Last weekend, there was a music festival in my city.
There were three stages : jazz, classical, and world music.
All free !
And best of all, it was all taking place in the area around the church
that I can see from my back garden !
The festival started at 6 pm, and finished around 1 am. I really wanted to hear all the music, but I was just too tired and left at about 10pm.
I managed to listen to 2 jazz ensembles ; unfortunately I didn’t catch their names. The first group, a quartet with a female guest soloist, was a lot of fun to listen to. They played ‘free jazz’ … lots of notes, lots of solos, and mostly unrecognizable melodies. :-)
I had totally forgotten it is customary to applaud the musicians after a solo ...
Right in front of me, there was a family of 4, sitting at a table.
The man had his back to the stage (he was on the front row !),
and they all kept talking to each other rather loudly, ordering drinks,
standing up, walking around, … They did everything but listen to the musicians.
So rude !
I then watched another man for a while, and he was quite the jazz snob ! :-)
He would make a big show of applauding after each solo (as loudly as he could) …
and then refuse to applaud at the end of a song.
Some people …
The stage for classical music was placed in the front garden of the vicarage, right behind the church.
The first group was a choir from Ghent. Some 20 ladies and 4 men. No, these aren’t great numbers …
They sang a lot of songs about ‘the month of May’ (in different languages)
and I found that a bit odd, it being August and all …
All in all, I didn’t enjoy this performance very much. There’s something about
‘old’ soprano voices that really hurts my ears.
The second performance, however, was great !
The Flemish Youth Orchestra played music for about an hour,
and the audience was quietly taking it all in. The orchestra even had to play an encore.
There was one kid (the youngest of the bunch, judging by his height) that really caught my eye.
In the minutes before the concert started, he was the only one that was warming up,
playing some bits and pieces from the score. And during the performance, he was the only one
that looked at the conductor. He really seemed to be in his element, and played with so much ease …
A Real Musician in the making !
On my way home, I took a picture of the church, all lit up in blue.
The next day, I decided to take a look at the pictures I had made, and freaked out a little bit about this one :
Look at the bottom-right figure :
