My insurance agent has season tickets to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra POP series performed at the Max Fisher Music Center in Detroit. Sunday her husband under estimated a project leaving a ticket – voila, for me!
After parking the car, we walked across the parking lot with the roar of Tiger fans cheering the home team in Comerica Park in the background making downtown seem alive and bright. Only Woodward Avenue separated the fans of both the DSO and the Tigers. And, if truth be told, I would have loved to have the chance to take part in both experiences. Baseball has the benefit of hot dogs, popcorn and beer and the DSO, well, just the beer. Both venues manage to cheerfully overcharge. Ah, culture : )
There is always anticipation for me when attending a live event. After walking through the glass doors, I whispered “Go Tigers”, to my friend and we headed to our seats. This particular concert featured not only the orchestra but acrobats from Cirque du Soleil making it a mix of sport and culture. This was going to be fun.
Music Center is small enough to feel intimate and our seats were excellent. A clear pitch sounded twice … a warning that the show would begin. At first I closed my eyes taking in the vibrating tones of various instruments that harmonized together moving “Festive Overture, Op 96 “into a crescendo that developed to a full uproar. I heard that at that moment of the musical climax our Tigers came from behind making the final score 4 to 3. I learned this piece of information from the woman squeezing past me to reach her seat before the next composition began. I love that she had to wait in the lobby, she had to know … like me she had wanted to attend both.
Now the orchestra could have my full attention. And they would, because accompanying Camile Saint-Saens “Danse macabre, Op 40” was an amazing female acrobat who executed a dance mixed with contortion and acrobatics that wowed the crowd and me.
As a young girl, I remember being thrilled while on a school field trip to the DSO. And music still does that to me as an adult, all of my senses titillated by the sounds, the body moves of the acrobats, the showmanship of the kettle drummer (rump a pum pum) and the conductor, Jeff Tyzik, who was an enthusiastic vision of how to have fun while working.
Ah, the healing timbre permeated the acoustic hall and touched my heart. I have had a personally difficult month. But, there is still music. And, there are people, like me, seated in this venue just wanting to believe that our troubles can be set aside.
The music would have been enough but we (I view the entire audience as one organism) were on our feet by Bizet’s “Les Toreadors” a finale complete with the mastery of two male acrobats who moved as one in perfect balance and strength. I know you Classic lovers; what I have relayed is not pure symphony. But from my point of view it was; yes indeed, a work of art, a masterpiece, the music, the controlled bodies, me and of course, my $4.00 bottle of beer.
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