(Robin, excuse me for posting this on the LR Forum but I don't think the Louisville Arts and Entertainment Forum gets as many hits as this one does. I'll understand if you move it.)
Yesterday’s Louisville Orchestra Hardscuffle Coffee Classics was the best orchestra concert that I have been to ever
All three pieces performed were rooted in folk music. The concert opened with Variaciones concertantes, op. 23 by the Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera - think gaucho music in symphonic form. Brilliant! The concert ended with Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, op. 17 ("Little Russian") by Tchaikovsky - think Ukrainian folk songs. Pure Tchaikovsky!
But the "piece de resistance" was the second offering: Voodoo Violin Concerto No. 1 composed and performed by Daniel Bernard Roumain - think "hip hop" in symphonic form. The four movements combing perpetual motion with slow funk were played with formal break. Besides bowing in circular motion, playing the violin like a guitar while holding the bow between his teeth, DBR literally danced about the stage. I have never heard or seen anything like it. Amazing doesn't begin to describe it.
The best part is that all three will be preformed again this evening at the Kentucky Center. And you can get $10 rush tickets for tonight's performance. Run, don't walk to get them; the concert starts at 8pm.
(Oh yeah, the red shoes: Roumain wore shiny red shoes that made Dorothy's pale in comparison.)