A Night at the Guangzhou Symphony

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On Friday night the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra gave a concert. I didn't even know Guangzhou had its own symphony orchestra until the day before. (Shenzhen didn't, I don't think, but it did have a lot of orchestras pass through and give concerts.) A few of my friends were going, but at the last minute one no longer could and asked if I would like her ticket. I jumped at the chance.

We met up a bit before five o'clock to take the teacher bus into the city. (Many of the Chinese teachers don't live on campus.) Everyday there are teacher buses into GZ, and they're faster than the normal bus and have nicer seats. We figured we'd get into the city around 6 and have plenty of time for dinner before the concert at 8pm.

While it shouldn't surprise me, traffic was worse than I'd expected, and we got into the city a bit before 7pm. Trying to get taxis (we needed two) was a huge hassle so we decided to try and find food first, and then get taxis closer to 8 when we hoped traffic would be lessened. We wandered around, constantly on the lookout for taxis, just in case. We finally resigned ourselves to the idea that we'd be eating noodles in a tiny restaurant when, not one, but two taxis appeared! We flagged them down as fast as we could and jumped in, leaving the people in the noodle shop looking confused.

Next to the Xinghai Concert Hall is a French restaurant. Jane and Leo had been there before and said it was amazing. I had the salmon salad and it was undoubtedly the best salad I've ever had. There was also freshly baked bread, but we couldn't get as much as Leo would have liked. A bit before 8 we left and walked to the concert hall to get the tickets Leo had reserved online. People swirled all around us as the five minute warning gong rang. Finally, we had our tickets and rushed up 4 flights of stairs to our seats in the top of the auditorium. We may have had the cheapest seats, but the view was amazing.

I settled in to enjoy the concert. They opened with a piece by Mendelssohn and then there was a piece by Mozart. The Mozart piece featured a violinist and violist. The violist was also the conductor and I was surprised to see he wasn't Chinese! Shlomo Mintz was amazing and I thought he was better than the violinist. Maybe it was a matter of matching the musician to the piece and she wasn't a good fit.

During the intermission we talked about how wonderful the music was, the violinist, and we watched one of the school children run around the auditorium and try to sit in seats that were clearly off limits. I was impressed by how strict the ushers were, immediately tending to people whose phones would ring (even though I had no signal, so I'm not sure how they did that), people who leaned on others' chairs, people who talked. And of course, the usher trying to coax down the student who decided he wanted to sit in the seats behind the orchestra that I'm guessing would typically be used for a choir.

The second half was even better than the first. They performed another Mozart piece, this time featuring Shlomo on violin. He took our breath away. After the piece concluded, his ovation was so long that he gave us an encore that was even more amazing than the Mozart. All of us sat, our mouths agape, in awe of his talent and passion. It was without a doubt one of the best performances I've ever seen or heard. After all our clapping for the encore died down (that took a while), the symphony orchestra concluded with Beethoven's Eighth Symphony. I think that all of us agreed it was our favorite orchestral piece of the evening.

After the excitement we made a quick stop at Starbucks for some hot drinks before climbing into the hired van to go home. As we drove through the city, all lit up for night, I couldn't help but think what a spectacular night it was.

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