Tag: music

CSO Concert

Tuesday’s concert was indeed one of a kind! The program included

  • One composer unknown to me
  • A soloist unknown to me
  • Three pieces unknown to me

… and all of them were so good!

Each of the pieces was a gem, but Gershwin’s Piano Concerto stood out. I wish I would have the right words to describe it! The program said that Gershwin wanted to combine classical musical forms with jazz and blues, and that’s exactly what it was. The music was all around us and filling each corner of the space. I was bathing in the sounds of music, and each next phrase felt absolutely unexpected and at the same time perfectly in the right place.

OK, I just do not have enough words to describe it! The soloist told the audience how he was coming to CSO as a kid, and how happy he is now to perform on that stage. And again, I do not know how to describe how amazing he was!

My pe-concert Amorino 🙂

Grant Park Concert

This summer, Grant Park Music Festival almost didn’t happen for me, with several severe storms ruining performances, me being away twice, me being busy, more storms, and more extreme heat. Yesterday, Boris and I went to the concert, which was almost the last for this season: there will be two more on Friday and Saturday, be we will be away.

And this “first and last” concert was perfect! That was the only time this season I watched Carlos Calmar conducting and listened to his commentary on the program and the composers – always funny and insightful. The program was great, consisting of little-known pieces. The weather was absolutely perfect, just warm and sunny enough not to be too hot and too sunny. And after the concert was over, we headed to Amorino and walked in right before the rest of the audience realized that it would be the perfect ending of the night and crowded the place!

Life is beautiful, and all the stress of the week was lifted :).

Grant Park Music Festival

Finally, after so many bad-weather-rain-too-hot-too-busy – finally, a perfect concert! Cirque Returns presented Troupe Vertigo aerialists’ stunning performance accompanied by classical music. The most extraordinary part was their “Carmen Cirque Spectacular” – a half-hour of extraordinary stuns accompanied by Bizet’s Carmen music.

Unfortunately, I can’t find any videos more than 20 sec long online; if you find some, let me know!!! No words to describe it, something very unique that I haven’t seen before.

Also, after the first number, the conductor announced that Mayor Brendon Johnson was there!

It was a very short speech: Brandon Johnson shared that all his three children play musical instruments (viola, cello, and violin) and he should probably learn to play something to be adequate. He reiterated how important is to make art free for everybody, and how this “free” requires a lot of resources, and he said that the city will continue to support the festival.

As usual, a final look at the lawn before leaving:

Helsinki Day 6

On Saturday morning, Anna biked to our place, and we had a two-and-a-half-hours bike ride all over Helsinki. Both Anna and I were tired, but Boris wanted to show us all the best places, so it took a while 🙂

Anna was filming the whole route with her 360 camera, but for now, I only have a couple of pictures:

By the time we were done with this ride, and Boris and I parked our bikes, it was almost eleven, which meant that the ice cream place by the Sibelius monument was about to open!

In the afternoon, Nadia and I went clothes shopping; that was the birthday activity I promised to her many months ago. We also picked up several outfits for Kira and some Moomin toys for both of them. And in the evening, the four of us went to the concert at the Church in the Rock. We sat in the very front row, as close to the musicians as none of us ever sat, and listened to this truly amazing concert!

Another Weather Disaster!

Today was the second time I attended the “American Salute” concert, and the first time ever I paid for the seat to be close to the stage, to avoid the crowds, and to be protected from the elements. And it was the first time that the concert I attended was interrupted because of severe weather! Also, I took my mom to the concert, and she was miserable because her feet were completely wet, and we had to stand for almost 30 minutes (it was so bad I could not even think of walking to the street to get an Uber), the water was everywhere!…

… I am so disappointed! It started great!

Muti

On Tuesday, I went to the CSO concert one more time, and this time, it was with my neighbor, and it was a long-awaited concert with Ricardo Muti!

We were sitting in the first row, and we heard and saw everything, and it was so astonishingly, incredibly good! Jessie Montgomery was present in the audience, and she came on stage after her piece was performed, and the audience exploded with applause!

I realized that I didn’t hear Ricardo Muti conducting for a while, and I realized that I had missed this experience. It continues to surprise me that even going to these concerts after long work days does not make me feel tired, but just the opposite!

***

It happens every year, and every year, it comes as a surprise: winter turns into summer, skipping spring entirely. I know that these balming 70s are not here to stay, and by Sunday, the temperatures will return to normal April mid-50s. But how amazing it feels now! Just getting outside and taking this warmth in!

First time in a long while, I went to the CSO concert alone. I like going to concerts by myself, but recently, it was always either with mom, and then I had to deal with all the unpredictable things she would be upset about or felt compelled to critique. Or with my neighbor, who is lovely, but I realized that sometimes, I need to have quiet time. Just music and me.

It feels differently, and it turned out, I almost forgot the feeling. The music was cripst and fresh, and it was covering me from the outside, and filling inside, to the point when I felt there there is not enough room for music inside me!

The orchestra played four pieces: Liszt Mephisto Waltz (amazing!), Thomas Ades Piano Choncerto (new piece, composed just five years ago, soloist Kirill Gerstein – amazing!); a part from Sibelius’ The Tempest (awsome, but less exciting as the first two pieces) and finally, Janacek’s Taras Bulba, of which I expected a lot, but it ended up being the least interesting piece out of four. When it finished, I was left with the question: is this all? We didn’t even start yet, the topic is not developed! What do you mean, “we are done”?

Still, it was the best I felt after a concert for a long time. And then – out into the warmth of the night under the city lights, and I didn’t even notice when I arrived to my station.

When I got home, I walked into my bedroom, opened the window and let the night in 🙂

Anne-Sophie Mutter

I went to her concert on Sunday – it was a matinee performance, so I took mom with me. It is always hit or miss (I never know whether she will enjoy a performance or start critiquing random things). This time, it was a miss – she said that the music didn’t engage her and then proceeded to criticize the musician’s clothes and other unrelated stuff. But enough about that.

Anne-Sophie Mutter is one of those artists who are so well-known that it feels like they “always were around,” and you might be unsure whether they are still alive. It was almost the case this time: I knew that she was the most famous violinist for the past twenty five years. The program mentioned her “forty seven years of performing.” So when you see her coming to stage in a bright pink strapless ball gown, it feels surreal :).

She is great. The concert lasted for two hours, and she was on stage all the time, and then did three encores!

The second part of the concert was “The Four Seasons,” and it was as great as on this video:

The First Christmas Concert

I got tickets for the “Merry Chicago” concert in the CSO for Nadia and me on December 16. It was a little bit of a stretch because they could not leave until Nadia’s school was over, but it ended up being not a little bit but a lot of a stretch. To be precise, Nadia was dropped off in front of the CSO a minute before the concert. But we were not late, and we had terrific seats in the second row on the aisle.

It’s hard to believe, but Nadia sat through the whole 1 hour 50 min concert completely focused on the music! Even during the intermission, after we walked around for a little while, she insisted on returning to our seats and anticipated the concert’s second part.

And nowadays, the Christmas concert is very different from when my kids were kids – there is no story, no dances, so it is pretty much music all the time – shorter pieces, for sure, but still!

The Shostakovich’s Fifth

Yesterday, I took mom to the CSO – one of my subscription series was Sunday matinee so that I could take her. And after last week’s success with taking the L to the Atr Institute, she was excited to return to resume more cultural activities.

But that’s not about mom; it’s about the program. It was an all-Russian program, and I believe the hit of it was intended to be the “Dairy of a Madman” by Lera Auerbach. I liked the piece; however, the Shostakovich Fith Symphony was the one that impressed me the most.

Interestingly, I vividly remember when I hear it for the first time. It was in Leningrad State Philarmonic. I was fourteen or fifteen, and I even remember where approximately mom and I sat. I also remember that it was performed after the intermission and that I understood nothing about it! I remember thinking – what all these random parts could mean together?! 

After that first time, I listened to this symphony at different concerts at least three times, but it was yesterday that I felt I heard it for the first time. At first sounds, I thought: is it really the same piece?! I can’t remember it sounding like that! 

And then I listened as if for the first time, and I could not believe what I was hearing. On my way back, I even looked it up to check what critics were saying and how this symphony is usually interpreted. Because the question I had was – how it was ever allowed to be performed in the Soviet Union?! 

Yes, Shostakovich is a hooligan in most of his works (and that’s what I love about his music). But how could anybody ever believe that this piece was “glorifying the Soviet achievements?! This bitter irony, these twists of the “heroic” themes, such a distinct picture of violence which follows “the hero” – how could it be possible that nobody noticed it?! Or is it that those who noticed were silent? When I asked Boris just this: how this piece was allowed to be performed in the Soviet Union, Boris told me that once he was present at the musical lecture at the Composers’ association, and the lecturer told them that “there is a lot of mystery in this piece.” Well… 🙂