The season has begun and other things

Saturday evening was the first Utah Symphony concert of the season--actually the first was the night before, but I go on Saturdays--and it was exciting.  I'm always glad when these concerts begin again.

Because it was the night before the tenth anniversary of the attacks on this country, the concert began with a piece written by John Adams "On the Transmigration of Souls".  You may recall that I loved "Nixon in China" which was part of the live broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera so I was prepared to love this piece.  And I did.  There is a chorus (adults), the Utah Symphony Chorus, a children's chorus, the Madeleine Choir School, the orchestra, of course, and spoken and sound effect recordings.  The piece begins with street sounds of a big city and later in the piece footsteps hurrying down a staircase, and spoken text as well.

The piece is contemplative, mostly quiet, sometimes dissonant, sometimes eerie and for me profoundly moving.  We were asked not to applaud during the first half of the concert, neither when Fischer appeared nor at the conclusion of the piece.  That quiet added to the mood.

The second half was Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.  I have heard this piece so many times, both on recordings and live, that I wasn't expecting to be knocked out by it as I was.  I heard things I had not heard before although I am sure they have been there.  For me, that is one of the signs of a good performance:  the discovery of more than I knew was there.  The soloists were uniformly excellent and the chorus was excellent, too.

It was a great evening.  When I got home I got to work making a cake I planned to take to a pot luck the next day.  I knew that it would not cool enough to frost if I made it in the morning.

The neighborhood potluck was very pleasant, attended by interesting people.  I never know who will come to these monthly gatherings and that is part of the fun of it.

In the meantime I have finished weaving the towels you saw underway in the last post.  I have finished, hemmed and washed all of them and ironed about half of them.  When I have ironed them all I will photograph the lot so you can see them, too.  I like them.

I am also working on clearing out some things I don't use to create more space to maneuver.  I will need it because I am going bionic!  On October 10th I am getting a new right knee.  As things are now, the injections that were miraculous for a while have stopped working so that knee hurts all of the time: sitting, standing, lying down, walking, etc.  I am looking forward to being free of that pain.