I’ve always loved classical music but rarely do I find myself listening to it (though I love it when I do), and even more rarely do I go and see it performed live. I think the last time was a few years ago when I went to see the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra playing their free Summer Concerts at the Myer Music Bowl.
So when I arrived in Santiago and saw that one of the most famous Latino Quartets was playing – Cuarteto Latinoamericano – I figured “why not”.
Actually, the most concerning thing was what to wear given my extremely meager travel-clothes pickings! Scraped together an outfit – black skirt, black top, red shawl (shoes are the hardest) and added the latest piece of jewelry that I purchased on the streets of Santiago for $4 just 2 days ago. Quite fitting no?
It was a fairly short concert at the Nescafé Theatre of the Arts (yes, you read that correctly), where they played relatively contemporary compositions from Latin American composers. My favourite was “Gavota” by Manuel M. Ponce (México) though I was truly intrigued by some of the techniques they employed to perform one of the other pieces – including using the violin and cello essentially as drums!
Although more a fan of Haydn, Mozart, Bach, etc – it was very nice to hear some classical music played exceptionally well. Need to do this more often!
