2007年 Apr 9日 Monday, 1:56
Saturday, April 8th, I arrive in Cincinnati with frosted windows and clear skies. A few hours of food searching around the city and waiting outside in the cold by the doors pass and the show begins.
I first take a brief tour around the Memorial Hall, which turns out to be an amazing place, ornate yet enough simple to be home-like. Best described by my friend as "A place like the theater Abraham Lincoln got shot in", The Memorial Hall's stage area was a quaint rountunda shaped around with archways entering into the isles and exclusive seating. Sitting room, I happily accepted, and great lighting. An upper balcony glanced overhead semicircularly. The stage was small with an orchestra pit small pit only half a foot deeper than seating level and a stage about two feet higher than seating level. It was very personal, seeing as my friends and I were only 30 feet from the performers.
The curator come out and prefaced the night, and then the first performers began. First on stage was Vojtech and Irena Havel, A duo from the Chzech Republic whom the curators mother had found years ago and who had inspired him to perform music. The performance was simply amazing. They began on six string cello doing everything from col ennio to knocking on the cellos as percussion, to harmonics and masterful finger flourishes, proving truly their great experience. The music went on like a dream, complex and long yet seemingly short and, well, dreamlike. The entire performance of one song lasted one hour and 30 minutes! After an amazing performance they were given an encore and sent back on stage to perform another 30 minute improvisation.
Next was the artist probably most people were waiting for, Sufjan Stevens. Accompanied by a string quartet, and later an oboist and French horn as well as My Brightest Diamond's Shara Worden on vocals, celeste and occasional piano, he began to preform his masterful set. Playing almost every popular song, including selects from Illinois, Greetings from Michigan the Great Lakes State, and Seven Swans primarily, he preformed a few from The Avalanche and the string quartet preformed Year of the Boar, which had been commissioned for the previous nights. After preforming his set, he was encored once and almost a second time to finish off a magical evening indeed.
In my personal opinion, the show was spectacular. I was able to melt right into the moment and experience the whole as if it was some gap in time that stopped and allowed me to enjoy more radiance than usual in one moment. It was an amazingly friendly playing atmosphere, no artist was afraid of messing up a couple of times, and the audience's feel was as if we were all on the lap of some big papa Sufjan listening to an elaborate bedtime story about everything from witchy mistresses, to cars with allusions to historical characters, to great towns far and wide across the northern midwest. It was truly an endearing time and a magical experience. I was insurmountably blessed to experience the cozy once in a lifetime-like event.