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?
Surely the first time anybody has associated me with the word "hip".
ReplyDeleteOh, 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!
ReplyDelete