Orchestra

My wife and I went to a Tulsa Symphony Orchestra concert last weekend. We sat way up in the nosebleed balcony, because the Orchestra sounds just as good from there. And because I'm cheap.

We walked in and hit the stairs. We were behind a hubby-wife-kiddo trio, all of whom were speaking Russian. The guy STANK of cigarette smoke. The stench was so strong I expected to see at least three lit Joe Camels and a stogie. I was shocked that smoke alarms weren't going off. He left a vapor trail that the space shuttle would have been proud of.

We reached the "upper" level (still below the Mezzanine and the Balcony). They wandered off toward an usher, tickets in hand. We went on to the next flight of stairs, grateful to not be sucking their fumes.

Many stairs later, we reached the balcony. Most of the lazy (or sane, depending on your point of view) people in attendance took the elevators to get up that far. The door opened, and the Russian smog farm stepped out! What fun!

We fell into step behind them again. They approached the user in front of us, while I fearfully looked at our tickets. I could hear the user; "OK, your seats are right center ("Dang!"), row E ("DANG!"), near the aisle, seats 10-13." I whimpered... our seats were next to them.

Thankfully, the stink did eventually subside a bit. They were a very nice family, they just made my eyes water.

The guest Pianist for the night was Alexander Ghindin. He's also a Russian, but we weren't close enough to tell if he emitted vapors. After a wonderful Prokofiev concerto, he asked the conductor if he could do an encore. He played The Stars And Stripes Forever.

This is not an easy piece to play solo. It was fantastic. Early on, the crowd started to shout and clap along in rhythm. Unfortunately, the crowd was far too white to keep up a steady rhythm, so the clapping died away.

I searched youtube for a video of Ghindin playing the song but came up short. What I did find is a 'vid of the Boston Pops, and several low-quality 'vids of various pianists. I finally picked the one with the best audio.



I know, I know... good audio, non-existent video. Sorry about the guy with the liver spots.