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Published: June 28th 2007
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Ahh... the catch-up. Well, since I last left you with the vision of the mouse on the pub floor, I've had a couple of lovely experiences. First, we took a journey yesterday as a class, to a neighborhood outside of London called Harrow. There was a "song-fest" occurring, where a music specialist for the borough pulled together several schools to do one big concert. There were about 430 children aged 8-12, and it was a perfect opportunity for us to work on our observation of rehearsals, students, and teachers. It was a nice experience, particularly since I am such a children's choir nut. I watched one little girl for about 15 minutes straight to observe her on-task and off-task behavior, and it was very entertaining. The difficulty was that she and her little friend next to her figured out I was watching them and so I had to look away at times. When they caught my eye, they quickly smiled, sat up straighter and got back on task. The other interesting thing was to hear them sing "Goin' up a Yonder." It has been quite some time since I've heard it sung, so I couldn't resist singing along a bit,
which then led some of the little kids to watching me instead of the director. Woops! It was a nice afternoon. We also had a nice "spoiled" moment as a group because Dr. Madsen treated us all to a lovely lunch at a real sit-down restaurant. It was a treat.
The thing that most struck me about these 430 students was the diversity. They have it down much better here from what I can tell in terms of truly mixing amongst each other. I'm sure that there are still places with many divisions, but I haven't noticed a whole lot yet, that is for certain!
Yesterday evening, Emily and I headed to Royal Festival Hall. It was such a challenge to arrive! We got on our normal tube, the "Piccadilly Line to Cockfosters." (yes, we all snicker everytime we hear that) Yet it was delayed due to signal failure and an ill person earlier in the day. So there were masses of people getting on the tube and we didn't make our first one. We quickly became smart though when we walked down to the very end and found those cars were almost empty! One of the times when the
car was packed though, we finally "smelled" London. This hasn't been as smelly a country as some of the eastern European places I have traveled, yet there is still a bit of a difference of personal hygeine from what we are used to. I wonder so highly if they just don't know that deodorant exists now, or if they really don't smell it!
Upon arrival at Royal Festival Hall, we found our seats, second to last from the top, only to discover that these were some of the best in the house for this particular concert. We had a perfect view of the big screen for the multimedia used in the second half. The concert started with Philip Glass, and was a reminder of Music History last summer: the minimalistic, repetitive, music.. yet it was so built upon that it just kind of zoned us. It ended just in time!
And aha! I just forgot to point out one of the greatest things of the evening. The conductor, Marin Alsop, is an American woman! We saw that she was a woman right off, but we didn't purchase a program (3 pounds is $6!). So before the Varese piece, she spoke.
She turned and addressed the crowd in a teaching manner. It was fantastic! She gave us things to listen to, made us laugh, and was so pleasant. It made us very proud to be women from the U.S. with an appreciation, understanding, and education in music and conducting. Ms. Alsop's conducting was itself beautiful, graceful, and so precise, particularly on these pieces where there is such repetition, no immediately grasped melodic line, and change of meter nearly every measure! We desired to see the score for the Varese with 12 percussionists as well as a FULL orchestra. She told us that he only every wrote 12 big pieces, and we would understand after we heard this one.. we did.
The interval came at this point and we had prepaid for a "cider," which was a bit different-tasting. It is also striking here because you can bring your drinks and food into the theater. (American's rarely trust such behavior in a symphony hall). We felt that we were sitting amongst intelligent well-cultured people, and the theater was packed.
They passed out the 3-D glasses and we got ready. This time the piece began on its own, and the dancer came out after the first few phrases. She was tall and slender, and yet solid muscle, must do amazing amounts of yoga with her flexibility! (I believe it is also somewhat a natural trait of the girl). They dressed her very non-descriptively so that she really looked almost like one color, from her bleached hair, white skin, and neutral dance outfit. She began to "paint" in the air, and the pieces appeared in front of us, floating outwards into the theater. 3-D is still an amazing anathema to me, even though I know there are so many other newer technologies. Yet once they put her on the screen as well, and her hand reached out to us as if we could touch it? I wanted to watch her on the actual dance platform, her on the screen, and Ms. Alsop conducting! It was a multimedia, artistic phenomenon. It felt like we were witnessing a change in the world of live performances, with so many arts intertwined and working together: dance, visual art, technology, music, and even the spoken word used in the first half of the concert. People there seemed very "smart" in both mental capacity and appearance.
Overall, I know that my words will never do it justice, but I truly LOVED the experience. It was worthy of the 12 pound ticket. I may try to see the conductor again once I return home as she is now the director of the Baltimore Symphony, not so far from home!
Today, I am resting a bit, going to take a nap and maybe head to a local museum.. maybe another pub night. Tomorrow will be a show night!
Thanks to all the support and lovely messages from everyone! I'll add the pic of Emily and I with 3-D glasses on trying to be very "smart" and sophisticated later!
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