Since Lent began it seems I've been blessed with a number of perfect days.The day after Ash Wednesday we went to the Philadelphia Orchestra with a couple of friends from church. We shared a nice meal before hand at Ted's Montana Grille (I know it's a chain, but one of our friends has become a buffalo addict. The orchestra program was all modern composers, which normally doesn't excite me, but I was pleasantly suprised.
The guest conductor for the evening was Alan Gilbert, recently appointed music director of the New York Philharmonic. The first piece was Exquisite Corpse by Hillborg. While it wasn't something you'd walk away humming, it was extremely complex in the way different sounds were carried continuously by diffrent instruments, so that a note might start out thin and reedy on the flute, and then swell to a rich, full sound in the cellos, and then die out from the tympani.
The second piece that night was Bartok's Concerto for Two Pianos, Percussion, and Orchestra. Emmanuel Ax and Yoko Nozaki were the pianists, and Christopher Deviney and Don S. Liuzzi were the precussionists. The stage set-up was quite impressive just to get two concert Steinways and two drum set-ups in front of the rest of the orchestra. The music was engrossing as if you were overhearing an interesting conversation which was not antiphonal, in a sort of repetitious way, as much as responsive to the preceding passage and developing the idea further. It had really "big" orchestral passages, and incredibly soft piano responses.
The final work of the evening was a composer I was not familiar with, Carl Nielsen, his Symphony No. 2, Op. 16 ("The Four Temperments") It wound up being the highlight of the evening. The audience was most responsive in their applause.
As a postlude, Emmanuel Ax and David Kim, concertmaster for the orchestra, after inviting the remaining audience to come sit closer, performed (a Beethoven sonatta.)
A few nights later on Monday evening, after dinner at the Westbury Bar, we were back at the Kimmel Center for the Curtis Symphony. This much younger group of performers were also being conducted by Alan Gilbert, who is a Curtis graduate. What a difference in the dynamic between the players and conductor. Here, they really led/performed as one organic whole. The difference was amazing. We have subscribed to both orchestras for a number of years- the Curtis that night was one of the best performances I can remember hearing. The program was Barber's Overture to The School for Scandal, Op.5; Beethoven's String Quartet No. 11 in F minor, Op.95 ("Quartetto serioso"); and another Nielsen work, his Symphony No. 3 in D minor, Op. 27 (Sinfonia espansiva)
All of the music was exquisite!
On Wednesday we had tickets to the new opera, Cyrano, by the Opera Company of Philadelphia. We had planned on dinner at the Rendevous bar across the street from the Academy of Music, as it was a pretty raw night and we didn't feel like walking far. We noticed that the resturant next to the Academy, which had been vacant at least a year since one of our favorite places, "The Smoked Joint," had closed.This was a new Japanese place called Kaizan, which had an interesting menu, so we deecided to take a chance.(it was a little pricier than the places we usually go to)
What a great decision we made! The new interior is very tasteful,all black and white with shocks of small, red, narrow hanging light fixtures. The harsh bare concrete surfaces of the old construction have been softened by hangings of Japanese silks. The mood was very relaxing. the service was perfect. We shared some tuna Maki. I ordered a couple of "small" plates, one a scallop tartare, was lots of bay scallops with kiwi in a light marinade, while the other was called "Volcanic Mountain" and was a mixture of lobster, shrimp, and rice wrapped into a cone in a wanton wrapper, and then crisped in the fryer. It was incredibly good, though difficult to discect until I asked for a fork. I refused to actually pu the fork in my mouth, I just used it to break the food into manageablepieces. I must practice more with chopsticks before returning.
Gary oredered a Spicy Chirashi, which was a mound of rice with raw tuna and scallops. Not as elaborate as my Volcano, but just as tasty. We each had a Lobster Dobinmushi, the most delicious soup you could imagine on a cold night such as it was. The soup was a wonderful clear broth, which was made with some type of smoked meat (imagine bacon broth, with no fat) and lobster meat with daicon mushroom. It was served in individual pots, with a small cup. We drank the broth from the cups, two swallows at a time, until it was gone, and then, removing the lids, used our chopsticks to eat the lobster and mushrooms remaining inside (I was very adept by then with my utensils-lobster is a great motivator)
After this wonderful dinner, we walked next door to the Academy of Music. As we entered the lobby for the elevator to the Ampitheater (or "Heaven" as it's called by the old-timers, because it's so far up) a woman asked to see our tickets. When she saw that we were subscribers, she offered some other seats whose subscribers were unable to attend, although, she said, not everyone would enjoy them, as they were in the front row.
So we were able to see this new opera from up close and personal, everything from the beautiful sets and even more beautiful costumes, and hear the voices and feel the music of the orchestra in a way we ususally don't get to experience at the Academy of Music. To make the evening even better, our seat mates were neighbors so we got to catch up during intermission with all the things happening in their lives (new jobs, new grandchildren, etc).
The guest conductor for the evening was Alan Gilbert, recently appointed music director of the New York Philharmonic. The first piece was Exquisite Corpse by Hillborg. While it wasn't something you'd walk away humming, it was extremely complex in the way different sounds were carried continuously by diffrent instruments, so that a note might start out thin and reedy on the flute, and then swell to a rich, full sound in the cellos, and then die out from the tympani.
The second piece that night was Bartok's Concerto for Two Pianos, Percussion, and Orchestra. Emmanuel Ax and Yoko Nozaki were the pianists, and Christopher Deviney and Don S. Liuzzi were the precussionists. The stage set-up was quite impressive just to get two concert Steinways and two drum set-ups in front of the rest of the orchestra. The music was engrossing as if you were overhearing an interesting conversation which was not antiphonal, in a sort of repetitious way, as much as responsive to the preceding passage and developing the idea further. It had really "big" orchestral passages, and incredibly soft piano responses.
The final work of the evening was a composer I was not familiar with, Carl Nielsen, his Symphony No. 2, Op. 16 ("The Four Temperments") It wound up being the highlight of the evening. The audience was most responsive in their applause.
As a postlude, Emmanuel Ax and David Kim, concertmaster for the orchestra, after inviting the remaining audience to come sit closer, performed (a Beethoven sonatta.)
A few nights later on Monday evening, after dinner at the Westbury Bar, we were back at the Kimmel Center for the Curtis Symphony. This much younger group of performers were also being conducted by Alan Gilbert, who is a Curtis graduate. What a difference in the dynamic between the players and conductor. Here, they really led/performed as one organic whole. The difference was amazing. We have subscribed to both orchestras for a number of years- the Curtis that night was one of the best performances I can remember hearing. The program was Barber's Overture to The School for Scandal, Op.5; Beethoven's String Quartet No. 11 in F minor, Op.95 ("Quartetto serioso"); and another Nielsen work, his Symphony No. 3 in D minor, Op. 27 (Sinfonia espansiva)
All of the music was exquisite!
On Wednesday we had tickets to the new opera, Cyrano, by the Opera Company of Philadelphia. We had planned on dinner at the Rendevous bar across the street from the Academy of Music, as it was a pretty raw night and we didn't feel like walking far. We noticed that the resturant next to the Academy, which had been vacant at least a year since one of our favorite places, "The Smoked Joint," had closed.This was a new Japanese place called Kaizan, which had an interesting menu, so we deecided to take a chance.(it was a little pricier than the places we usually go to)
What a great decision we made! The new interior is very tasteful,all black and white with shocks of small, red, narrow hanging light fixtures. The harsh bare concrete surfaces of the old construction have been softened by hangings of Japanese silks. The mood was very relaxing. the service was perfect. We shared some tuna Maki. I ordered a couple of "small" plates, one a scallop tartare, was lots of bay scallops with kiwi in a light marinade, while the other was called "Volcanic Mountain" and was a mixture of lobster, shrimp, and rice wrapped into a cone in a wanton wrapper, and then crisped in the fryer. It was incredibly good, though difficult to discect until I asked for a fork. I refused to actually pu the fork in my mouth, I just used it to break the food into manageablepieces. I must practice more with chopsticks before returning.
Gary oredered a Spicy Chirashi, which was a mound of rice with raw tuna and scallops. Not as elaborate as my Volcano, but just as tasty. We each had a Lobster Dobinmushi, the most delicious soup you could imagine on a cold night such as it was. The soup was a wonderful clear broth, which was made with some type of smoked meat (imagine bacon broth, with no fat) and lobster meat with daicon mushroom. It was served in individual pots, with a small cup. We drank the broth from the cups, two swallows at a time, until it was gone, and then, removing the lids, used our chopsticks to eat the lobster and mushrooms remaining inside (I was very adept by then with my utensils-lobster is a great motivator)
After this wonderful dinner, we walked next door to the Academy of Music. As we entered the lobby for the elevator to the Ampitheater (or "Heaven" as it's called by the old-timers, because it's so far up) a woman asked to see our tickets. When she saw that we were subscribers, she offered some other seats whose subscribers were unable to attend, although, she said, not everyone would enjoy them, as they were in the front row.
So we were able to see this new opera from up close and personal, everything from the beautiful sets and even more beautiful costumes, and hear the voices and feel the music of the orchestra in a way we ususally don't get to experience at the Academy of Music. To make the evening even better, our seat mates were neighbors so we got to catch up during intermission with all the things happening in their lives (new jobs, new grandchildren, etc).
It's hard to believe we experinced all of these incredible blessings of friends, music, and food, in the course of little under a week. So many people have nothing in the way of these experinces compared to use. I know that many people wouldn't even begin to enjoy much of the music, or food, which we do. I guess that our ability to enjoy them is another blessing.
The next day (after the opera) was Valentines Day. I claimed dinner and the opera as my gift to him. Gary made a new stained glass window as agift for me. (He just threw it together over a few days) It remainders of glass from a variety of other projects, but in the center is an etched medallion, with our initials "F &G" There are probably not too many guys whose boyfriend makes them a stained glass window as a valentines gift. Chalk that up as another blessing.
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