Neil October 10th, 2008

I was thrilled when Liesl announced she had tickets for Friday’s performace.

The kids were filled with dread.

Eben had such a foul attitude leaving his friends playing on the street that I had to discipline him for what he was saying.

“Art show, music - WHY do we HAVE to go” they whined, feeding on each other’s negativity.

We got them dressed and out of the house, and went for a look through the Gallery Crawl in the North Davidson (NoDa) area of Charlotte which is loosely the ‘arts district’.  We made it to the corner of 36th and Davidson to start our crawl at the Boulevard at NODA where Liesl and Tia enjoyed browsing all the jewelry and gifts.  Eben and I wandered and waited for the Lark & Key to open their doors for the evening.  We really enjoyed the quality of work shown at the Lark & Key, here’s their info so you can stop by:

453-B East 36th Street | 704.379.1826 | Sandy Snead
www.larkandkey.com | www.larkandkey.wordpress.com

There seemed to be two loosly organized shows on the walls at the Lark, Eben & Tia gave their consideration to the emotional work by Duy Huynh:

The contrast on that reproduction is a little higher than my memory, but the work is very contemplative even if it’s a little lonely or isolated.  The generously activated surfaces speak well of their studied application of color and development of form.  I enjoyed the unstated narrative of the pieces that quietly spoke of a sly, thoughtful wit.  You can see more of his work on his own website.  Eben & Tia appreciated the snacks which lifted their mood at the Lark (big thanks from the parents to the gallery!).

We then sauntered next door to visit the Green Rice Gallery opening of ”NOSTALGIA” Featuring New Works by Kate Vasseur.  I was looking forward to looking through as I was considering renting gallery space from them.  The opening was quiet, but we didn’t get a greeting which we felt was odd.  I enjoyed her treatments of a couple landscapes, but didn’t find a theme or strong vein to hold onto. 

Time’s up so we scooted back downtown to park in the Hearst Tower, and the kids began to get excited.

Upon walking out into the downtown streets among the skyscrapers, Eben’s face lit up with a giant grin.

Eben and Tia were captured by the excitement of being in the big city and entering the glass doors of the Bloomenthal Performing Arts Center.  We picked up our tickets from the will call booth and made our way down to our front row seats.  The North Carolina Blumenthal Performing Arts Center’s simple directions to the theater were easy to follow even on my second time to downtown Charlotte.  Eben and Tia were caught up in the late night exploration of the glass atrium and didn’t mind being early while Liesl and I people watched and joked with one eye on the kids snapping some pictures….

SCHUMANN PIANO CONCERTO was the headline for the Friday October 3rd performance.  If you’ve never liked classical music because all you’ve ever heard of it is recordings - let me encourage you to spend $10 and go see a show IN PERSON!

Symphonies were written before recording equipment - they’re a complete 3D sound experience better than anything you’ll hear in your home theater!  Take a listen to the pieces we enjoyed:

Here are some details from the program notes

The Charlotte Symphony performance was a breath of fresh air on a Friday night.  In college I used to sit in the balcony during music student recitals and veg out to the experience.  Eben and Tia were just learning to listen to classical music and the two hour performance stretched their attention span - but was good for them non the less.  After the show we still had some silliness left in us.