March at the Phantom Concert Hall

Once again we head out to that refurbished old concert hall, in its shabby romantic grandeur. It's slowly coming together; the seats have been replaced, and are now much more comfortable. And we're happy to see they're carefully preserving some of the shabby romance while making sure it's clean and in good shape. These folks get it.

That new orchestra we saw back in October is returning, with a new program. There's some fairly standard works...at least they don't do "Rite of Spring" which everyone does in March, I mean, really. I can't even. And then in the second half of the show, they break the mold with a modern work from Bela Bartok.



It's quite an end to the show, something dark and atonal but also very harmonic in its menace. We also have a spirited discussion about Bartok's influence on modern film composers, as some of us find it very obvious in this work. (Come on, there are moments that sound like something lifted from a Hammer film...) That handsome violinist is back, and that blonde oboist....and good heavens, who is that new percussionist? Oh my.

Apres-show, there's a promising looking bar across the street, recently opened...let's have a libation before we part ways for the night...