Last night my wife and I attended the 100th anniversary concert of the LA Philharmonic in Santa Barbara, through the Community Arts Music Association. Gustavo Dudamel and the orchestra played Ives #2 and Dvorak 9 “New World”. If you have a chance to see the LA Phil these days, do it. It’s the most beautiful sound in music at this point. Dudamel has taken an already fantastic orchestra and perfected it, taking a complex orchestra of individual players and getting it to sing with a single voice. He, and they, took the Dvorak and made it the loveliest thing I’ve heard in a long time: sweet, dynamic, just alive with passion and love. I’ve been a fan of that piece for 50 years and that’s the best interpretation I’ve ever heard.
But that’s not what I’m writing about this morning. I’m writing the social habits of humans.
Classical music has a generational problem: most classical music fans are old. Old as I’m getting, I’m a spring chicken at these concerts—well more than half the audience is over 70.
And they were all there last night. The Granada Theater (a lovely restored theater rebuilt from it’s 1924 roots as an acoustic and visual treasure) holds 1553 people. The concert was a sellout, and we were all jammed into two lobbies, sipping cheap wine and having little snacks the staff brought around on serving trays. During the intermission everyone crammed into the line for the restroom, and then lined up to try to get a good hand-wash out of the automatic sinks. Ha, that was a joke. Virus jokes were also made as old friends greeted each other with hugs and shaking hands.
I’d guess that at least 70% of the audience falls into the CDC’s criteria for vulnerable population for the COVID 19 virus. And there we all were, jammed in so close it was a virus’s paradise. If someone tests positive (and it’s just a matter of time) can you imagine the task to track down everyone at a concert? Not going to happen.
We’re told to avoid mass gatherings, but when it comes to a good concert...Well, be careful out there!