Culture Abounds

This week, I attended two cultural events. This is more than I typically attend in a month or even a quarter. (I'm about to change that, btw...)

On Thursday, I had the fortune to get invited to the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra's Gala kick-off event. We had awesome seats and got to partake of Beethoven's 5th as well as the marvelous Concerto in D major for Violin and Orchestra by above-mentioned (pretty famous) composer. The violinist of the evening was "living-legend" (I didn't know this until I just read it on the Symphony's website) Itzhak Perlman. This man does not at all conform to the stereotypical violinist character. He is overweight, old, can barely walk (due to childhood polio), but boy can he play. So much for stereotypes. I generally get really nervous for soloists because I know how hard it is and how horrible it is to make a mistake. However, once Mr. Perlman put his chin to his violin, all nervousness on my part dissipated. This guy knew what he was doing. He played effortlessly as if he was just playing around at home in his studio (on his Soil Stradivarius). Amazing.

Today, we all went to the Hidden River Art Festival right here in the neighborhood. There were 80 artists showing off everything from paintings to jewelry to weird stone monsters (Sophie would be scared). It was a good time. I did a good job not buying jewelry. It was hard. I almost justified one purchase because it allowed Kenyan women to have a good and reliable income by making the beads for the jewelry. Maybe at the next art show in November... :)

Culture is good and required.