Month: December 2006

Orchestra

While sitting at the guitar concert (which my wife would have gone to had we had a baby sitter), I thought, “I should have brought our son.” When I was talking to the string quartet after the concert, they told me about the orchestra playing the next night. Their normal cellist was not with them because he was practicing a solo section for the orchestra.

I decided then to go hear the orchestra play Friday night. And, I took my son.

We heard music from Debussy, Dvorak and Fauré. Those were good, but what I was most excited about was when I saw that they had Aaron Copeland’s name on the program. And…it was the Billy the Kid suite. Ahh, my favorite Copeland music.

I have never heard Billy the Kid live before. If you have not had the opportunity, it is definitely worth the price of admission (at least for the $4 tickets I got). If you love percussion, then that is the piece to hear.

Wide dee big bus!

Early in the week our daughter (2 1/2 years old) got fascinated with the buses driving around us. She decided that she wanted to ride on the big buses.

Finally Thursday night we took an adventure trip. She, our son and I took a bus to the store just to satiate her desire to “wide dee big bus.” Going to the store the bus was packed. PACKED! I squatted down in the aisle by the front door and she sat on my leg.

Coming back there was only one other person on the bus with us.

Now every time we walk out the front door she asks if we are going to wide dee big bus again. I guess we will take a trip tomorrow.

Guitar Concert

I went to a guitar concert Thursday night. It was very good. Soloist Rafael Jiménez from Veracruz played for us.

He did an excellent job with Francisco Tárrega’s Capricho Arabe as his opening piece. Then he played Manuel Ponce’s Scherzino Mexican, of which I was not familiar.

He was joined by the string quartet Quo Vadis (a group that I have seen perform on several occasions). Together they played Joseph Hayden’s Quartet D-dur with just one violin. The second violin joined them for Quinteto Opus 143 by Mario Castelnuovo-Tadesco.

It was all very enjoyable. This was part of the state University’s guitar festival. Because of that, it was a free concert. There were not many there, maybe 40. It was a new venue for me, so I got to learn about a new place to hear music.