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Stanley Park is often described as Vancouver's jewel, and on a luminous summer evening with some free music in the air, it certainly fit that description. Hundreds of people streamed in and sat on the grass in front of the portable stage, awaiting the arrival of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. A dusty orange and purple twilight was settling over the mountains, the forest canopy glowed, there was a bit of a breeze off the ocean, and I saw a bald eagle drift past, looking for a fish.
I was shooed away from the front of the stage by a guy who said that there would be horses riding through there shortly, so I moved back and read the program:
Rossini: William Tell Overture
Lehar: Gold & Silver Waltz
Dvorak: Slavonic Dance No. 8 in G minor
Saint-Saëns: Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso
(with a violin soloist named Christel Lee)
« Intermission »
Borodin: Prince Igor: Polovtsian Dances
Elgar: Enigma Variations, Op. 36: Nimrod
Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture, Op. 49
"Mostly crowd pleasers," I thought, but the concert was great. I'd never seen a symphony orchestra live before, and I was very impressed. When you were raised on pop music (lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass and drums and maybe a keyboard player), well... that's not very complex. Music is much different when you see 35 or 40 musicians on stage, all working together and meshing perfectly. Very good players, very good promo for the VSO.
Maestro Bramwell Tovey is a jovial fellow and did indeed arrive, with his children, in a carriage drawn by two white horses, and accompanied by the Stanley Park mounted police. He's popular, and has a good common touch. He has the audience in the palm of his hand and he knows it, but he's modest about it, and has good rapport. He tells jokes as he's introducing each piece, and the audience loves it. A very good showman, and he's clearly enjoying himself up there.
Ms Lee the soloist turned out to be all of 14 years old, another child prodigy on her way to a brilliant career. She appeared onstage on a bright red gown (so she stands out against the black and white of the orchestra) and played her heart out. Humbling to think that at 14, this girl already knows how to do something way better than I'll ever know how to do anything. People ran up to the stage and gave her bouquets.
I'm curious about how things work, so I moved around until I could see how the orchestra was arranged, and who played what. The strings do most of the work, and the horn players (especially the trombones and tubas) don't have much to do at all. For the second half of the show, I made sure I got myself into the mosh pit, so I could best experience the cannons in the 1812 Overture. Symphony orchestras are fully miked; they have PA systems and sound board guys, too. Who knew? Certainly not me.
A great many children were in attendance, including one very cool little 3 year old girl sitting near me (down in the mosh pit) in her baby brother's stroller, cheering and laughing and waving her arms around wildly. She obviously liked the maestro.
They started with 'O Canada' and even did an encore: a lively Strauss waltz where the audience was invited to clap along, and we all did.
Time spent: about 2.5 hours, and it was time well spent indeed.
Another free concert is scheduled this Friday (August 12, 7:30 PM) in Deer Lake Park in Burnaby. This will feature Ken Hsieh as conductor, and Christopher Lee as clarinet soloist. Between now and then, I'll be getting out my map, the better to learn where Deer Lake Park might be.
Vancouver Symphony
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