Bill's Posterous

I took my son Jacob to the Fairfax Symphony last night. It was their opening concert of the season. The Fairfax Symphony is a very good regional symphony that has build up a solid reputation over the years. This year is the first with their new music director Christopher Zimmerman and he brought his A game to last night's performance.

The first piece was Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. These were unfamiliar to me. I am more a fan of Bernstein as conductor than composer. This piece started a little flat tonally but picked up and was very delightful. It certainly had it roots in the 50s by evidence of the bongos that were an essential part of the piece.

The next piece was Elgar's Introduction and Allegro in G Major, op. 47. This was a lush and beautiful piece that consisted only of strings including a string quartet in the middle of the work. It was very well done and it was Jacob's favorite of the night.

The last piece was Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. Wow, an awesome piece that I thought was very well played. Zimmerman pulled out all the stops here and the sound that reached us in the upper tiers was just great. I truly enjoyed this. I have heard the Rite of Spring before but never took the opportunity to focus attentively as I was able to last night. It was something else. The Bernstein piece was a good bookend to the Stravinsky.

All in all it was a great concert going experience.