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So, my son and I decide to take up GoG’s invite and go see the Columbia Orchestra performance last night. First off, let me say that GoG is the Concertmaster of the Orchestra, so she wields the power to, well, tell the other musicians when they can tune up and shake the Conductor's hand as a representative of the entire Orchestra. But, she also enjoys a big old Glamour Shot Photo in the Lobby with a quote from her as to why playing for the Orchestra is rewarding – it is a very flattering photo and a nice quote. The Conductor had two glamour shots and quotes, but he’s the Conductor, so shut up.
The first piece was Tan Dun’s Paper Concerto for Paper Percussion and Orchestra. This was a nifty piece that featured all sorts of percussion made of paper and the first violins sat behind us in the audience. The piece also featured the Bass Flute, which is cool and thoroughly enthralled my 7 year old son. We also got to make a lot of noise with paper ourselves, and that was entertaining. In fact, right now, my son is teaching my daughter how to crumple, shake and tear paper musically. The percussion soloist was dressed casually, while the orchestra was dressed in Formal Wear – I believe this was either due to the percussion soloist forgetting his Tux, or to point out the fact that he was superior and unconstrained by the mores of concert attire.
However, the big deal is Scheherazade, a piece by Rimsky Korsakov whose solo violin part should be familiar to Ren and Stimpy fans. Our own GoG was indeed the violin soloist, and a damn fine one I must say. She played the part with technical excellence without making it sound stale or cliché – this is a tough thing to pull off since this is so well known - it's kind of like an actor delivering the lines "A horse, a horse, my Kingdon for a horse" without being funny. She also played with intensity, but did not make any sort of faces while playing, she does not suffer from a violinistic version of "Guitar Face." Anyway, GoG did a fine job, the rest of the first violins played well, the second violins were kind of weak, the Cellos were quite nice and full-bodied. The winds were quite good with the exception of a Trombone player and a French Horn player that had extreme attack problems, but the Clarinetists were admirable.
Anyway, the concert was good and my son stayed awake and involved throughout the entire affair – and that’s a tough thing to do……
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