Nov. 15th, 2015

twoeleven: Hans Zarkov from Flash Gordon (Default)
the first couple of DSO concerts this year haven't been all that exciting. perfectly serviceable music, but nothing that really grabbed me. friday night's concert was much better.

the performance opened with solbong kim's "snooze phantasm", a dreamlike tone poem he composed about the short bits of dream between hitting the snooze bar and being awoken again ten minutes later. he had bad habits as a music student, and sleeping in when he had deadlines was one of them.

mr. kim was at the performance and spoke a little about his piece, which is how i know the story behind the piece. the "snooze phantasm" isn't quite my thing, but it's hard to turn down music by living composers, especially when they're younger than i am.

the concert really took off when stewart goodyear played piano for rachmaninoff's piano concerto #2 (opus 18). he's got an amazing touch on the keyboard, playing the quiet, lyrical passages with a delicate touch, and attacking the piano during the loud parts.

he really does look like an ideal classical musician when he plays: he wears a constant frown, as though he's simply not satisfied with his ability to extract the purest sound from his instrument, and when he's really getting into the intense parts, he grimaces musically like a pro. he'd make an excellent air guitarist if he decides to branch out into more popular forms of music.

everybody at the performance loved his playing, and we kept dragging him back on stage to take yet another bow. mr. goodyear played a little piece of tchaikovsky's "nutcracker suite" as an encore performance.

the DSO finished the night with "pictures at an exhibition". it's one of our favorite works, and the orchestra played it well. we thought they had excellent interpretations of the variations on the promenade, and we enjoyed the last two parts: the hut on legs and the great gate of kiev. the DSO has one of the touring 9/11 memorial bells for concerts, and it was tolled for the bell parts in the great gate of kiev.

dïe überblønde enjoyed the performance so much, she wanted to go back for today's second performance. unfortunately, she had a class today, so that didn't happen.

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twoeleven: Hans Zarkov from Flash Gordon (Default)
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