2009-05-28

More Symphony links

While it's been a little while since my last post, life has gone on apace, we've moved back to the Bay Area, and have lived in San Francisco for almost a year.

So clearly, it's time for a Symphony post. On Saturday, we went to the SF Symphony for a night of modern and interesting performances. The Sibelius Symphony #4 started off the night, and was powerful, moving, and disturbing. It was amazing how well he used every part of the orchestra, and F appreciated the great viola solos.

We then moved on to the premier of the SF Symphony commission, "The B-sides", by the (11-months older than me) composer and DJ, Mason Bates.[1] It's an amazing blend of symphonic and electronica styles, without either of them dominating completely. Michael Tilson Thomas called it a "bridge" piece, and I have to agree with his assessment. The last two movements were the strongest, and luckily the last one was premiered on the YouTube Symphony, so I can share it with you all:



After that was the intermission. For the second half of the program, we heard Prokofiev's Piano Concerto #2, played by Yuja Wang, a Chinese prodigy born in 1987[2]. Frances noted that her hands look like the legs of the Warner Brother's Road Runner; all motion blur. You
can see her doing the second movement (the Scherzo, which is basically all 16th notes) here:



She was completely fabulous, and we all felt like we were in the presence of greatness. When the concerto finished, she got a triple-ovation, which induced her to do an encore. She did her own riff on a Mozart classic:


which blew us all completely away. Just astonishing.

Does anyone read this thing? What's up out there, anyway?

Cheers,
- jonathan


[1] It's people like that who make you realize how little you've accomplished in life.
[2] She's even worse than Mason Bates. =]

1 comment:

Lidarose said...

I read your blog! Every day!
What's up out here? The usual...laundry, work (though it doesn't always seem like work, it's so much fun!), plus rain, rain, more rain, + humidity and lots of bugs! Too much to read, too little time. In other words, the usual.

And don't compare your accomplishments to those of others... I'd put a link in here but I can't remember how and I have to leave to go change my laundry over... I'll send it to you....