inbae’s blog | [ i n b a e b a y . c o m ]

I look back to realize that I have been to three awesome musical performances in the past 30 days. I should have blogged about them individually in a more timely manner, I thought for a second, but then this summary post is also good too. (They were all on different nights. FYI.)

- Bela Fleck and the Flecktones

BF&F is a futuristic funky jazz bluegrass (I just made that up) group, led by Bela Fleck. His banjo, fused with Victor Wooten’s bass, Jeff Coffin’s saxophone/flute, and Future Man’s percussion riddled holiday tunes at Yoshi’s SF for their Christmas album tour. Their instrumental mojo is quite top-notch and sometimes jaw-dropping: Fleck doing his crazy arpeggios, Wooten his crazy tapping and multi-slapping, Coffin playing two, I repeat, two, saxophone playing at once, and Future Man going downtown with his Drumitar (his own invention that looks like Guitar Hero controller but plays full drum set sound), very very inspiring.

Victor Wooten was my muse and idol back in high school when I was into bass guitar. And I got to see his performance in person. And took a picture with him. And got an autograph. Grrrrrreat susssssssssssessssss!

- Mahler’s Symphony No. 8

Mahler’s piece was a good excuse for us to make our debut appearance at the SF Symphony Davis Hall. The stage was filled with about ~400 performers, more than half of them being the SF Chorus members. This piece is nicknamed “Symphony for a Thousand”, by the first promoter of the performance when Mahler first presented it to the world, and even though Mahler himself never endorsed the name, it stuck. It’s called that because… it was meant to be performed with, literally, 1,000 people. And that’s how he did it for the debut. It must have been quite an aural spectacle, too bad no one really tries to replicate the scale of performance anymore. (I read it somewhere that there has been few concerts that actually had close to that many number of performers. But even with just less than half of that, it sounded grand and powerful. I loved it. Especially when the choir broke out. Tilson Thomas, the conductor, was quite an animated and energetic one, and the audience loved him. They at the end did not hold back on standing ovations and ended up bringing back Thomas and the lead singers four times on stage. I gladly took part in it because it was the best symphonic experience for me. (And no, no autographs from anyone this time.)

- La Boheme

To top our “Tour de SF scène musicale” we paid visit to the SF Opera House next door. We dressed up even a bit more than we did for the symphony a week prior to. And it felt right. It was also the first time for me to attend an opera, and for some reason it felt much more old-world than the symphony experience for some reason. The building, for one, was magnificent, with marblestone architecture and amazing interior details - especially the light fixture above the audience that contrasted well with the light blue ceiling. The orchestra and the singers gave an impressive performance, and the humor in the lines were funny. But for some reason, probably no other than the lack of research beforehand, I couldn’t recognize any familiar melodies from any of the pieces. Or perhaps it’s just me equating “opera = Cavalleria Rusticana” that I have listened to at my leisure. I need to go watch that at some point in my life. But anyways, La Boheme was a very approachable opera to watch.