Live Music! OMG!

 

After twenty months I finally attended a live concert. After twenty months Ransom finally conducted the Redlands (CA) Symphony again. It was so exciting: emotional, relaxing, inspiring and beautiful. The audience was checked for vaccination records and everyone was masked and stayed masked, so, with any luck, it was safe.

Certainly the repertory was safe: Ransom picked favorites that would remind people why they love classical music:

Copland: Fanfare for the Common Man

Mozart: Overture to the Magic Flute

George Walker: Lyric for Strings

Joaquín Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez

Beethoven: Symphony 5

(All the titles above are links to the various pieces but I'm having trouble with Blogger; they might work).

René Izquierdo was the guitar soloist in the Rodrigo and he played wonderfully. We've known René for over twenty years, ever since he was a first-year grad student at the School of Music at Yale. The piece is one of my very favorites and it was a delight to hear it last night. (It ranked #27 in KUSC's recent listener survey of the 250 greatest pieces of classical music).

It was so good to hear the Copland and the Mozart; the Walker, new to me, was sumptuous. And what can one say about the Fifth? Can you hear it too many times? I think not.

Bravo Ransom, and thanks fro bringing live music back to my life.