Monday 11 May 2009

Saturday 9th May 2009 – Auditioning Replacements for Souza

We were talking about music, and my hosts had somehow got the impression that I was a pretty good musician.  They were telling me about a couple of youngsters from the local high school who had recently graduated college and were looking to start a career in music.   It was decided that the best thing to do was to arrange a concert at the new Burnsville Center for the Performing Arts, where the Minnesota Symphonic Winds would play a piece by each of these budding composers.  I asked them to add a piece by Sousa, just for comparison, and they offered to start with a piece by Vaughan Williams, just to make me feel at home.

Souza is one of the wonders of America.  It is hard to think of America without hearing Souza in the background, and it hard to hear Souza without conjuring up visions of America.  So I was looking forward to the concert.  The Burnsville Center for the Performing Arts is quite new, and has a 1000-seat raked auditorium.  It is beautifully designed and fitted out to the highest quality.  A quite fitting place for me to deliver my judgment.  So as not to stress the young composers, the event was disguised as a Rotary fundraiser, with auctions, and local restaurants providing samples of their fare.

Vaughan Williams 'Toccata Marziale' opened the proceedings, and the offerings of our two local composers sandwiched Souza's 'Hands Across the Sea'.  The Minnesota Symphonic Winds is over 80 strong, so there was a lot of sound in the auditorium.  Our young novitiates were in powerful company, but I was able to signal, in both cases, that a standing ovation was in order, which, indeed, it was.  Both young men were present, and seemed grateful, but the applause was well-deserved.

 

Everybody was interested in my upcoming trip.  They were especially impressed by a traveller who could turn up in a tuxedo.  I felt quite Edwardian, which seems to suit me.

1 comment:

Joseph said...

If you turned up in a tuxedo and it suited you, I guess you must have felt that you had cracked the Da Vinci code.