Last night I took a little busman’s holiday, going to see the Marin Symphony performing at the Marin Civic Center. I went to hear our friend and quintet partner, Joyce Yang, perform the Rachmaninoff Paganini Variations. Joyce played exquisitely (as usual) and the orchestra sounded excellent. I even stuck around to hear Alasdair Neale lead the orchestra in Beethoven’s 5th.
It reminded me how wonderfully monumental Beethoven’s symphonic music can be. A quartet can only imply such grandeur – Op. 127 wrings that “bursting the limitations” quality from our puny four voices, which we will play at the Mondavi Center on 11/7.
The other great pleasure was in seeing so many friends and 3 former students. Both Stephanie Ng and Darcy Rindt performed with the orchestra and Christina Wong was in town visiting family from Cleveland, where she’s an active freelancer. Christina came to hear her Juilliard pal Joyce. It was sweet to see them and so many others, including Alasdair, who sent kind wishes to the quartet. It made me want to get out more often! I can’t wait to play the Dvorak Op. 81 with Joyce in November. She does it all: power and poetry. What a stunningly fine musician.
Paul