Scheherazade

Ever since I can remember, my mom has been one of the primary influences when it comes to things I like. Now that I’m older, I see it’s because I’m basically her when she was a teenager, just in a different era (and maybe a little bit nerdier). But when I was younger, she definitely molded my interests through the things she took me to do and see.

If it hasn’t become clear yet, I’m not from Michigan, but from the mysterious land far, far away known as Houston, Texas. And as most people don’t know, Houston has a thriving and honestly quite amazing arts community.

So this environment, paired with the ingenuity of my mom, you get me: by all accounts, a child hipster. She took me to the children’s museum, to the ballet, she even bought a season at the Hobby Theatre so I could see Cinderella and The Lion King (both amazing performances, by the way). I participated in church choir, and had a strict music program in school that included mandatory extracurricular activities. I still remember going to see Wizard of Oz when I was maybe 4 or 5 years old at the Miller Outdoor Theatre, and being amazed (and slightly scared) as the munchkins came out during intermission to talk to the children and interact with them in their brightly colored costumes.

But out of all those experiences, this weekend, one appeared vividly in my mind.

My mom took me to see the Houston Symphony at Jones Hall one time when I was very little, maybe 6 or 7 years old. I absolutely loved it, and after that time I started listening to the classical channel on my little radio before I went to bed, because the music was so calming. So when my school announced a field trip to go see the Symphony, I was thrilled, because I actually enjoyed this music, not to mention by this time I was probably taking piano lessons.

But that’s not the response I got from my friends.

“Why do we have to go to the symphony?”

“This music is so boring.”

“Everyone’s going to fall asleep.”

I tried to tell them otherwise. “I listen to this music every night” I said. “It helps me get to sleep.”

“Yeah because it’s so boring.”

So while, truthfully, most of my friends fell asleep, I sat, pretending to be bored, but actually engaged in everything that was going on.

This particular instance stands out to me because it was one of the last times I’ve seen a symphony. I’ve been to plenty of plays since that had an orchestra, and I listen to movie scores all the time to help me concentrate on my homework, but it’s not quite the same.

So a few weeks ago, when I found out my friend had a concert with Michigan Pops, I knew I had to go. This weekend, I attended AquaPops, the water-themed musical experience. And I was put right back into my memories. I felt like I was back in Houston, in Jones Hall, where I first heard what music could actually sound like when it came from such beautiful and ancient instruments.

Adam Young, the real name of the ever-famous (or infamous) Owl City, once had a blog that has since been taken down, where he would muse about life, love, and his own music. On this blog one night, he talked about music without words. Specifically, he was referring to electronic, the genre he’s most commonly associated with, which quite often is just a composition of notes rather than an actual song with lyrics. But generally, it applies to all music without words. He said “I find that by listening to material that neither suggests nor blatantly tells me how to think or feel…well, suddenly I can go anywhere, do anything, be anyone. In that moment, dreams are no longer hovering discouragingly out of reach, but instead are made real and vivid, floating right above my head. That’s an invigorating feeling.”

And honestly, I couldn’t have summed up that entire concert any better myself. I found myself lost within the music, finding my way through the notes that were being played. With every pluck of the cello, with every movement of the bow, I was wandering, collecting the pieces of a story that was waiting to be told by me. And yet that story was so completely different from the stories of my friends next to me.

That story is beautiful, and that story that I heard Sunday night is the reason why I will take any opportunity to go to the symphony again.

Notes: Shout out to Arts at Michigan for getting me into the Pops concert for free through their Passport to the Arts (okay, that was a shameless plug, I admit).

Also, shout out to the 1^st Chair Violinist and Concertmaster who probably won’t read this but nevertheless had an absolutely stunning solo in one of the best songs of the night, “Scheherazade.”