Hello dear friends,
First off I want to thank y’all for following this blog. I’ve been blown away by the reception these entries have gotten and I feel so very, very lucky to know I’m a part of a world where people love orchestral music so very, very much.
Second, I wanted to let you know that I got an email this morning from Facebook, extending their condolences that I was having trouble logging into my account. Only thing is, I hadn’t been trying to log into my account… :/ It may have been a total coincidence – or a technical snafu – I’m not accusing anyone of anything – I just wanted you all to be aware that if things would fall silent here without explanation, or if I start sounding not like myself, or saying things wildly opposite of what I have been saying…or if this post disappears…keep in mind I may well have been hacked. I’m taking all the precautions I can, but I want to put this post out there on the .001% chance something unfortunate does happen. Once again, not accusing anyone of anything…I just thought better safe than sorry.
Take care, all.
With gratitude, Emily
Song of the Lark 
Bad news. I won’t be at the mn orch concert on sunday. scheduling conflict :( but I’m see in the scpo tonight! I’ll let you know how it goes
Aww, sadness! Well, maybe someone else can come forward! :) Looking forward to hearing about the SPCO.
OH. MY. GOD. I don’t think I have ever been more impressed, IN MY LIFE by a concert. HOLY CRAP! This concert by spco tonight was absolutely phenomenal! It was for sure on of the best concerts I have ever seen! OH MY GOD!
Spco opened with the Strauss wind serenade, a personal favorite of mine. They played it fantastically. They just had so much color and warmth to it, and the piece is so virtuosic, it simply glowed. WOW! So like, dang that was good.
It gets better! The strings played Strauss’ Metamorphosen. Dear God! It was so beautiful and heartfelt and devastating. It is a piece written about the destruction of the Dresden bombing. It was a fitting piece: Spco is being destroyed from within. The musicians knew what this piece meant as they are going through a similar (highly emotional, I’m sure) experience. It showed. The musicians played this piece with so much emotion. Oh My God, I could just feel the energy and passion. It was so beautiful.
When it ended Edo De Waart had to come out 3 times before the applause finally died away. THREE TIMES! The audience knew as well as the musicians what that gorgeous piece of music meant. THREE TIMES! And there were at least 20 brave souls giving standing ovations for the musicians and it was barely intermission. Oh My God! So much passion and excitement. I think everyone in that hall knew what that piece meant and was giving the musicians their complete show of support.
Finally, Brahms’ 2nd piano concerto, which I had never heard before. FANTASTIC! The soloist blew my mind away! Brahms never fails to provide incredible music, but I had not been expecting a work of this magnitude or magnificence!
So, yeah, basically one of the best concerts, if not THE best concert I have ever attended in my life. Not only was I incredibly impressed by the program, never having heard 2 of the works before, not only were the musicians even more fabulous than normal, the feeling of absolute gratitude to and love of the musicians oozed from the audience. OMG It was just so exciting and special to be part of!
Whew, OK, so on to business. NOTHING from management. No inserts, no flyers, no posters etc…. whatever. nothing. Don’t really know what that means, make of it what you will.
There was much more excitement from the musicians. AKA, musicians on the STREET talking to people and handing out invitations to their free concert in october. Yes! you heard me right. Steven Copes, among others on the street before the concert talking with adoring fans. Wow, that’s impressive. I (very unfortunately) was not there, I heard this from a friend I saw at the concert, but I guess the musicians were out chilling with the audience before the concert. Jealous I didn’t get to see them. Then, before the concert there were some rando’s handing out the flyers as the musicians were getting ready.
So not much negotiation action tonight, however there was a lot of excitement and support for the musicians, which I LOVED seeing!
One last observation. The Ordway was basically sold out except for the upper tier of seats which as far as I could see was 100% empty. I don’t know why: people want to support the organization so it doesn’t go under, more memberships are being sold, whatever. I don’t go to the ordway enough to know if spco usually sells out the whole place or not be it was definitely not empty. There were lots of old people there, only a few younger than me, but it was still pretty hoppin.
At any rate, there’s my review. After the concert I became very sad. I may never get to see spco this good EVER again if things keep getting worse and worse :(
I love this comment. Thanks SO MUCH for taking the time to post and share it.
I was at this concert as well. The orchestra has not been selling the upper tier seats for the past I don’t know how many seasons. I don’t think they were selling so I’m assuming they stopped trying, although there are some events which I sure they could manage to fill at least a portion of those, last night being one of them. They were able to open up some more seats at the front when they stopped using the stage extension (much to my chagrin, as the sound quality is now much worse)
Yes, the musicians were out in full force on the streets talking to as many people as they could. If there is a PR battle to be won here, the musicians are winning it. Why are they winning it? People understand that lives hang in the balance. The musicians have families, bills to pay, possibly some of them have medical issues, all sorts of stuff – people deserve respect. People understand quality when they hear it. Quality doesn’t come at rock-bottom prices. Whether management realizes it or not, the audience comes to hear a certain sound – we even come to hear certain musicians within the orchestra. When that sound is taken away and those musicians get up and walk away – so do we.
The Strauss, Op. 7 is one of my favorite wind pieces. Considering Strauss was not very old when he wrote it, I always find it a very sentimental piece. Like something someone who is at the end of his or her life would write, not someone looking forward in life. I love it, and it was an appropriate piece – and the work is a de Waart specialty.
How much money was the SPCO in the hole when they had that “Save our St. Paul Chamber Orchestra” campaign – when was that, 1994??? That was the only time I remember hearing they were in danger of folding. I don’t recall hearing of any sort of underhanded maneuvering going on back then. I think it’s just a sick result of the way society is operating right now.
Who knew that Christian Zacharias could play the Brahms 2nd so well? Not me. He did a fantastic job.
In 2004 I sat up at the top for a Sarah Chang concert; my youth symphony got tickets for us up there. Maybe they opened that up for our group…? I don’t know. It was so much fun!
I vaguely recall having sat up there once in 1999 for an Evelyn Glennie performance with the SPCO. But mostly I always sit very close to the stage because I like to be near the action and I like the sound better. There are only 274 seats in the 4th level, so by closing it off, there is not much of a loss. The entire capacity of the hall is 1,900 and typically that is a lot of seats to move for a chamber orchestra concert. There are plans now for a new 1,100 seat hall at the Ordway, which probably would be more of a typical chamber orchestra audience size – if not a tad small?