Author: Gerry Maravilla
I consider myself a concert veteran. My first concert was in the seventh grade; I saw Powerman 5000 and Static-X at the Hollywood Palladium. While my tastes in the past ten years have definitely changed, I have been lucky to see live acts from bands such as the Foo Fighters, Metallica, Nine Inch Nails, Audioslave, R.E.M., and many more. However, for all my years spent in beer-soaked mosh pits, I had never attended a classical music concert until last week.
This past Saturday, I made the short trip into Pasadena to see the Caltech Chamber Music Winter Concert. For the occasion, I swapped my tattered jeans and rock tees for a pair of a slacks and a button-up shirt. For those of you who don’t know me, it is a rare occasion to spot me in a collared shirt of any type.
I settled into my seat in Caltech’s small Dabney Lounge at a few minutes before eight. The lounge struck me in its drastic difference to the Great Western Forum or the Hollywood Bowl because of its regal decorum. The low-level lighting and tapestry on the wall set the mood for a proper evening–$12 beers and t-shirt vendors were nowhere in sight.
When the concert began at a few minutes past the hour, the potent smell of cannabis was curiously absent. What had I gotten myself into? While I do have an appreciation for classical music, my academic education on the genre reached only as far my elementary school years. I hoped that this concert would begin a process of reeducation and rediscovery of music sans guitar solos and Marshall stacks.
The concert started with a group of three Caltech first-years performing selections from Georg Philipp Telemann and Joseph Haydn. The conductor of the night’s performances, Delores Bing, accompanied the band on harpsichord during these first pieces. Bing’s harpsichord added beautiful accents to the flute and cello, while also contributing to the regality of the evening. Though I am unfamiliar with the classical pieces played, I found them engaging and enjoyable.
The next group of students to perform joined the rest of the orchestra with a flute, an oboe, a piano and a recorder. Continuing with pieces by Johann Joachim Quantz, Johann Christian Bach, and another piece by Telemann, the music soared between moments of emotional highs and lows that ended with an enthusiastic response from the audience.
During the third movement of Bach’s Quintet in D Major, I reflected upon the audience around me. While the Dabney Lounge lacked crowd surfers and drunken groupies, the one-hundred member audience was composed of peers, faculty members, alumni, and classical music enthusiasts. The event was free of charge, highlighting the Chamber Music Program’s desire to share a less popular musical passion with the community.
The concert closed with a beautiful rendition of Bedrich Smetana’s Piano Trio in G minor. As the lounge emptied, I left the venue feeling confident in my desire to venture outside my comfort zone into a musical world that I knew too little about. The music left me with a general sense of inspiration and vigor, as opposed to the exhaustion and fatigue I usually face following a rock show.
I will make sure to catch the Caltech-Occidental Concert Band’s performance in Thorne Hall on February 21. While the majority of the campus makes a run to grab Coachella tickets, I hope students will take notice of the music events occurring right on campus and the surrounding area.
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