San Francisco Symphony

Jason and I went to see the San Francisco Symphony at Severance Hall yesterday. Each week Case has a drawing for tickets to see the Cleveland Orchestra, and this week I won. Through an exchange program, the San Francisco Symphony happened to be playing, though. This was the first time I had seen an orchestra performance at Severance Hall, and it was quite good. Michael Tilson Thomas conducted a few pieces that I had never heard before (or at least didn't remember hearing). All of the numbers were good, but I wasn't blown away by any of them. My primary enjoyment came from getting to watch all of the members of the symphony and pay attention to the little things each of them did. For example, the timpani player had to dampen his drums to shorten the length of some notes, and it was funny to see him reaching out to place his hands on four different drums as quickly as possible. After the concert, some guy in front of us actually yelled out, "bravo!" multiple times, which was pretty amusing.

I probably didn't enjoy it as much as I could have, simply because the flu I contracted on Monday is still lingering, and I felt pretty tired. In fact, I think I'm going to go to bed right now...