I have a few posts that I never got around publishing and have been glaring at me every time I go to write something. Since I can’t think of anything particularly interesting to say, I’ll polish off one and call it good.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, the concert was one year ago tonight exactly. Weird.<\/p>\n
My family had the distinct pleasure to go see the San Diego Symphony<\/a> last night during a special performance of John Williams<\/a>‘ music conducted by the man himself. I have had a great appreciation of his music since my childhood after seeing Star Wars<\/a>, Close Encounters of the Third Kind<\/a>, Superman<\/a>, Raiders of the Lost Ark<\/a> (and on and on) so it was a real treat to experience his music performed live while the man who created it, led. He covered much of what he is known for and to be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a little tired of hearing them. That is true for most well known performers so why not composers, too.<\/p>\n During a set of pieces from Harry Potter, he did something that I thought was very decent and a sign of how genuine he really is. The piece "Nimbus 2000" is performed by a woodwind ensemble which was seated right in front of his stand. He started them off and then simply stepped down and watched them perform. I thought that act showed sincere trust in the performers and an appreciation of their performance. I do believe that he wanted to make sure everyone could see them as well.<\/p>\n Another interesting part was when they performed the chase sequence from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade<\/a>. He first showed the sequence (the one with River Phoenix as a young Indy running from some poachers on a circus train) on a screen above the stage with only the dialog and sound effects. He then played the sequence again with the musicians playing the scored music. It was a nice experience for people to see how the process of scoring a movie works.<\/p>\n In many respects it was the symphonic version of a rock concert. They did three encores (Memoirs of a Geisha, Olympic Spirit, and Raiders of the Lost Ark) which, in my fairly limited experience of concert going, was a first. All-in-all, I was very happy to see my musical idol in the flesh (well, tuxedo) and feel it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have a few posts that I never got around publishing and have been glaring at me every time I go to write something. Since I can’t think of anything particularly interesting to say, I’ll polish off one and call … Continue reading