Let the music take you away
KSO's 'Scottish Nights' celebration brings true sound of 'Celtic Air'
Kelly Archer
Issue date: 1/27/03 Section: LifeStyle
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Not wanting to go to the symphony alone, I found a musical friend who was more than willing to go along.
She and I started out on our journey to Kingsport -- to the Employee Center -- to a section of town that neither of us knew much about. Luckily, many people were arriving at the same time and it was not too difficult to find.
We walked inside with many true Scots, dressed in their kilts of plaid. Discounted tickets were available to them for braving the cold in a kilt -- definitely deserved as the temperature fell to around 20 degrees by the time the concert was over.
After trying to decide whether to sit in the balcony or on the main floor, we opted for the balcony in seats the ticket lady said were the best still available. We paid for our discounted student tickets -- still 10 bucks a pop -- and headed upstairs.
We were ushered to our seats and began looking at our programs waiting for the show to being at 8 p.m.
While we eagerly waited, we were informed where all the emergency exits were and were reminded to turn off our pagers and cellular phones.
Finally, Jane Blair MacMorran, concertmaster, appeared to tune the orchestra. Moments later the conductor, Cyrus Ginwala, welcomed everyone and introduced their first piece of music.
As a side note, the concert was on Burns Night, a celebration of the birthday of Robert Burns, one of Scotland's most well known and loved poets and song writers. His most famous song is "Auld Lang Syne" which means "long ago."
The orchestra's first piece was Felix Mendelssohn's "Symphony No. 3 Op. 56" which consisted of five movements played with very little pause between them. As always, the first and last movements were very emotive and the middle ones were more relaxing. Movements like those are good. The smooth-flowing melodies could easily have soothed me into dreamland.
Before intermission, Ginwala tastefully pleaded for support from the audience to help with funding for the orchestra. His kilt was brought out and he said if $1,000 was collected during intermission, he would conduct in the kilt during the second half. He joked that the "first three or four rows would see what a true Scotsman wore under his kilt."