A night at the Symphony.

For their final performance of their 70th Anniversary season, the Mid Columbia Symphony was performing Beethoven's 9th Symphony.  They also performed it at their 50th and 60th Anniversaries, so...with the assumption that it's an every 10 year event, you should probably go when you get a chance.

To someone who is not into classical music, just calling something Beethoven's 9th Symphony will probably cause them to have a blank face.  Saying 'Ode to Joy' might get more reaction, but in truth, the Ode to Joy is really only 10 minutes or so of an hour-plus 4 movement symphony.  But, it is one of the most recognizable pieces of music out there.



I make it sound like this was a voluntary attendance event, which I guess it technically was, but since the Mid Columbia Master Singers(with some augmentation from the chorus at Columbia Basin College) was providing the vocal support, I kind of had to be there.  My wife, well...she got to decide to go, but I would have pouted mightily if she hadn't gone.  And she would have missed one heck of a show. 

As I said, the Ode To Joy is only a small part of the 9th Symphony, but the 20 minutes of singing we do in the 4th Movement is...quite a rush.  If you listen to whole piece of music above, which is half the 4th movement...the pace is cooking, and for a tenor it's high, loud and long.  There is not much difference in my pulse between doing 20 minutes of this, or 20 minutes on the elliptical at the gym. 

The nice thing about singing with the Symphony vs. singing in Cats was that call time for the Symphony is only 30 minutes before we go on, instead of 2.5 hours before we go on, which means I can get dressed and head out the door as the same time as my wife. Heck, it felt very much like a date where I just got to do some fancy-ass karaoke.  It also gave us a chance for a nice dress-up picture.