My sweetie’s birthday is this upcoming Wednesday (Happy Birthday Sweetie!) and his birthday request this year was simple: he wanted to attend an orchestral concert by the National Philharmonic called The Three B’s. This concert was to be held on Halloween night and was to feature Bach, Brahms, and Beethoven (the three B’s – get it?).
Since it was his big day and since I love him, I said sure, no problem. So I went online and picked out a good seat in one of the booths on the upper tier of the concert hall.
It was to be held at the Strathmore – a great event hall if you’re ever in the area. It’s relatively new and the seats actually have room for your legs, which is particularly nice. So needless to say, we were looking forward to the event.
Saturday evening came and we were so excited – do you know how long it’s been since we had an actual date night? A night complete with dressing up and going out? The CPA looked so handsome in his suit and tie and I looked presentable in my maternity pants and new shirt.
Since the Strathmore is in Maryland we left in plenty of time, but traffic wasn’t bad so we arrived early enough to get a good parking place. We left our car in the under cover parking lot and then made our way across the pedestrian walkway.
The hall itself is amazing and we enjoyed walking around and looking at the architecture and various design elements.
We found our seats after going through a maze of steps and hallways that eventually took us to the top floor. (Did I mention the many steps? Next time I’m taking the elevator.)
But it was worth it. We sat in Box 1 and had a great view of the stage.
The orchestra was in the process of setting up when we first arrived, but it wasn’t long before the concert began.
Now I have to stop right here and admit that when my sweetie said he wanted to go to an orchestral concert, I immediately thought “great, I’ll be able to take a nap”!
But I was very pleasantly surprised.
First of all, there was the people watching. With seats like this, we could see everywhere in the room which was fantastic.
Then there was the music itself. (I wish I could have taken pictures during the performance, but it was “strictly forbidden”.) The concertos were truly beautiful and surprisingly, it was fascinating to watch the musicians play their various instruments.
There were three featured soloists that evening, the first being Brian Ganz, who played the piano. I know very little about playing the piano but I will be the first to tell you that the man is a genius.
He played on a piano that was over a 100 years old and he made it sing. It was absolutely magical.
Then there was Elena Urioste – a violin prodigy who began playing professionally at age 13. She was simply beautiful.
(photo courtesy of Florida Orchestra.org)
Here’s some of her work if you’d like to listen to her:
And finally, there was Zuill Bailey. There’s no other way to say it – the guy was just cool.
(photo courtesy of Virginia Symphony.org)
He looked like he was born with a cello in his hand and since he started playing at the tender age of four, he practically was. He’s been featured in various things, most notably a couple of appearances on the show Oz:
His performance was breathtaking. In fact, the whole performance was breathtaking. Before I knew it, the two hours had flown by and we were standing during the ovation. But we were in for another treat – the featured artists came on stage for a question and answer session.
We were able to hear how they got started performing and we learned how many years they had been playing.
We even found out that Zuill Bailey’s cello was built in 1693. Can you believe that? I wonder how much it costs to insure?
Hmmm.
The CPA enjoyed this part of the evening almost as much as he enjoyed the concert, which was a lot.
They wrapped up the questions after about 15 minutes and we finally left around 10:30 – happy and content.
What a wonderful evening it turned out to be – a night of beautiful music, charming atmosphere, and best of all – time spent with my sweetie. It doesn’t get much better than that!
How did you spend your Halloween evening?
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