In front of a crowd that organizers believed might have been the largest ever for their series, the Seattle Chamber Music Society presented the Volunteer Park episode of its 2014 Summer Festival on Wednesday’s warm and breezy, near-end-of-July night.
With the works of Mozart and Beethoven rolling over the Volunteer Park lawn, Wednesday night’s free performance included clarinet great Ricardo Morales. The festival concludes this weekend with a series of performances at Benaroya Hall.
Unfortunately, there was no collaboration with the chamber players and the upright placed in Volunteer Park as part of the Pianos in the Park promotion.
But another Capitol Hill piano will be put into motion on Friday:
As a part of the on-going Pianos in the Parks program, we are thrilled to announce a performance at Cal Anderson park by Michael Allen Harrison tomorrow at 10 a.m. Michael is a well-known Seattle-based musician whose unique brand of music ranges from movie scores to passionate arrangements for piano in genres like jazz, fusion, smooth jazz, pop, new age, and adult contemporary. Michael has also acted as the company pianist for the Pacific Ballet Theater, Ballet Oregon, and Oregon Ballet Theater.
Meanwhile, Sunday will bring more free music in Volunteer Park as the Vibrations Festival returns.
The reporter’s suggestion that the “piano in the park” might have been coordinated with the music is ludicrous. And I’m amazed that anybody who’s a decent pianist would schedule any time to play these instruments. They’re all quite old and worn out, the one in Cal Anderson isn’t even worth the $250 they’re asking for it. They function more as art and curiosity objects than musical instruments. But I’m glad they’re there and it’s a great idea. People are definitely having fun with them, but they’re not in any way performance instruments.
ludicrous!
[…] busy time of year for Cal Anderson and the park is likely to again be full of people. Friday brings a morning piano performance and a movie in the park. Next weekend, a street food and craft festival will take over part of the […]
Do they know about how many people attended? I was there among the hundreds; it was spectacular.
Pianos in the Park are awesome. A chamber-pianist coordination would be GENIUS.