When I was in my early twenties, Dad moved my car from the street to the driveway. He came in shaking his head at my choice of radio station, and said something to the effect of, "didn't know I was raising a longhair."
I'm not sure I would call classical music a hippie thing, and in hindsight maybe it was in a news program when he heard it, which would have been NPR. Though I guess since classical stations tend to be NPR, maybe it's all a hippie thing. I dunno. Anyway, I like classical music, and KHCC is still my radio station of choice.
So some while back, when I drove by a neighborhood church and saw them advertising the "Delano Chamber Orchestra," I thought, "how cute, they've got a little church orchestra." I duly reported the event on the neighborhood news site, and moved on. Eventually, I don't remember how, I ended up on their press release list, and (when we actually started going to that church, and realized the musical talent, um, wasn't coming from there so much) started to figure out that maybe it was a cute little amateur-but-not-church orchestra, and finally I went.
It's a bunch of crazy people.
I mean that in a good way. People who are very determined to do this thing even if nobody pays them for it. And not because they aren't good enough to get paid; I think they're all at least semi-pro musicians outside of the Delano groups. They are good.
They do two different concert series, one the Delano Chamber Players, the other the Delano Chamber Brass. Sunday the Brass played, and for the second time their encore piece was a rousing Sousa march. "Stars and Stripes Forever" this time, with a muted trumpet doing a pretty passable piccolo impression.
Do hippies like oom-pah music? I may not qualify as one after all, because I admit I would be happy as a clam if they were to do an entirely Sousa concert. At the previous concert, the weather was so unseasonably fine the church had the windows open, which made me think: entirely Sousa concert, in a band shell. Possibly with an ice-cream social involved. Delano used to have an outdoor stage (built in the 70's, used by many longhairs), but it deteriorated and was torn down a few years back, and seems unlikely to be rebuilt. So the band shell part is a pipe dream, whether or not Sousa is.
They're going to be playing at the farmers market in June. It's not clear yet whether it'll be a brass ensemble or something more orchestral. It'll depend on what musicians are available (because they have other musician-ly jobs, you know). If it's brass, and they even hint that they might play some Sousa, I will personally make sure that an ice-cream social happens.
2 comments:
"Long-hair" is one of those terms that has changed meaning. Originally, it referred to classical musicians and music lovers. Lots of the great conductors and musicians, once, wore their hair long. :)
See, that's what I thought, and decided before I wrote the post that I would look it up so as not to look like an idiot. And I couldn't find a single reference to that usage. (And Dad's not around to ask for clarification.) So I concluded that must have been my imagination.
I'm still more of the hippie kind, though. And a quite literal longhair, to Mom's dismay. (Hi, Mom!) A real longhair of the old school would have known what Adagio the Players were practicing Monday night. (I was there to interview a couple of them, which was kind of comical. Bloggers are supposed to get to interview people by sending a list of questions and getting written answers.)
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