first we tried a new dinner place before the show- Yummy House (bad name - best Chinese food we have had in Florida) where we had excellent salt and pepper oysters and beef chow fun and shrimp & scallops in XO sauce... it is Hong Kong style Chinese-
then we headed over to Van Wezel and heard a magnificent performance by the entire Academy (both with full orchestra and with strings only) but the star attraction - and rightly so, was Joshua Bell! what a virtuoso- a performance that left us in awe of such talent...
here is what was on the program tonight- the Bach (performed by the strings) - was excellent; the Beethoven (by the whole orchestra) was fabulous; the Saint-Saens (the whole orchestra again) was the performance of the evening in my opinion- truly inspired and inspiring!; and the final piece was Schubert, which suffered by the comparison to the others... perhaps it was the arrangement (Mahler) but it seemed to lose focus along the way --- and was a bit of a disappointment in an otherwise flawless program.
Joshua Bell was on the front of the annual Van Wezel program (with a number of other top drawing performers) and richly deserved to be so featured... wonderful performance-
here is a bit more detail about the ASMF and Bell-
a superb performance and fabulous concert overall! (tomorrow - back to Morocco- as we head into the Sahara!)
