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| Concert Notes | |
| August 6, 2002 | I talked to Brent Samuel and Martin Chalifour after the concert today!! That totally made my day! :-) Can you tell that I'm excited? After the concert ended, I got out pretty fast and hung around the artist's exit. A while back, I had seen Brent Samuel walk out, and this time I was wearing my CYMO sweatshirt so I was determined to say hi to him. When he walked out, I said, "Hey Brent," and he turned around and looked at me blankly. I said that he probably didn't know me but I was in CYMO. And we talked for a bit, and then I went back to wardrobe to wait for Alex. I was already pretty happy because I got up the guts to talk to Brent who had no idea who I was. Then, as I was sitting there in front of the hallway to the bathrooms, who walks out of the dressing room but Martin Chalifour? He was carrying his violin and a whole stack of books and papers. He paused for a moment in the hallway to get all his stuff together and I said, "Hello." I'm getting used to saying hello to complete strangers since I do it for hours at a time at work. I asked him if he was Mr. Chalifour, and I told him that I was in CYMO, and that he performed with us last January. He was like, "What orchestra?" And when I said Claremont, he said, "Yeah, that was a good experience. You're wearing the sweatshirt." And I asked him if he still had his sweatshirt and he said yes of course. I told him that they sounded really great tonight and he said that was good because this was their tour program. Then he said that it was really nice talking to me again and he left. That probably doesn't sound to interesting to you, but I'm happy now because of it!! Alex thought it was cool too. I think the reason we all like Martin so much is because he's just like a normal guy. He looks very nice with his big glasses and slightly disheveled hair and doesn't look intimidating at all. He seems like the type of person I would like to get to know and would enjoy talking to. Anyway, now to the concert. Everyone was here tonight! Esa-Pekka Salonon is finally back and everyone wore black tuxes just for him (well, not exactly. That's the regular Phil dress and it's the regular Phil only because he's back so it is because of him, only indirectly.) Today was the first day Martin was back too. When he walked out, it immediately struck me that, "Martin looks like Martin today." He looked exactly as he did when he performed with us. The guy who had been sitting first was actually Alexander Treger. I'm glad I know now that it wasn't Martin as we had originally assumed because I didn't think he could change/age so much so fast. And at all the concerts, I would squint at him and try to see his face because I couldn't believe that it was Martin. Today's concert was interesting. The first Debussy piece I missed the most of but Alex said it was "funky." Unfortunately, I got yelled at by this really mean guy because there were some people waiting at the hedge who were talking. The mean guy was really harsh and really really angry too. He was using profanity and he was like, "You tell them to shut up or get out! You hear me? Shut up or get out! That's your job!" I was just looking at him feeling scared and saying, "Yes, sir. I'll make sure I let them know next time." I wasn't even there! But then of course, he doesn't know that and I happen to be standing at the block. Ok, the Bartok piano concerto was next with Yefim Bronfman. It was...interesting and it sounded hard. It was weird too, Bartok...weirdness is inevitable. After intermission, they played Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet Suite. I could go on and complain about how I can't understand why anyone would want to write music about so crappy a story as Romeo and Juliet, but this is already much too long. Though I hate the play, the music was quite good. Tonight was a great concert (not the music necessarily but meeting the people afterward)! And Alex got into FroSoCo, so everyone is happy today! |
| August 7, 2002 | I went to work today...I don't usually go on Wednesdays. I don't know what's wrong with me. Well, my parents went, so that would have made me home alone for five hours (which wouldn't have been fun) and I was just slightly interested in hearing the concert. Tony Bennett tonight. He brought in a sell-out crowd of over 16,000. This is the first full house since Alex and I started work (they said they had two earlier in the season: Playboy Jazz and The Who). There were seriously a lot of people! And the patrons kept walking in and out during the concert and we really had to work to seat them between the pieces and stuff. Usually we just stand there and the people go about their own business. Tony Bennett was good I suppose. His style is light jazz and love songs type stuff. All he brought was a really small band consisting of a pianist, a guitar player, a bassist and a drummer. The songs he sang were apparently all of his old hits (people would clap and there would be a collective murmur when he started each song), but I wouldn't know. His voice is a bit scratchy, but I think that's part of his charm. When he talks, it's very relaxed, comfortable, like he's speaking to a group of friends, a bit folksy. Can you believe that he's 76? And he's still able to run around and dance on stage, not to mention sing continuously for 1 hour and 35 minutes (there was no intermission tonight). He's been performing and recording for fifty years now, and he's still this popular. It's amazing! Overall, a good concert, though it seemed very hectic for the house managers. Somehow the speakers and the sound weren't working right and a lot of complaints were coming in. Though the estimated show break was at 9:45, it took while for the ushers to get all the cushions in because of the sheer number of people tonight. A lot of ushers brought guests tonight; it was funny because the parents of all three of us on aisle 6 (Lily, Erica, and me) came for the concert tonight. |
| August 8, 2002 | Today was a very quiet, relatively uneventful concert. The first half was very short, Shostakovich Symphony #2 was only 21 minutes long. I didn't hear it because I was on break but Alex and Jess had heard the exact same performance at Dorothy Chandler last year and said it was extremely weird. I worked intermission for the first time today since it's not usually this early. After intermission was a 67 minute Beethoven piece: Symphony #9 (the famous one, you know, Ode to Joy). 67 minutes is freaking long, but it wasn't too bad. They had the LA Master Chorale and several soloists perform. Anyway, after the concert is when the excitement kicked in. When we got to the parking lot, we suddenly realized that we left the car keys in our locker in Wardrobe. We ran all the way back (more than half a mile) arriving just in the nick of time before Wadrobe closed. Then we half jogged, half walked (since by then I was already exhausted, hence the exceedingly out of shape statement) back to the parking lot. I was feeling stupid, but not that stupid since it was an honest mistake on both of our parts. I didn't notice the keys when I took out my bag and Alex didn't bother to tell me they were in there. However, our ultimate stupidity was not realized until my dad pointed it out when we got home. We had a spare key on the car!! And we knew it too!! Alex and I even talked about just driving home without out picking up his keys. We didn't even think of the fact that we could have driven back to the Bowl to pick up the keys using the spare key!! Anyway, that's why I'm also extremely stupid. So there you go; and I thought it was an uneventful concert. |
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