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Houston Symphony Concert Report

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I attended the Houston Symphony conducted by Andres Orozco-Estrada on Sunday, February 18th. It consisted of three pieces by the name of Three Dance Episodes from On the Town, Lago de Lagrimas Concert for Flutes, and Symphony no 7 in D minor, Opus 70. Overall, it was a great experience that I would definitely repeat because it was relaxing and peaceful watching the performance. The crowd was very respectful and the setting was professional and fancy. Everyone was nicely dressed and the workers were extremely helpful in directing the audience to the correct place. The doors were not allowed to be opened during performances which kept the distractions to a minimum.
Out of all the songs, my favorite piece was Lago de Lagrimas. As explained by …show more content…

The stringed instruments were the accompaniment; therefor, they began with harmonics, chromatics, and tremolo for various measures rather than having a moving part. The melody was given to the flutes and soloist, Sami Junnonen, who was also very talented. The song was about 22 minutes long and he had the whole piece memorized. It sounded very sad, but soothing simultaneously. There were visuals around the theater, which made it easier to understand and visualize what Lopez was trying to describe when writing the song. The sorrow of the princess was definitely felt by the audience and it was heard throughout the piece. Since the piece was intended to be sad, it remained in a minor key for the most part. I did notice that as the intensity of the song (when the princess’ father send soldiers to capture the two lovers) was shown by using louder dynamics such as fortissimo (ff) rather than piano (p) or pianissimo (pp). Lopez also included more use of the percussion and brass instruments such as the tuba, trombone, trumpet and horn making the suspense grow. The upper stringed instruments complimented the flute very nicely since they both have that soothing sound. This piece consisted of two different movements. The second part of it was a lot more allegro, upbeat, and energized. It symbolized the eternal love that no one, not even a powerful king, could take away. The whole orchestra had more active roles and a polyphonic texture. Together they made a beautiful

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A slow timpani beat set the pulse, and the rest of the orchestra entered instrument by instrument to build the melody. La Valse lived up to its translated name of “The Waltz”, as the melody weaved a dance from the music. The upper registers swirled, with the melody rising and falling in volume with each measure. The lower voices pulsed the steady dance beat, keeping the other instruments in line. Just like a dancer passing from person to person, the melody was passed from instrument to instrument, each getting their turn to be the center of the ball.

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This piece started off in major and it continued that way with the only relief of a minor key by the violin soloist. This piece sounded rather depressing all the way through. The third movement of the concerto was titled Allegro. This piece was the most enjoyable to me and I noticed that between the violin soloist and the rest of the orchestra, there was call and response taking place starting with the violin soloist. It was almost like a conversation between the two and you could visually see the soloist make different facial expressions, almost as if he was challenging them to do better than what he was doing.

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