tricentennial

Hard to believe this blog has made it to 300 posts.

What's new? Well, last night I attended a concert by the Orquesta Sinfonica de la Universidad de Guanajuato. This cost all of $7.00 and was a fine experience. (It's possible that my status as a don Quijote student could have gotten me a 50% discount, but I didn't really have the nerve to ask for it). With 'director huesped' Stefano Mazzoleni and guest pianist Dimitri Romano, seven bucks seemed like a bargain already.

Unfortunately, I forgot the universal rule followed by program directors everywhere, namely their obscure compulsion to stick the audience with some vile modern rubbish, presumably in the name of 'progress' or showing how 'avant-garde' they are. Generally, they will front-load the program with this dreck so that there can be no hope of escape. So the smart concert attendance strategy these days is to arrive late and miss the first piece. No such luck last night, however - I arrived on time and was thus subjected to a purgatorial 16 minutes of noise by some 'composer' called Nicola Sani. If I say that, according to the program notes, one of his primary influences was the despicable assmarmot Karlheinz Stockhausen, fraudulent bane of concertgoers the world over, I think you will get the picture.

Fortunately, the remainder of the program was entirely satisfactory, though the closest it got to any of the mainstream romantic repertory was a suite of airs and dances by Respighi. Ol' Dimitri was da bomb on the piano, it has to be said.

And, miracle of miracles, despite it being Friday night here in ol' Guanajuato, I slept like a log in my interior courtyard room, undisturbed by any ambient acoustic pollution.

Today, if I'm up for it, I intend to take the 4-hour walking tour of the city. Possibly including mummies! Watch this space for further developments.