One fringe benefit of house, dog, pool and (lol) piano-sitting in Florida last week was the use of some concert series tickets. A "duo concertos by candlelight" venue included 4 pairings--of pianos, mandolins, violins, and harp and flute.
This concert was a lovely culmination to a relatively uneventful week of enjoying the weather and getting away from our regular life while taking on some duties of another household. A little gardening--and a little golf; mixing the dog's food, wiping his feet with the pool-side dog towel, scooping his poop; sharing a bed! And, scooping leaves out of the pool, putting out the trash and watering the plants--all those quotidian tasks of life.
But this time we picked out a new series to watch. Instead of Dexter, the forensic blood spatter specialist sociopathic killer of bad guys, we watched Mozart in the Jungle, a current series about an impetuous young Hispanic maestro named Rodrigo and his coterie of New York Symphony misfit musicians.
Instead of celebrating the end of the week with a bloody Mary (just my crazy idea) at Dexter's of Winter Park, we attended a symphony concert of Mozart and Bach at the chapel of Rollins College in Winter Park.
The candlelight in this old chapel necessarily had to be fake, but the pathetic little plastic battery operated candles attached to the pew tops with a dab of poster putty (ours kept falling off) hardly set the mood properly.
At intermission I shared some laughs with an old spinster snow bird from Canada. We compared notes on our dog companions, verbalizing the thought that dogs should be dogs. I laughed out loud when she told me that her dog hates NPR and leaves the room whenever she turns it on. I suggested she turn on Fox News instead, and in that fun way we may have revealed our disparate political opinions.
The other concert I attended with my daughter was a guest artist (Todd Wilson) from the Cleveland School of Music Organ Department. I believe it was the finest organ concert I have ever heard, starting out with a fabulous Bach Passacaglia (his only one) and ending with an improvisatory work on two themes he was given (A Mighty Fortress and Sheep May Safely Graze) which featured a buildup of added stops at the end, combining the two themes into a crescendo-ing full organ finale with trumpets blasting us from behind in the balcony.
The entire concert was done without music as far as I could see, and to my ears, was flawless. His smooth organ facility with 4 manuals and pedal and the sonorous sounds of the well-maintained Skinner organ resulted in a spectacular concert.
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| Skinner organ console brought out front and center stage. |
After the Friday night concerto concert, which I attended with the husband, I wanted to go out for a special beer that is brewed every year for the Winter Park Bach Festival, but Google couldn't help me find out quickly enough if this limited edition bock brew was still available, so we just headed back home and let this fine concert be the nightcap on our week (and television series) for this trip to Florida!
I am grateful that so much excellent music has been available to me so far this year! It is a pleasure of a fleeting nature, even as we move on quickly to the next good thing in life, but unlike the enjoyment of too much good food, or an exciting shopping spree that drains your account, there doesn't seem to be any downside to concert attendance. And four of these concerts were free, so no need to evaluate relative value/cost.
I purchased 2 for 1 tickets for two more local symphony concerts for March and April, so all in all, 5 out of 6 concerts this year will have been free. A Bach French Suites piano concert the end of October in NYC and another performance we were treated to last November in Winter Park ... and so I count 7 free concerts in 7 months!
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