An Evening With The Arts

Last night at Rachel's school (Westmoore rocks!), she had to both play the flute and sing, though not at the same time, for their fourth annual Evening With The Arts. A fine show with Rachel performing brilliantly. (Insert caveats here about blurring photographs and inability to post video.) We could also enjoy "two dimensional" art - photographs and drawings - and "three dimensional" art - drama, speech, debate, though the debate thing makes me scratch my head. Debate as art? Anyway. . . didn't see any of the other stuff since all we wanted to see was Rachel and we did.

The next to the last piece of music they played was Symphony No. 1 (In Memoriam, Dresden, 1945) by Daniel Bukvich, a memorial to the Dresden fire-bombing in World War II. Interesting sonic experiment - the low rumbling of the timpanis mimicked the drone of bombers, the flutes high-pitched squeaks were frightening, and the band members used their voices for the screams and shouts. Harrowing. The composer claims no message in his piece so I'll omit any political references, too. I'll just say the piece was well done by both the students and Mr. Westbook's conducting and that should be enough, shouldn't it? Besides, both the orchestra and the choir finished up the night with a stirring rendition of America The Beautiful, a just about perfect ending for the evening.