An Evening Filled with Music

On the balmy Saturday evening just passed, my beautiful boy and I enjoyed an evening of wonderful music. Works by the composer Franz Schubert, with a little Brahms too, filled the beautifully restored Sandgate Town Hall with music and our hearts with joy.

 The piano from which the music plays.

The evening's program. 

Just as he did the last time we saw him, when he played Gerschwin in this hall, the amazing Australian pianist,  Simon Tedeschi, enchanted us again with music and with his incredible talent. Tedeschi first played at the Sydney Opera House when he was 9years old; his hands played those of the young David Helfgott, whom we saw perform here too, in the movie, Shine. I love that he shares something of the composer, and the music when he introduces the pieces he will play, for those pieces and those who imagined them, all have their stories.

 The town hall lit up at night.

 The hall's historic clock tower.

 Fairy lights twinkling in the trees.

The pattern on the hall's beautiful ceiling. 

The lights that hang from the ceiling. 

The old timber and iron seats of the mezzanine where we sit.

We have been to a handful of these concerts now and we make it a special night out. We dress up a little, drive up together and walk arm in arm, along paths lit by twinkling fairy lights in the trees, to the town hall. We sit up on the mezzanine, on the old timber and iron seats, and look out across the expanse of the floor below to the stage. We listen in rapt silence and our clapping joins the enthusiastic applause for the playing and for the music. It's music we love.

You can enjoy a little of Simon Tedeschi's playing piano here, as there is a choice of videos on his website, or listen to a little of Schubert at this YouTube link.  

I always find it hard to describe what I love so much about classical music. It's the mountains and the valleys of pieces, how it describes such a range of emotions from glorious love and elation to the depths of desolate despair and melancholy. And how that's so open to the interpretation of the one who is listening.  I love to close my eyes and just listen. It's a joy my son and I share and I hope he'll long remember our evenings filled with music.

Meg