Seattle Symphony

Short post today because I'm visiting with Mom and Ben in Seattle.

Mom and I rode the train up on Sunday morning and met Dad, who had driven up on Saturday, and Ben.  We had lunch at Benaroya Hall and then listened to a fabulous concert with guest conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya.  First was an interesting piece by Argentinian composer Esteban Benzecry called Colores de la Cruz del Sur (Colors of the Southern Cross)*.  There's lots of precussion in this 15-minutes piece in five movements.

The second piece was the reason I wanted to come to this particular concert: Felix Menhelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor.  This has long been one of my favorite pieces of music, but I'd never heard it in concert before.  Played most expressively by Augustin Hadelich on a Stradivarius, it was absolutely amazing.  We were favored with a short encore piece,** also fabulously played, and then it was intermission.

After intermission we heard Pictures at an Exhibition, by Modest Mussorgsky (orchestrated by Maurice Ravel).  This show piece is always a lot of fun - I guarantee you've heard at least part of it before, even if you never listen to classical music.  Hats off to the Seattle Symphony brass, who did a fantastic job.

We had dinner after the concert at a Vietnamese place with Ben's former teacher and current colleague, Laura DeLuca, which was a blast.

Anyway, like I said: visiting.  Got to run!



*The star constellation that's visible in the southern hemisphere.

**Paganini Caprice #9