Raleigh has become quite the cultural center, and at the heart of it all is Meymandi Hall.
Last night's performance featured music by Coleridge-Taylor, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky.
Of course, most of us came for the second half performance of the latter's Symphony No. 5 in E Minor. It's one of my all-time favorites -- a masterpiece of orchestration, melodic intricacy, drama, and emotion. It always send shivers through me when I hear it and often a tear of joy at the end. It was a truly wonderful performance. It was great looking at the faces of the players during the applause at the end. The conductor had to make three curtain calls, each of them well-deserved.
It's hard to say which style of music I enjoy the most -- classical, rock, country, blue grass, baroque, Hawaiian slack key guitar, etc. It's the same as the fingers in our hands. All have different sizes, and each is important. The glory of classical music is that each symphony or concerto has a story behind it. Tchaikovsky was a genius who gave so much of his brief existence on this earth to bringing classical music to life for the masses. I really loved this performance with its brilliant orchestra and its young conductor, who, by the way, hails from Brazil and smiled at me when I shouted "Maravilhoso!"
Bravo to all of you, and glory to the One who stands behind every great piece of music ever written or performed.