Late Night with Bill Eddins
So... I haven't written anything here in a long time. Obviously. Since the last time I did blogging for the ESO, in fact. And that's why I'm here again - seems silly to start a whole new one just for ESO stuff at this point, though in the future, it may be something I do. Who knows! But for now, here I am.
Anyways, just a quick note for any of you LJ people who aren't interested in anything ESO-related - I don't know if or when I'm going to be up to blogging my life again. So, I'm not going to be offended if you take me off your flists! If you wanna know what's going on with me, I'm finding Twitter to be my preferred way of internet communication now. Tweet me there at @ErinCraig11. And I promise you, if I do start blogging again, that will be the first place I announce it.
Okay, on to the Symphony!!!
Last night was one of the ESO's performances in a new concert series, "Late Night with Bill Eddins". I'd kind of been meaning to go, and was delighted when Philip, the commander-in-chief of the ESO's blog sent me an email, inviting me to come to the show with some of the other folks who have blogged about the ESO this season, so I called up a friend, and away we went. You know, social media is really something; this past year-ish in which I've been living in Edmonton and tweeting, I've been introduced to a ton of Edmontonians I wouldn't have otherwise met. I'm a musician; I meet other musicians, that's about it. It's interesting to me that through our relative anonymity online, we can make connections there that are helpful and useful in the face-to-face world.
Now, the music. I've expressed my love for Bill Eddins numerous times before while writing about the ESO, and I'm not going to stop now. Edmonton, you are SO LUCKY to have a guy like this being the artistic director of your symphony! You know, Edmonton talks so much about being a world-class city, and we debate about having an arena downtown, and we build an art gallery and half of the people are happy and half of the people say it was a huge ridiculous-looking waste of money (I, for one, LOVE the art gallery), but our buildings and monuments aren't going to help us in our world-classiness - our people are. We have Bill Eddins, and he's already leading the way.
I look at the way Bill Eddins runs a concert - that is to say, what he does between the pieces of music. I lived in Boston for a time, and went to several Boston Symphony Orchestra concerts while I was there (I mean, how could you not?). The music was always over-the-top amazing, and I never heard the BSO perform at a less than stellar level. But, nobody talked to the audience during the performance. Many classical music purists clearly prefer it that way, and in many cases I do too, but I don't think that kind of audience and orchestra is what Edmonton should aspire to. The BSO is a very, old orchestra, and Boston's a very old city, and they've got some very old traditions. Edmonton's not like that, and our orchestra shouldn't reflect that. Bravo to Bill for presenting these classical pieces in a way that works for our city. And for me - I had never heard any of those pieces before, though I was fairly familiar with the composers. I appreciated having an introduction to them beforehand; it made the listening experience that much more enjoyable.
Am I allowed to say I have a crush on Lucas Waldin? Because I do. Phil gave us a choice of sitting in the choir loft or on the main floor for the performance; discussing it with my friend, we almost picked the choir loft for the view of Lucas while on the podium - however, the main floor won out for the sound quality (but the view wasn't bad there either!) (I'll stop now.)
I also have to say I'm a huge fan of the after-show jazz and martinis in the lobby. I got a chance to chat with some people who attended the concert, and drink a delicious martini (delicious!) while listening to some jazz. I know most classical music purists do tend to think of jazz as "background music"... and as a jazz musician, I've come to terms with that, but it was still nice to see some of my buddies get featured in a big venue like the Winspear Centre, for an audience that they wouldn't otherwise get to play for.
Check out this video to see another blogger's version of the evening. Good times all around, of course!
Anyways, just a quick note for any of you LJ people who aren't interested in anything ESO-related - I don't know if or when I'm going to be up to blogging my life again. So, I'm not going to be offended if you take me off your flists! If you wanna know what's going on with me, I'm finding Twitter to be my preferred way of internet communication now. Tweet me there at @ErinCraig11. And I promise you, if I do start blogging again, that will be the first place I announce it.
Okay, on to the Symphony!!!
Last night was one of the ESO's performances in a new concert series, "Late Night with Bill Eddins". I'd kind of been meaning to go, and was delighted when Philip, the commander-in-chief of the ESO's blog sent me an email, inviting me to come to the show with some of the other folks who have blogged about the ESO this season, so I called up a friend, and away we went. You know, social media is really something; this past year-ish in which I've been living in Edmonton and tweeting, I've been introduced to a ton of Edmontonians I wouldn't have otherwise met. I'm a musician; I meet other musicians, that's about it. It's interesting to me that through our relative anonymity online, we can make connections there that are helpful and useful in the face-to-face world.
Now, the music. I've expressed my love for Bill Eddins numerous times before while writing about the ESO, and I'm not going to stop now. Edmonton, you are SO LUCKY to have a guy like this being the artistic director of your symphony! You know, Edmonton talks so much about being a world-class city, and we debate about having an arena downtown, and we build an art gallery and half of the people are happy and half of the people say it was a huge ridiculous-looking waste of money (I, for one, LOVE the art gallery), but our buildings and monuments aren't going to help us in our world-classiness - our people are. We have Bill Eddins, and he's already leading the way.
I look at the way Bill Eddins runs a concert - that is to say, what he does between the pieces of music. I lived in Boston for a time, and went to several Boston Symphony Orchestra concerts while I was there (I mean, how could you not?). The music was always over-the-top amazing, and I never heard the BSO perform at a less than stellar level. But, nobody talked to the audience during the performance. Many classical music purists clearly prefer it that way, and in many cases I do too, but I don't think that kind of audience and orchestra is what Edmonton should aspire to. The BSO is a very, old orchestra, and Boston's a very old city, and they've got some very old traditions. Edmonton's not like that, and our orchestra shouldn't reflect that. Bravo to Bill for presenting these classical pieces in a way that works for our city. And for me - I had never heard any of those pieces before, though I was fairly familiar with the composers. I appreciated having an introduction to them beforehand; it made the listening experience that much more enjoyable.
Am I allowed to say I have a crush on Lucas Waldin? Because I do. Phil gave us a choice of sitting in the choir loft or on the main floor for the performance; discussing it with my friend, we almost picked the choir loft for the view of Lucas while on the podium - however, the main floor won out for the sound quality (but the view wasn't bad there either!) (I'll stop now.)
I also have to say I'm a huge fan of the after-show jazz and martinis in the lobby. I got a chance to chat with some people who attended the concert, and drink a delicious martini (delicious!) while listening to some jazz. I know most classical music purists do tend to think of jazz as "background music"... and as a jazz musician, I've come to terms with that, but it was still nice to see some of my buddies get featured in a big venue like the Winspear Centre, for an audience that they wouldn't otherwise get to play for.
Check out this video to see another blogger's version of the evening. Good times all around, of course!