Minnesota Orchestra

My husband and I went to hear the Minnesota Orchestra in Minneapolis last week for the first time. It was also the first time we walked around downtown Minneapolis with its beautiful tall architectural buildings.

Foshay Building

I found this sidewalk sculpture intriguing — I believe the rusted look is natural.

Minneapolis Sidewalk Sculpture

Some of the downtown area reminded me of Spokane, Washington as they had sky bridges going from building to building. I don’t see these too often in the cities I’ve visited.

Minneapolis Downtown Sky Bridge

On the side of one of the buildings we passed was a musical mural that caught my attention as it loomed in spite of everything around it. I wonder who made this mural … anyone know?

Musical Notes Mural
Musical Notes Mural

After dinner, we walked to the Orchestra Hall. It looked a lot smaller on the outside than I expected although I’m not sure why I had any expectations since I don’t frequent orchestra halls very often.

Minnesota Orchestra Hall
Parking Sky Bridge

We arrived a little early so we sat and waited until the pre-symphony performance was over. We could have attended this performance also but chose instead to walk around the downtown area and have dinner. We weren’t the only ones early though. Soon enough we handed in our tickets and went to find our balcony seats on the second floor.

I think we had one of the best seats as we could see everything and everyone and the music sounded great from here. The orchestra hall lighting was not very conducive to picture taking so the couple pictures I did take didn’t turn out very well.

Orchestra Hall
Minnesota Orchestra Hall
Minnesota Orchestra Hall

I was pretty impressed with the inside of the hall and felt happy in my belly. I’m not sure why but I think I smiled throughout the whole performance.

The performance we chose to see was Vanska Conducts Beethoven. The violinist, Jennifer Frautschi, was impressive although sometimes it looked like her arm was tired from holding the violin as she shook it rather vigorously a couple of times between sets.

The music director, Osmo Vanska, was quite spry and his whole body moved with the music as he was directing. I could tell that he has a passion for the work he does as his directing was so intense. What a great job he did! He is now in his ninth season in Minnesota and has led the Orchestra on four major European tours.

One of my favorite pieces that was played was Wheat Dance which is part of a Ballet Suite from Estancia. It made me feel calm. A second piece they played that was quite upbeat and I enjoyed was part of Symphony No. 6 in F major, Opus 68, Pastoral and was called Andante molto moto: Scene by the brook.

My mother-in-law gave us these tickets for Christmas and we are so appreciative that she chose this unique gift. We will have to go back sometime as we thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

 

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