What a week for the healing power of classical music! Okay, maybe not literally, but I was suffering from a bit of a chest cold last week and after two wonderful orchestra performances in the last 4 days, I am starting to mend. It could have been the extra rest and the chicken noodle soup, yes; or, it could have been the sounds of Rhapsody in Blue or the (fast version) of the Shostakovich 5 finale that rid my lungs of this hostage taking cold.
Now, I am not coming on here to give you the nitty-gritty details of my cold; instead, I am going to start the conversation about something that has really been bothering me lately. This originally started to bother me when I started my teaching career, where I would encounter countless students who, for whatever reason, could not (literally) sit still at times. But before I break into these concerns, let’s compare and contrast these two orchestra concerts.
The first concert took place last Saturday at Orchestra Hall in downtown Minneapolis. The orchestra was off and running with their debut concert in this year’s “Inside the Classics” series with a performance of Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony. The Inside the Classics performances are part lecture, part performance, and all entertainment; there is no surprise that an hour long lecture will open the program and the selected work will be played following intermission (the surprise lies in how entertaining and informational the lecture is.)
I had been looking forward to this concert for months and let me tell you, no chest cold was going to stop me! I drank plenty of water prior to the performance and made sure that I was well stocked up on Hall’s citrus drops; apparently my cough drop collecting was more like cough drop hoarding, and through my purchasing of these delicious throat lozenges, I must have purchased all of the cough drops in the state of Minnesota. Surely enough, the second the music started to settle in to the heart wrenching legatos of Stallin’s Russia, the hacking began. Just as soon as I was able to start enjoying the music after the first cough, a second one was pronounced to the audience, and then a third, fourth and fifth. Pretty soon after this, someone decided that wanted to drop a few coins in a violin case as a tip for the orchestra members (the problem was: there weren’t any violin cases, so this gracious listener decided to drop his change onto the cement floor.) While the orchestra continued to play wonderfully, I just could not quite get my head back into this wonderful music.
Flash forward to Monday night, the setting: River Falls, WI (town of 13,000), the performers: the St. Croix Valley Community Orchestra and guest soloists Dr. Roger McVey (of UW-River Falls) and Jennifer Burliegh-Bentz (of Broadway and Brickhouse). I was blown away right and left by my evening in Abbott Concert Hall. The first reason for this was that majority of audience members from this small community were all buzzing about Dr. McVey; there was talk about how talented he is, how supportive he is within the community, and how lucky this town is to have him there. After the first few pieces, Roger came out to play Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue alongside the orchestra, and I sat in awe as the audience in this small concert hall in small town Wisconsin sat breathlessly for 15 minutes, hanging on his every note.
I absolutely loved his interpretation of the piece; while it sounds clichéd, I could actually pick out the points when this was more “Blue” than “Rhapsody” or vice versa; and the only sound I heard from the audience was a single piece of notebook paper turning over as a Music 101 student sat taking notes for his concert review. I brought these two concert experiences up to a member of the St. Croix Valley Orchestra and the reply I got was, “Well, I’m sure it’s because everyone who came tonight knew what they were getting from the program”, but this excuse is not good enough for me! It shouldn’t matter if I’m in a hall of 300 or 3,000; the crowd on Saturday night paid far more than $5 to see their concert and they all went willingly to hear that hip mix of lecture and performance. Instead, they had to fidget, cough, check their text messages, talk to their neighbors, or tip their waiter (another reason for the dropped change?)
I am beyond frustrated with how fast our society continues to move; we, as a culture, appear to lack the ability to sit and enjoy anything anymore. There is so much more that I have to say on this matter, so I have decided to break this down in to 3 blogs (yes, I completely stole this from the Inside the Classics blog): Part 1 is complete. Part 2 deals with our inability to focus and a few of the things we might be missing, and Part 3 focuses on teaching focus. Until then, stay healthy, listen to good music, and always tip your waiter.
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