We went to a concert last night at the Arvada Center. The Colorado Chamber Orchestra presented their spring concert, which included Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, Handel’s Royal Fireworks Music, and Mendelssohn’s Symphony #5: Reformation. They also performed Remembrance, by Michael Udow, a local composer.
I didn’t care for Remembrance, but everything else was quite nice. Fanfare for the Common Man was different from every other performance of it I’ve attended, because it was performed “in the round.” Our seats were pretty close to the center, and we were surrounded by the brass section, with French horns to our right, trumpets/cornets to the left, and trombones and tubas behind us, with the remainder of the orchestra on stage. The music director for the orchestra, Michael Blomster, first performed the piece forty years ago, with Aaron Copland conducting, which I thought was an interesting bit of information.
All in all, a very nice concert that I quite enjoyed.