Monday, June 16, 2008
1 Day in June
Friday, June 13, 2008. Opening night of the Detroit Symphony's 8 Days in June festival. It was a blast last year. Would the magic be back tonight?
Initial indications were promising. For people-watching, it was a target rich environment. From club wear to polo shirts over jeans, from Saville Row suits to Hawaiian shirts and Birkenstocks and just about everything in between, it all contributed to the pre-concert buzz in the atrium of the Max Fisher Music Center. At the box office a line of ticket seekers grew until it snaked onto Woodward Avenue. So far, so good.As you enter Orchestra Hall, you're welcomed by beaming t-shirt clad ushers who, like the musicians warming up on stage, have ditched the formal wear. Casual Friday returns to the Max. Another good sign.
Now the music begins and it's time for the promise to be kept. Could lightning strike again?
Long before the end of Mozart's Jupiter symphony, I had my answer. As that miraculous fugal finale unwound in front of me, the adrenalin coming off the stage was seeping into the audience, culminating in a roar of appreciation as we headed to intermission. In the second half, Holst's The Planets was dazzling, a tour de force for a great orchestra in a great hall.
Following another thunderous ovation, a glowing crowd poured into the atrium to keep the party going to the infectious world music rhythms filling the Max Fisher Music Center.
The reviews in The Detroit News and Free Press, while giving generally high marks for the DSO's performance, took issue with how successfully the "Power of Change" theme of the festival was working. Perhaps it is a bit of a stretch, but for me that's not important.
What I saw in a packed Orchestra Hall Friday night, taking up most of the row in front of me, was a group of 20-somethings decked out for a fun night coming to hear Mozart.I heard one mature couple behind me making conversation with another that "hadn't come down here in years." Maybe now there won't be as much time between visits.
I saw a pre-teen red-headed boy who could have stepped out of a Norman Rockwell painting pick two seats right in the front row, where he and his younger brother stared in rapt attention at every move maestro Oundjian made, for the entire concert.
To all those concerned about the future of classical music in this country, these are powerful signs that it is alive and well in Detroit.
There are 7 Days in June left. Come as you are. Sit where you like. But whatever you do, don't miss it.
(From The Well-Tempered Wireless)
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