Day 1161: Concert night
May. 25th, 2023 11:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eve_primeTonight was the last symphony concert of the season, and first I had to go to a donor event for the youth orchestra at a nearby coffeehouse. I got to meet our guest clarinet player, Carey Bell, and also his 86-year-old step-mother, who looked at least 10 years younger than that. Then I headed over to the concert hall, where Carey did a pre-concert interview with our conductor, Francesco. I hope his childhood clarinet teacher (who was also D’s clarinet teacher) was there for that part of it – Carey said, “Cindy Bartels was without a doubt the biggest musical influence in my life.” What a legacy!
During the pre-concert talk, there were two teenage boys and their parents sitting more or less behind me (thankfully not directly behind, that was the dad), and they were eating potato chips and talking enough to be distracting. They were also messing with the chair right in front of them, which every so often would make a disruptive metallic “clang.” My best theory was that the boys were neurodivergent and the parents really needed a night out and were at this point highly skilled at ignoring them.
Right before the concert began, the two seats next to me were taken by a pair of women, and the one immediately next to me was slightly scented and then immediately proceeded to apply a scented hand lotion too. She also kept looking at me every time I sniffled – if she’d said anything about it, I’d have explained about her hand lotion, but she did not. I was okay enough through the first piece, which lasted about 10 minutes, but at the beginning of the fancy clarinet piece I suddenly felt faint and realized that maybe I wasn’t breathing, so I made a point of breathing carefully through my mouth. Of course, that made my throat dry and sore, such that I then needed to cough, but I minimized it.
At the intermission, it transpired that although the boys had been delightfully quiet throughout the performance, they had still bothered the woman directly in front of them with whatever they were doing to her chair. The family all went out to the lobby, and the two women and I (who had all gotten up) could all see that the boys had managed to tear up about 15 sugar packets and had tossed the wrappers on the ground. The two women explained the situation to the ushers (a corps of older ladies), and I commiserated with them, and after the intermission the two women moved to different seats. And since the boys continued to listen to the music rather than talking or clanging, my own problem was solved too.
The music was fine – a short piece by Jessie Montgomery (a newly popular Black woman composer), then the Copland clarinet concerto, which was first beautiful, then lively and fun, and obviously very difficult. Then after the intermission, we heard the music for the complete ballet of “Daphnis et Chloé” by Ravel.
During the pre-concert talk, there were two teenage boys and their parents sitting more or less behind me (thankfully not directly behind, that was the dad), and they were eating potato chips and talking enough to be distracting. They were also messing with the chair right in front of them, which every so often would make a disruptive metallic “clang.” My best theory was that the boys were neurodivergent and the parents really needed a night out and were at this point highly skilled at ignoring them.
Right before the concert began, the two seats next to me were taken by a pair of women, and the one immediately next to me was slightly scented and then immediately proceeded to apply a scented hand lotion too. She also kept looking at me every time I sniffled – if she’d said anything about it, I’d have explained about her hand lotion, but she did not. I was okay enough through the first piece, which lasted about 10 minutes, but at the beginning of the fancy clarinet piece I suddenly felt faint and realized that maybe I wasn’t breathing, so I made a point of breathing carefully through my mouth. Of course, that made my throat dry and sore, such that I then needed to cough, but I minimized it.
At the intermission, it transpired that although the boys had been delightfully quiet throughout the performance, they had still bothered the woman directly in front of them with whatever they were doing to her chair. The family all went out to the lobby, and the two women and I (who had all gotten up) could all see that the boys had managed to tear up about 15 sugar packets and had tossed the wrappers on the ground. The two women explained the situation to the ushers (a corps of older ladies), and I commiserated with them, and after the intermission the two women moved to different seats. And since the boys continued to listen to the music rather than talking or clanging, my own problem was solved too.
The music was fine – a short piece by Jessie Montgomery (a newly popular Black woman composer), then the Copland clarinet concerto, which was first beautiful, then lively and fun, and obviously very difficult. Then after the intermission, we heard the music for the complete ballet of “Daphnis et Chloé” by Ravel.
no subject
Date: 2023-05-26 02:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-05-28 09:46 pm (UTC)