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Sunday, June 15, 2008

Two concerts

Friday evening I drove directly from work to my mother's place (yes, again). We attended a concert at Furuboda that was very nice. It started with a group of young Russian girls who sang folksongs. The other act was a symphony orchestra from Lithuania. They were pretty good, and they got everybody clapping hands when they started with an ABBA-medley. Very enthusiastic conductor who occasionally turned around and directed the audience also! Music can really build bridges and cross over language barriers. They played Blue Tango by Leroy Anderson.

Saturday we picked up a friend of my mother's and drove to their friend in Kristianstad. Three talkative and chatty women in their 50's..... We got very tasty strawberry pie there. But I was happy to get orders from my mother to go grocery shopping after a while. When I returned, we left pretty soon, because I had bought some frozen fish.

Saturday evening my mother and I attended a wonderful concert in Ă…hus Church. It was the Zhukovsky Symphony Orchestra from outside Moscow who played many pieces by Leroy Anderson. Fifteen, to be exact. They were incredible! They managed to give an outstanding performance of these pieces with all the attributes. Though just one sandpaper for Sandpaper Ballet (should be three). At the end of Chicken Reel one guy stood up and sounded like a rooster. In Waltzing Cat, three guys jumped up and barked like dogs. The Fiddle Faddle was amazing with a girl playing the xylophone at an incredible speed, and she received the longest ovations also. For Syncopated Clock, they had a real clock ringing a few times. They also played Yesterday (The Beatles), a Russian piano piece and ended with a medley of Swedish(!) summer songs (Taube and others). The orchestra had the European Soccer Championships against them (Sweden played Spain at the same time - Sweden lost), but the church was almost full anyway. It is true that pieces by Leroy Anderson make the members of the audience leave the concert with a smile on their faces. It was a great concert, and I'm especially happy that my mother finally got to hear Leroy Anderson's music live!

Today was mostly garden work, laundry and cleaning - at my mother's place. No wonder my own apartment looks so messy.

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