Last night we went to a brilliant twist on the Richmond Symphony Pops. Normally on Saturday nights the public radio station in Richmond airs Page Wilson’s Out of the Blue Radio Review which he calls (Page, that is) “pure-bred American mongrel music”. He usually manages to make that work and we quite often listen. He plays folk, blues, bluegrass and nearly anything of those genres that might ordinarily not get any airtime (at least not in Richmond). Last night it was the 8th anniversary of the Out of the Blue show and the Richmond Symphony Pops and Page Wilson (with his band Reckless Abandon) shared the stage. In addition, the Jackie Frost trio and Terry Garland performed.
We thoroughly enjoyed it. This time up the conductor was the Music Director, Mark Russell Smith, and just like Eckart Preu (the Associate Conductor that we’ve seen several times this year) he doesn’t let anyone forget just how much fun he has conducting and while the symphony was quiet how much he loves music. The Symphony played 3 movements from Rodeo (again, love that Aaron Copland) and a little Bartok with a tiny bit of Gershwin and Schumann thrown in. The three “pure-bred mongrel” groups performed original compositions. An excellent two hours of music.
On a completely different tact, today we bought a food sealer and vacuum sealed some beef tenderloin steaks. We also sealed a few chicken breasts, a pound of ground beef and some breakfast sausage. We ended up making our own bags for the tenderloin and I don’t know what was more fun–watching the packages get shrunk down or making our own bags. We are kitchen gadget geeks.