I Audience
Today I took advantage of an opportunity to see the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. My cousin plays the clarinet and has been wanting to see the orchestra perform for many years. She bought tickets for this evenings performance because Larry Combs was featured in Mozart's Clarinet Concerto. This is one of those "cultural opportunities" that ex Chicagoans like Mental Multivitamin miss and I rarely take advantage of and I couldn't just let my cousin wander around down town at night without a bodyguard, so I decided to go.
First and foremost the players were incredible. I sat in a room tonight with some of the most musically gifted people in all the Midwest if not the country. Secondly, Orchestra Hall is a marvel in sound engineering. I bet there isn't a bad seat in the house. With the praise out of the way I will now move on to my social observations.
My cousin got the cheapest seats that where still available. The cost was fifty dollars a piece. We walked into the auditorium and the guy pointed just to his left. So while we were the furthest from the stage we would have made it out in a fire. The seats down by the front of the auditorium can cost a thousand dollars. So if the sound in the entire auditorium may be superb what advantage is there in being up front besides being better able to count the nose hairs of each player? I'm glad you asked. The advantage is that everyone knows you can pay a thousand dollars to sit closer to the performers. A woman who was leaving during the intermission offered her seats up front to my cousin and myself. She didn't want to see them "wasted." We turned down the opportunity as the seats were in the middle of an row and we felt a little under dressed to mingle with the upper crust.
Chairs become available in the symphony in much the same way they do in the Supreme Court. When someone either dies or can no longer play a new member is recruited and stays with the orchestra until one of those two conditions is reached. Many of the performers appeared to be out of shape and quite elderly. It made me wonder if anyone ever had the big one mid performance. Do they drag em off and continue the show? Does everybody slide one chair over to the right. Do they kick everybody out for fifteen minutes while auditions are performed.
I noticed there was only one black member of the orchestra and I don't think I saw any black people in the audience. This is very much a sign of the lack of social progress being made. The Symphony should be made up of the best performers, but the only people who can afford to spend that much of their life devoted to music are the wealthy. I'm sure music conservatories have grants and financial aide for the gifted but apparently that isn't enough. I don't have any solutions. I'm just pointing out what I saw.
People in the thousand dollar seats also wear expensive clothing, "to honor the performers." Personally I think cash is honor enough and If I'm going to sit still for two hours I want to be in a comfortable pair of shoes and wearing a pair of jeans. The fleecy sweatshirt was good too. It is starting to get nippy in down town Chicago. Some of these expensively outfitted people really out to take advantage of the tailoring and advice those stores provide. There were many older women in strapless gowns and I cant believe how unnaturally tan they were. Narcissistic idiots. The younger women seemed to enjoy the form fitting blouse and skirt that helps to accentuate their every fatty roll. Gold shear frills does not make a fatty roll more attractive.
Between every movement their would be a shifting of feet and coughing. People would breath shallowly and wait for the opportunity to cough. You could tell that the majority of the audience was familiar with the pieces they came to hear performed as they knew to cough and shift between movements and they new when applause was expected. I felt that I was as close to the audience that Mozart wrote for as people got. I had an education but didn't actually study music deeply. He was writing to impress and entrance or to shock and awe. I know something of music but was unfamiliar with the pieces as I walked in so at the performance I was hearing it for the first time so it needed to over awe me and drag me in. The man was a genius. We need more of that kind of genius in the music world.
Before going home we took a cab over to Greek town and had dinner at Artopolis. This is a wonderful place to eat. The food is good. The service is outstanding. There is a huge desert display to drool over and pick from.
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First and foremost the players were incredible. I sat in a room tonight with some of the most musically gifted people in all the Midwest if not the country. Secondly, Orchestra Hall is a marvel in sound engineering. I bet there isn't a bad seat in the house. With the praise out of the way I will now move on to my social observations.
My cousin got the cheapest seats that where still available. The cost was fifty dollars a piece. We walked into the auditorium and the guy pointed just to his left. So while we were the furthest from the stage we would have made it out in a fire. The seats down by the front of the auditorium can cost a thousand dollars. So if the sound in the entire auditorium may be superb what advantage is there in being up front besides being better able to count the nose hairs of each player? I'm glad you asked. The advantage is that everyone knows you can pay a thousand dollars to sit closer to the performers. A woman who was leaving during the intermission offered her seats up front to my cousin and myself. She didn't want to see them "wasted." We turned down the opportunity as the seats were in the middle of an row and we felt a little under dressed to mingle with the upper crust.
Chairs become available in the symphony in much the same way they do in the Supreme Court. When someone either dies or can no longer play a new member is recruited and stays with the orchestra until one of those two conditions is reached. Many of the performers appeared to be out of shape and quite elderly. It made me wonder if anyone ever had the big one mid performance. Do they drag em off and continue the show? Does everybody slide one chair over to the right. Do they kick everybody out for fifteen minutes while auditions are performed.
I noticed there was only one black member of the orchestra and I don't think I saw any black people in the audience. This is very much a sign of the lack of social progress being made. The Symphony should be made up of the best performers, but the only people who can afford to spend that much of their life devoted to music are the wealthy. I'm sure music conservatories have grants and financial aide for the gifted but apparently that isn't enough. I don't have any solutions. I'm just pointing out what I saw.
People in the thousand dollar seats also wear expensive clothing, "to honor the performers." Personally I think cash is honor enough and If I'm going to sit still for two hours I want to be in a comfortable pair of shoes and wearing a pair of jeans. The fleecy sweatshirt was good too. It is starting to get nippy in down town Chicago. Some of these expensively outfitted people really out to take advantage of the tailoring and advice those stores provide. There were many older women in strapless gowns and I cant believe how unnaturally tan they were. Narcissistic idiots. The younger women seemed to enjoy the form fitting blouse and skirt that helps to accentuate their every fatty roll. Gold shear frills does not make a fatty roll more attractive.
Between every movement their would be a shifting of feet and coughing. People would breath shallowly and wait for the opportunity to cough. You could tell that the majority of the audience was familiar with the pieces they came to hear performed as they knew to cough and shift between movements and they new when applause was expected. I felt that I was as close to the audience that Mozart wrote for as people got. I had an education but didn't actually study music deeply. He was writing to impress and entrance or to shock and awe. I know something of music but was unfamiliar with the pieces as I walked in so at the performance I was hearing it for the first time so it needed to over awe me and drag me in. The man was a genius. We need more of that kind of genius in the music world.
Before going home we took a cab over to Greek town and had dinner at Artopolis. This is a wonderful place to eat. The food is good. The service is outstanding. There is a huge desert display to drool over and pick from.
More Laters
posted by Rich Rosenthal II at 1:54 AM
1 Comments:
Sounds like a good show! I once went there when I first moved to Chicago. I had the cheapest seats, front row, so all I could see was the orchestra member's shoes. I kept telling myself I didn't need to SEE them to appreciate them.
Now, every year, my daughter's choir goes downtown to sing in the lobby for the orchestra-goers. Every year I say I'll buy tickets, just so I can see little kids charm the heck out of the music-lovers. But then I see the price of tickets and blanche.
Kim C.
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