Impromptu Concert Night

A few weeks ago, Laurent invited those of us who might be interested to attend an open rehearsal with the Phoenix Symphony Chorus, in which she sings, as they would be working on music in preparation for their trip to NYC to sing at Carnegie Hall. Obviously it would have been a wonderful adventure for her to go along, but as she was just in Rome last summer, and she is an exceedingly responsible young lady, she valued paying for her college courses above saving up for a trip to the Big Apple. So, although she wont be going out there next week to perform, she was able to at least perform for us and a couple hundred others who showed up at Pinnacle Presbyterian Church last night. I can’t remember all the pieces they did, but the main “event” was the Haydn: Mass in D Minor – Missa in angustiis (“Nelson Mass”) , Hob. XXII:11. As with the previous performances to which I’ve been this year, I remain highly impressed with the work this chorus is doing, and look forward to hearing them do the Haydn next season with the full Symphony under the baton of the very exciting Maestro Tito Muñoz.

Since I couldn’t produce a video of their performance, I give you the incomparable John Eliot Gardiner conducting the Monteverdi Choir, with the English Baroque Soloists.

We live in the West Valley, and our destination was far to the North East, so it was a considerable drive to get there and back again. I had brought Mother along, and Geneva and Junior, and we had picked up Megan at the church after work, so we had a merry time of it on our little road trip. While we were inside, Megan took Junior to the playground area for a little while and they had fun there, until they began to hear strange sounds coming from the desert that grew uncomfortably close. They came in periodically to listen, and went back out so Junior could run around the courtyard area. Despite his good humor for the entirety of the journey, however, it turns out that 10pm is really far too late a night for my three year old who normally goes to bed at 8pm. This morning — well, really all day — he was just so terribly contrary and put out about every single thing. There was much managing of the rage monster to be done, in spite of the fact that Laurent took him to the park for a while. I’m hopeful that tomorrow he’ll be back to his more normal perky self.