a small room draws her closest to the audience.

"I enjoy the looks on the faces in the audience, their smiles," Maya told me as we sat in her living room in Summerlin.

She is a humble, unpretentious player, not jaded by the accolades she has received over the years.

On Sunday, Maya will perform Camille Saint-Saen's Concerto No. 1.

"It's angry at the beginning, then softens," she said of the piece. "It grows in anger again, then lightens, and ends boldly, triumphantly."

She chose to perform this piece, she said, because it is alternately delicate and powerful. "I enjoy aggressively attacking the cello, but I prefer to treat it tenderly, gently," she explained.

Maya will be one of six guest soloists at the Henderson Civic Symphony's annual concert featuring young artists.

Maya, you see, is 11 years old. On any other Sunday she might be playing soccer. This will be her first performance with an orchestra.

"It is a seminal event in any musician's life, to be looked upon as an equal, performing solo before an army of players," the symphony's conductor and gentle leader, Peter Aaronson, said.

Solo performances, he said, "can be mind-boggling experiences. One day, you are practicing in your bedroom or living room and here you are, all of a sudden, having a musical conversation with 65 musicians. That can be an overpowering experience for an individual."

Sunday's concert will be all the more incredible because the soloists are students "who, for the most part, haven't had time to develop any self-doubts or to have any concerns about not being up for the task," Peter said. "They are going to suddenly be equals with people who have been playing longer than the students have been alive."

Other student performers are pianist Jae Ahn, 13, an eighth grader at Thurman White Middle School; clarinetist Daniel Becker and cellist Kellen Maxwell, each 17 years old and seniors at Las Vegas Academy of International Studies, Performing and Visual Arts; violinist Nikita Haduong, 10, a fifth grader at Selma F. Bartlett Elementary School; and violinist Yuhi Kim, 14, a freshman at the Las Vegas Academy.

Maya is a fifth grader at Ethel W. Staton Elementary School. When she was 7, she asked her parents if she could learn the violin - and then discovered while shopping for an instrument that she and a cello were the perfect match.

"She's been like a human sponge in learning new material," said Jerry, her teacher. "She's an absolute prodigy - and there's not an arrogant bone in her body."

Each of the six students qualified for Sunday's concert through auditions. And each is worthy of a newspaper column.

The concert, which is free, will begin at 2 p.m. at the Valley View Recreation Center, 500 Harris St. in Henderson.

"It is an amazing privilege to work with these students," Peter said. "We have been learning more from them than they do from us, in terms of their spontaneous approach to this music."

I was prompted to write about Sunday's concert because I've been haunted by a comment I heard nine years ago when writing about the future of Las Vegas.

A headhunter was frustrated that he couldn't attract a corporate executive to Las Vegas because of a balking wife who viewed our town as an unsophisticated desert burg. "She said one of her girls played the oboe, and we don't know what an oboe is."

Told of the remark this week, Peter bristled.

"This concert is profound proof that classical music is an exploding force in the cultural scene of this city," he said. "Las Vegas, thanks to the dedication of students, their parents and teachers, is producing magnificent talent."

To Maya, Jae, Daniel, Kellen, Nikita and Yuhi, Bravo!