Summerfest: The Pines of Rome

One of the many wonderful things about summer in our town is that the North Carolina Symphony plays a series of outdoors concerts at the outdoors amphitheater in Cary, the Koka Booth Amphitheater.  At these shows, families are invited to bring blankets and chairs, picnics, bottles of wine, etc., and have a lovely evening al fresco wining, dining, reclining, and listening to beautiful and moving music.  There is space for children to run around and play, plenty of food and drink to buy, and just a lovely, accessible way to enjoy classical (and other) music played by a top-notch symphony.

The centerpiece of tonight's performance was Respihi's Pines of Rome, which I must admit I have never heard before.  However, the family we usually go with, whose mom's is much better educated about classical music than I am, assured us it was a terrific piece.  There were some other music of well, none of which I knew other than the Flight of the Bumblebee.  But that is great, because I'm trying to expand my classical music horizons.

We got there and ate and drank and talked until the concert started.  However, after the orchestra had played the first two pieces, they announced that thunderstorms were coming, and they were going to stop until the storms had passed.  We all gathered up our things and set up camp underneath the shelters...still eating and drinking and talking.  Time seemed to pass quickly, but after a half hour or so, the Symphony announced that there were going to be storms for the foreseeable future, so they were canceling the concert.  However, we could trade in our tickets for a later concert this summer.

So it was a bummer not to get to hear the main pieces of the concert.  But we had a lovely time with our friends, and got to hear some music, so it was time well spent.  Plus, we get to go back and hear some other wonderful music later this summer!

However, I did go to listen to a YouTube version of the Pines of Rome.  It's nothing like hearing it live, I know, but at least it gives me some idea of what we missed...but will hopefully hear one of these days.



Enjoy!

UPDATE:  Man, my version sounds boring compared to my son's description of the evening.  You can read it here.