Last night I drove back up to the mountains for an intimate Utah Symphony concert at St. Mary's Church in Park City. I've gone to a few of these concerts, which are part of the Deer Valley Music Festival, and they always end up being absolutely wonderful. St. Mary's is a beautiful church with amazing views of the mountains through a wall of plate glass windows and it is a fantastic venue for chamber music! The concert began with String Sinfonietta by Vivian Fung. I really enjoyed this piece, especially the second movement, which seemed very atmospheric and otherworldly, and the third movement, because the musicians plucked the strings of their instruments (and even tapped on their instruments to create a rhythm) through this whole section and it was really cool. Next the orchestra played Within Her Arms by Anna Clyne. The title comes from a poem by Thich Nhat Hahn, in which the Earth wraps her arms around a dear one who has died in order to transform her into flowers to comfort those left behind, and it is dedicated to Clyne's mother who died suddenly and unexpectedly. This piece is mournful and elegiac and I thought it was hauntingly beautiful. The concert concluded with Concerto No. 1 for Cello and Orchestra by Joseph Haydn with Utah Symphony Principal Cello Matthew Johnson as soloist. This piece is very technically challenging and Johnson performed it beautifully. As predicted, this was a wonderful evening filled with incredible music! I believe that all of the remaining concerts at St. Mary's are sold out but there are a few tickets available for some of the other shows at Deer Valley (go here).
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