I have listened to so much classical music that I don’t often come across new music, but tonight was one of those rare occasions. I tuned in to the Classical KUSC station to listen to something while on my computer and was pleased to hear Sibelius playing. Then they started to play Cantus Articus “Concerto for Birds and Orchestra”. The music was exotic and unfamiliar. I closed my eyes and found myself not in the concert hall but deep in a forest with a myriad of birds coming together to perform as one entity–like an orchestra. My imagination surrendered to memory, and then I found myself sitting still in darkness and silence, listening to the flock of instruments on stage at Walt Disney Concert Hall. This is exactly the kind of music they would play before intermission. It was always the same formula of pairing modern works before intermission with something from the standard repertoire after the intermission. I relished the opportunity to discover new works in anticipation of something like Mahler, Wagner, or Sibelius. Oh, how I dearly miss going to performances. It was my escape from anything else that may be going on. 

The Concerto for Birds and Orchestra eventually ended. However, I decided I would treat myself to a late evening of lovely music. I would eliminate everything else from the agenda for tonight save for writing and then reading while leaving the radio on. 

The picture above is a picture once I took during intermission at the Los Angeles Opera.