Memorial concerts

[lwl]

Any of you participated in, or attended, memorial concerts in the past week? Care to share the experience, if so?

[fritzdaviolinist]

I went to both of the National Symphony's concert last weekend. The conductor spoke at the beginning of both concerts and regretted the attacks of the week. They played the national anthem and the whole audience sang together. As for the programs go, nothing was necessarily somber because it was an all beethoven program. I do believe the eroica symphony was very suited for the concert because it reminded me of the bravery of those who died during the rescue effort.

[RS]

Haven't yet participated, but there's a violin duet called "Children's Song" written victims of the Oklahoma City bombing that I think would be very appropriate. It doesn't look too difficult.

(published by Merion Music, distributed by Presser)

[SteveLaBonne]

As I mentioned in another thread, my wife, daughter and I attended the Cleveland Orchestra's regular subscription concert on Thursday. Before the concert began, Dohnanyi asked the audience to stand and observe a moment of silence, which was prolonged and eerily quiet. Due to the inability of the soloist (a soprano who was to have sung Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder) to reach Cleveland, the sole work was the Mahler 5th, which was so stunningly appropriate to the occasion that it might as well have been purposely selected as a memorial. The orchestra's performance seemed to have an extra degree of nervous intensity. It's been a long time since an experience in the concert hall moved me so deeply.

[Violinflu]

A conducting student here is assembling one of the largest groups ever at the school (over 100 people) for a memorial concert: Bruckner symphony #7 and a new piece by John Traill. The Bruckner was written in part to memorialize the death of Wagner, and the Traill is inspired by the Bruckner and the recent tradgedy. The movements of the Traill will go between the movements of the Bruckner.

[vieuxtemps]

That concert is scheduled for Friday Oct. 26, 6:30 p.m. in Peabody's concert hall. I'm sure it's open to the public.

-Aman

[deb]

Saturday Night at the Old Time Fiddler's gathering, we began the show with everyone on stage, had the audience stand up, and we started with God Bless America ... then played the Battle Hymn of the Republic and Battle Cry of Freedom, with the 'good' fiddlers taking turns out front 'leading'.

It was pretty moving. And hey, I actually knew two of them and faked my way through the third.

No rehearsals, nothing, they just got up there and did it. They're amazing musicians.

deb

[bethr]

Friday I attended Peter, Paul and Mary. It was their first concert back. Their music was amazingly healing. I don't think they made any major changes to their programming.

[LBlake]

I, unfortunately, wasn't able to make it to the free "Concert for Healing" that they did here in Columbus... regrettable. I know one of the pieces on the program was "Fanfare for the Common Man" (did i get that right?) It was last Friday - they actually postponed the Season Opening special concert slated for that night, and did this instead. At the beginning of the concert last night, however, the principal Bass player delivered a speech, reflecting on the feeling of the music community here, and their aim to continue to do what they can to help. He mentioned a big turnout at last week's benefit concert. Then, the conductor came out and pointed at the drum, which roared into the national anthem, which we all stood and sang. Then, they quietly shifted into the program for last night.

In his speech, he mentioned the value of music in a time like this, which I agree, is profound.

I also sing in a church choir, and last week's service was almost impossible to sing through, as we had terribly moving music to sing. Even one hymn that has alwasy been one of my favorites, suddenly had entirely new meaning, and most certainly brought me (and others) to tears. I found it interesting... thinking that that's probably exactly the feeling it was always intended to have... written out of some other horrifying past tragedy.

[Hank Schutz]

No memorial concerts yet, but last weekend I played at the memorial service for a woman who was a passenger on one of the downed planes. Our trio offered to waive our fee, but the family said that American Airlines was paying all expenses. Prior to the service, we played fairly solemn and religious works, however in the post-service reception the family specifically asked for more "joyful and merry" music. We received many comments about how much the music added to the occasion, and I do not think these were necessarily related to the quality of our playing. For me, the event reinforced my belief that music is one of the primary media through which we experience and "process" our emotions.

HS