Smooth sailing, er, driving

[da]

This was quite the smooth afternoon and evening, all told; to Toronto, for a concert of Bartók and Brahms with the Toronto Symphony Hall.

...If you're in the GTA, interested in the Symphony, and you're under 30 or you have a friend who's under 30, Tsoundcheck is a steal. We went with mtffm & the_infamous_j, (only briefly tussling over who was whose date for the evening). Our tix were $12 each. They put us in the fourth row of Roy Thompson Hall. Awesome.

We had a fairly smooth drive to Toronto, and melted_snowball handily navigated us to Roy Thompson Hall. 90 minutes door-to-door. Parking was... right there, and reasonable. Dinner was... right there; with about four options, we chose Indian, which turned out to be a pretty good buffet. Some dishes I'd never tried, like a hollow corn-ball which you're supposed to drizzle a slightly sweet sauce inside. Yum sag paneer. Great dinner conversation, plus live Bhangra music. As we were preparing to pay, the waiter told us we had a Symphony special price, to boot. We zipped across the street, picked up tickets, and listened to Rick Phillips (sp?) give a lecture on the concert we were about to see. It was... reasonably useful for context, though not exactly crucial.

The concert space- woah. I've never been in Roy Thompson Hall before, and neither had any of the other three guys. It's... a lot bigger on the inside, probably because it's half sunk under ground. Our seats were roughly here. It was prettier than those photos, though you get a good sense for the size. I just looked for more photos, and failed to find anything useful. Anyhow.

The Bartók was a bit challenging; I liked the first and third movements, and melted_snowball liked the second. The musicians were superb. Apparently part of this was tuned to quarter-tones. Eek. I should listen to more of his work; especially the more folk-influenced earlier stuff, since I'm not particuarly experienced with it.

The Brahms was super. (In the car afterward, at least two of us thought we'd heard it before, though neither of us are sure of when. The first movement might've been used in a movie score?)

We happened to be sitting in front of the cellos, which lent it a bit more boomy sound, which I will admit I liked. I think that if I were listening to a CD, I'd think it was OK; but what a joy to be up close and seeing them produce this music.

The last movement, which was described as "heavily tragic" in the program, seemed heavy. Not so exciting, that.

Then, a quick stop by epi_lj's house... where they were just finishing up a game of Civilization. We only stayed briefly, which turned out to be the right choice since the roads were getting more snowy by the minute. Still, melted_snowball got us home again safely, again with great car conversation.

And now, I think it's bedtime for me.

Comments

[valkryor.livejournal.com]

fuzzpsych and I went to Roy Thompson Hall in November of 2000 to see Philip Glass and Kronos Quartet perform the newly-scored Philip Glass soundtrack to Dracula while it was playing in the background.

It was incredible. Even more so was the impropmtu signing they did afterwards.

It's such a neat building, both inside and out.

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

I adore Kronos. I've seen them a couple of times, and they're just a joy to watch and hear.

[valkryor.livejournal.com]

We didn't realize that Philip Glass was going to be performing with them that night, so that, for us, was the added bonus.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a totally kick-ass event. :)