An Evening at Helzberg

I went to the Kansas City Symphony last week, and walked away thinking "I should do this more often!" The program was all Saint-Saens, cradled in the belly of Helzberg Hall whose wooden insides reverberate like a musical instrument. Noah Geller did an outstanding job performing on the violin; at times his solo was as sharp as a knife cutting through a sea of symphony, and at other times it was alluringly allusive. And that was the beauty of it. At times Geller would strike a high harmonic that was enshrouded within the auspices of the orchestra, and then the orchestra would suddenly fall away, leaving that note resonating, clean and clear; simply earth shattering. The Saint-Saens Organ Concerto was also remarkable in its own way. At times I was struck with a returning motif that left me frantically sorting through snippets enfolded within my music memory. Where had I heard that before? I started grinning like a simpleton as soon as I realized it was part of the soundtrack to Babe. Who says that movies about talking pigs are not educational?