LoNdOn SyMpHoNy OrChEsTrA

Thursday, November 13th

I started off with another session of my art and paper class today. There were some problems with some of the chemicals so that became rather frustrating. It all worked out in the end, so it was ok.

I was able to meet Diane’s sister, Denise, who will be visiting for the remainder of the trip. She is a really nice, cheerful woman and has a great sense of curiosity and exploration about her. Also, I think she was a hippie back in her day… She is going to teach me some cross stitching and embroidery next week.

After I got lunch, I ended up going back to my room and wrote my final paper, so it was nice to get that out of the way. I wrote about the differences between the Church of England/Anglicanism and Catholicism because I was rather confused after going to several masses that I thought were Catholic and found out later that they weren’t. Turns out, they are almost identical anyway…

After dinner, Colin, Cody, and myself left to go see the London Symphony Orchestra at Barbican Theatre. The two of them were making fun of me because as we were looking through the program, I absolutely loved some of the design concepts- it was very clever and organized, and some humor behind it as well. I also got excited because it was all musical related and I rather enjoyed it… I am a dork…

The musical selection for the evening:
Bartok- The Wooden Prince- Concert Suite for large orchestra
Liszt- Piano Concerto No 2 in A Major, S125 (with soloist Jean-Yves Thibaudet)
Dvorak- Symphony No 9 in E minor

Here are some youtube clips of the Dvorak:
(These aren’t of the performance I went to, but of the same piece performed)

2nd Movement: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=aYl4Xb4cDQ8
4th Movement: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Vlci-kCEaKE

It was wonderful. The sound in the hall was great, and the wooden acoustical panels everywhere gave quite a warm feel to the hall. The music made me very happy, especially the 2nd and 4th movement to the Dvorak.

After the concert, Cody and I went to the ISH bar to meet up with some friends. We all had a lot of money left on our meal cards and needed to use it by Monday, so we decided to go out tonight. We partied it up at the bar for the night and then decided to head back some time around 1:00.