Phenomenal Philadelphia by May Zheng (2015/03/25)

她写的

Yesterday I went to a Philadelphia philharmonic orchestra concert with YOCJ. It was very cool and I really enjoyed it.

First, there was a regular orchestra piece, played by the entire orchestra. It was amazing because the whole orchestra played as a whole, as if from one giant instrument. All the sections had their own thread to weave into the music, and the bows of the string instruments all moved in the same tempo, rhythm, and duration. It was perfectly synchronized, and I couldn’t believe that an orchestra could really do this. It was magical. I had never seen or heard anything like it before; the parts were all flowing together; the conductor was dancing and leading the orchestra; and the whole thing just fit together like an abstract puzzle.

After the first orchestra piece, there was another performance with a soloist. She was absolutely amazing. Even though I could tell that her dynamic was supposed to be piano, and it was, we could all hear her. She was so expressive, and there was even suspense when the mood got spooky, or quiet. She was practically dancing, swooping her whole body around and her bow was literally flying through the air. We brought binoculars so we could see her clearly, and she was sweating. When she finished everyone gave her an encore, and she really deserved it in my opinion.

Finally, there were the Planets by the orchestra again, and I have heard these before so it was almost familiar. However, this orchestra put certain mystery and magic into the music that made it come alive, jumping and snapping, so you seemed to dissolve into the music. We stood and clapped for over five minutes, I should think, and the Philadelphia orchestra wholly won the applause. They played beautifully and I could tell that they all really enjoyed the performance.

The passion was clear in the music, and that’s what made it special. With any other orchestras that I’ve heard, they all seemed a bit robotic, but with the Philadelphia orchestra, you could really tell that they were making pure music, and were really engaged in what they were doing. You could see them moving, closing their eyes, and getting lost in it.