Thanks to a friend who is much hipper than me, I turned up Sunday night for the chamber music night at Revolution Cafe in the mission. The musicians call themselves Classical Revolution. It's like being able to drop in on a chamber music party for young musicians.
Who says that there's no audience for classical music? The small venue was standing room only, & the crowd spilled out onto the sidewalk. The audience is crammed in so close that you can stand behind a musician & read his music over his shoulder.
I heard movements of Beethoven Piano Trios & String Quartets & Schubert's Trout Quintet. A tenor hushed the room with Una Furtiva Lagrima & the portrait aria from The Magic Flute. The evening ended with 9 musicians tearing through the 1st movement of Tchaikovsky's Sextet "Souvenir de Florence".
They definitely have a young, hip, bohemian thing going on. The musicians play with a boisterousness that is deliberately at odds with the refined manners of the concert hall. I wonder if performances in these venues create classical music fans who go on to buy concert tickets & cds. Or are the people there already classical music buffs?
2 comments:
Surely the first time anybody has associated me with the word "hip".
Oh, don't be so surprised. You rate above me for sure, & I certainly wouldn't have found Classical Revolution on my own. If they ever get a grand piano in that place, they'll really blow the roof off!
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