Holst's Planets Suite Beneath the Stars

I believe I'm mentioned before that one of our favorite summer traditions is the Summerfest concert series.  Summerfest is an annual concert series by the North Carolina Symphony held at Koko Booth Amphitheater, which is a mostly outdoors/uncovered performance space.  We go with another family that we've been friends with since our boys were in a playgroup together over 10 years ago.  We bring lawn chairs and a picnic (including wine, which is allowed for this series), and usually hang out for a couple of hours before the concert starts at 7:30.  It is a perfect place for children to begin their classical music education, because it is affordable (kids under 12 are free!) and they can eat and run around and such in addition to listening to the music.  Plus, the concert themes are often geared to family interests--for example, a couple of years ago they did a whole concert on pirates music!

This past Saturday, the keystone of the concert was The Planets Suite by Gustav Holst.  However, in addition to hearing the entire suite played live by the Symphony (with some unusual additions, like the celestra, the instrument most famous for the opening tones of the Harry Potter theme song, but which means "heavenly" in French and thus is perfect for this music), they were projecting high-resolution images from NASA of the planets in the music.  And, of course, we were under the open heavens ourselves, on a beautiful warm North Carolina night (that part of the concert didn't start until 9:00 PM).

I have to say, it was one of the most powerful concerts I have ever attended.  The transporting music, the compelling images, and the wonderful atmosphere all came together to make it really a magical experience.

So while I can't reproduce the sensations for you, below I have included some videos of the London Symphony, who apparently recorded the Planets Suite using the same images we saw.  Even without being in the night sky, they are still pretty powerful.  Enjoy!

Thar Be Pirates About!

This weekend we went to such a fabulous concert!  It was part of the North Carolina Symphony Summerfest Concert series, which I have blogged about previously.  The title of Saturday night's show was Pirates, and it comprised all sorts of nautical-related music.

At first, I was concerned it might be a bit too commercially-oriented, but that turned out not to be the case at all.  Yes, it did have music from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies--which, I have to admit, I was so wrong about and love although I ridiculed it prior to actually seeing the movies (that is generally true about the movies as well as the music in them).  So, yes, they are ridiculously popular and money-making movies, but that doesn't mean that Hans Zimmer's music wasn't great, because I think that it was.

But the show contained so much more than that.  It did have its show element, with songs from the movie Hook, the musical Peter Pan, and even the classic Captain Blood.  It had light operetta (The Pirates of Penzance) and Wagner's opera, The Flying Dutchman, along with some traditional sea chanties and nautical songs.  The NC Symphony did a wonderful job with all these works.

However, my son and I were particularly enthusiastic about two sets of modern compositions.  I was really struck by some songs done by a composer from Greensboro, NC, who had written a musical about North Carolina's most notorious pirate, Blackbeard.  Laurelyn Dossett got to sing two of her songs from that show, entitled Bloody Blackbeard, accompanied by the state's symphony, which I imagine is pretty much a life's ambition for a local composer.  They were great songs, and I hope they become more well known.

My son's favorite was a piece called The Last Voyage of the Currituck:  A Symphonic Odyssey, which was by Terry Mizesko, who is a member of the NC Symphony.  This six-part piece ran from the hussle-bussle of taking off, to the enthusiastic beginnings, later longing for those at home, and eventual bad end in the Bermuda Triangle, with dramatically different emotions conveyed by the talented musicians.  It was also a well-written work that I hope will gain wider renown.

But I give the NC Symphony a lot of credit for a really well-developed evening of music around this theme.  As I've stated before, I come from Washington DC, so I'm used to a high level of cultural arts in my arts, museums, theater, and musical performances.  And I don't really expect the North Carolina institutions to compete with what it is possible for, say, the Smithsonian Institution or the Kennedy Center for the Arts to do.  But I think North Carolina has been really smart about targeting the resources that it has.  So, for example, the NC Zoo has an African section and a North American section; it has restricted its scope, and does those two areas really well, rather than having a mediocre mish-mash of animals from all over the world.  Similarly, both the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and the North Carolina Aquariums (all three of them) design their major exhibits around North Carolina environments (terrestrial or aquatic); again, this gives a logical focus to their museums, and they cover that narrower focus really well.

And so for the theme of Pirates, the Symphony found a way to focus the show on North Carolina talents and assets, including the always intriguing legends of Blackbeard.  The concert tied into the recent exhibit in the North Carolina Maritime Museum on Treasures from the Queen Anne's Revenge, Blackbeard's flagship vessel that has recently been been recovered from the seabed along the North Carolina coast.

Plus, it was a lovely night, we were seeing the show with good friends, we had plenty to eat and drink, they had all kinds of pirate exhibits and activities to entertain the children, PLUS they had fireworks afterwards.  So what's not to love?

PS--Here is my son's blog post inspired by the concert.

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.