To be sung on a summer night...

Some important Choralation milestones have been reached in the long month since my last post. I've had over 1000 visitors since I added the site tracker at the bottom of the page and this blog is now two years old. I have to say I'm proud it's still sort of alive at this point - I've never been a terribly successful diarist. There are a number of posts on here that I think are of fairly high quality, which I hope offset the long lulls between sometimes inane posts. So, in order to give the people what they pay for (well, not exactly), I'll actually write some content now.

I've been thinking a lot about the concert experience of late as a result of the obligatory outdoor summer concert season. I've also been singing much less and enjoying concerts as a spectator rather than a performer. Although I love sitting in a darkened concert hall with controlled acoustics, theatrical lighting, and plush seats, I find something deeply satisfying about the informality of the outdoor concert experience. As a musician, I'm always interested in how things sound and look from a variety of different vantage points. Outdoor concerts give one the opportunity to stroll around while listening. I'm not necessarily less engaged, I'm just adding another element to the experience. I'm also intrigued by audiences and find myself watching people during a concert. I like seeing families with their dogs, picnics, and bottles of wine relaxing while listening to some music. It's kind of fun seeing kids running around playing soccer while strains of Tchaikovsky waft into the air. There has always been a place (maybe not so much with Tchaikovsky, now that I think about it...) for enjoying music in the outdoors. Think of all the wind serenades, water music, divertimentos and brass ensembles written for this very purpose.

I guess what I'm getting at is that we should be free to experience live music a number of different ways. Some music is absolutely meant for the concert hall and one's undivided attention while other music was composed to create a setting for a lovely evening. And on a beautiful summer night, I'll take the latter. Now, if we could only do something about the mosquitos...