Sharing the Symphony
On Thursday, April 16, I was invited—along with several other local bloggers and twitterers—to attend a performance by the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. In addition to live tweeting the event (check the #eso hashtag for those tweets) and being interviewed about the role that social media plays in promoting the arts (those videos should be up on the ESO blog in the near future), we were asked if we would blog about the concert.
I’m not a music critic, so I’m not going to give you a review of the concert, other than to say that it was excellent (I don’t think I’ve ever seen an ESO concert that I didn’t enjoy) and that you need to hear the giant pipe organ at the Winspear if you ever get the chance. That thing is amazingly powerful and the sound is great—it almost drowns out the rest of the orchestra!
Instead, I’m going to take a suggestion offered by ESO new media guy, Philip Paschke, and write about the importance of sharing cultural events—and the symphony in particular—with a friend.
Why take a friend to the ESO? Well, aside from the fact that I got a pair of free tickets, cultural events are always better if you have someone to share the experience with. Movies aren’t even half as good if you’ve got no one to talk discuss them with afterward. The same goes for the symphony.
Unlike a lot of popular music, orchestral music tends to fall into the realm of “high art.” Now, I don’t like to draw a distinction between the highbrow and the lowbrow—especially since so much of art manages to successfully combine the two—but let’s be honest here. As much as I love a good rap song, if you strip away the lyrics the music is pretty boring most of the time. Rarely is the music particularly thought provoking sans lyrics.
With classical and orchestral music, however, the music stands alone. Rarely is there a vocal component to voice the story that the composer is trying to tell. The music must do this on it’s own. Because of this, it can sometimes be hard to decide what sort of story is being told. Is this song about love and heartbreak, or is it about the horrors of war? Is this song a tribute to the composer’s god, or is it meant to conjure up images of the glory of nature?
With the variety of possiblities out there, having someone to discuss the concert with is all the more important. Not only can you talk about how good the music sounded, or how entertaining the conductor’s jokes were (I’m looking at you, Mr. Eddins). You can also discuss what the music was trying to say. Interpreting music—or any art, for that matter—is much more interesting when you have a companion to bounce ideas off of (or to debate ideas with, depending on what your idea of fun is).
The same is true of any sort of art. Whether you’re going to a horror movie or a performance by the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra (which I highly recommend), bring a friend. You’ll get much more out of the show because of it.