Grand Teton Music Festival: open rehearsal, 2 July 2010

I took Phin and Lillian to the Jackson Hole Symphony's open rehearsal ($10 for adults, free for kids 6 to 18, or something like that) on Friday. Here's what they performed:

• Tragic Overture, Op. 81, by Johannes Brahms
• Violin Concerto by Alban Berg
• Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67 by Ludwig van Beethoven

They started by playing the National Anthem, because they would be playing it for the 4th of July, and then they went through each piece, only short-changing Beethoven's 5th towards the end, because they were running out of time. They would play through the entire piece and then go back to certain places in the piece at the direction of the director ('cause, you know, he directs). There was a guest violinist for the concerto (Akiko Suwanai, playing a 1714 Stradivarius called "Dolphin"), which was a 20th century piece, not super easy to listen to.

The rehearsal lasted about three hours, and this is what I learned:

• I like Beethoven's 5th very much. Of course everyone is familiar with the beginning, but I don't think I'd ever listened to the whole thing, or if I have, I wasn't paying attention. Unfortunately, I think they skipped parts of it during the rehearsal.
• It was too long for kids! Although Phin and Lillian did pretty well.
• I loved watching the rehearsal--it's cool to watch and hear a group that actually listens to and responds to their director--but it's very different from watching a performance, and I felt kind of frustrated that I wouldn't be seeing the performance later that night.
• But tickets are $52 for the weekend symphony performances. $10 for students, though! Which makes me want to send my kids in without me.

Grand Teton Music Festival has free events every Tuesday night for the duration of the festival (end of June to August 14), though, and my goal is to go to every one that I'm capable of attending. I'll blog about those, too.