Monday, October 22, 2012

Meeting Conductors and Musicians


Concert/ballet/opera season has started, and this year, my friend R. and I have vowed to attend more events!  The National Music Academy opened with a 2-part Mozart concert.  We attended Friday night without the children and Sunday evening with the children.  R. even brought her 3-year old niece, who was surprising well-behaved for a 3-year old.  (She did sleep through some of it.)

When we arrived on Sunday, we discovered that the power was out.  It was still light outside (5:00) and so they brought the musicians downstairs, to the entrance hall.  People went to other rooms to find chairs, even a couch was brought out.  We took a seat in the very front.  Some older Kazakh ladies were quite disturbed that I was sitting on cold the floor, but I was pleased to be up front.

The conductor and solo violinist are famous in Kazakhstan, and both seemed to have a good attitude about the power outage.  They played, and as they played, the sun set, the room darkened, and workers brought out tea candles.  After the first part, though, they had people bringing cell phones and the musicians were straining to see their sheets.  "We'll play until we can no longer sing!" the solo violinist said.

Then, as if on cue, the power came on, and everyone cheered and retreated to the organ hall.  There they finished their concert, and we cheered loudly for an encore.  I'm learning how much I love the sound of Mozart, played live.

Last year, when we took the girls to the ballet Coppelia, after the ballet, we went on-stage and then backstage, and we ended up meeting and talking to the head ballerina, and the girls had their photo taken with her.  So I suggested we try the same!

We didn't go back stage, but we did see the conductor, who was happy to have his photo taken with the girls.  After him, there was just one musician left, a violinist, who asked us to take his photo with some other people.  Then he obliged to have his photo taken with the girls.  They were so happy.  (Except for the 3-year old, who for some reason was frightened.)

A week later, we took the girls to the opera "Othello."  Beforehand, I'd printed out a summary of the plot (it's convoluted!) and did my best to explain it to the girls.  We also watched some of it on youtube, which helped prepare them for the opera.

We went with a large group of people (including one of the Mozart violinists), and everyone, except the kids and the violinist, enjoyed it.  The kids got bored and restless (they enjoyed some, but two hours is a long time for children!) and the violinist said that the orchestra and singing weren't really good.

After the show, I said, let's go on-stage again! Why not?  We took the girls' photo on stage and then met the orchestra's conductor, who spoke English and was happy to have his photo taken.

I like being able to take the children on-stage or backstage, to meet the people involved in the production that they just saw.  I think it helps make the experience more real for them.  They always have such big smiles on their faces when they get to meet someone important.