LOTR Symphony!!!

It was wonderful! The music was beautiful! The atmosphere (I haven't been in Orchestra Hall in ages!) was great! Oh, it was marvelous!

So we got there (I forgot to mention yesterday that my mom wasn't going with me - my sister was supposed to email Elijah Wood to ask him, but apparently she forgot, so she had to come with me instead. So much for my date with Frodo.) and they had decorated the doorway with branches and rocks. People in dresses and capes welcomed us to Middle Earth, and there were other people in costume milling about. Gimli and Gandalf were the ones who stood out. There also was a huge ring hanging from the ceiling. I ran into a friend of mine from college, too, which was kind of fun (I had a feeling I would see someone I knew there). We had good seats, though looking around it seems that there aren't really any bad ones.

This concert had not only the Minnesota Orchestra, but also the Minnesota Chorale, and the Minnesota Boy Choir. The poor little boy soloist had to sit front and center through the whole first half, but he did very well. All I could think was, "yeah, no pressure there." And as it turns out the little dude only found out on Wednesday that he would be the soloist this weekend, so I think that makes it extra good. Then in the last half there was the woman soloist and she had such a beautiful voice; as my sister said, clearly opera-trained. Lovely. They also showed concept art by Alan Lee and John Howe.

It's amazing how much emotion music can communicate. It hit me during one orc-ish parts (frighteningly I know what parts of the movie all that music comes from), just how much Tolkien hated machinery and technology. It destroys trees and all the rest of GOD's creation. And I so heard that in the music. Orcs and Saruman and Sauron are bad. And there's the shire music that's so simple and happy and makes me want to live a simple country life. And the fellowship music is trimuphant. And the end music is complete and peaceful. And all that other music just makes you feel. (Yes, this all sounds cheesy, but it's true. It's true of other music too, not just my LOTR. And here, to make it less cheesy, during the first half I was also thinking, "Boromir is so flippin' sexy!" and, "I love Sam." So there you go.)

This is getting long. So suffice it to say I had a great time. And my sister said she liked it, too (though obviously she didn't care nearly as much as I did). Oh, and I have to add that we looked good, which made it more fun, too. :) And the guy who sat next to me (to whom I didn't speak, which was silly because the poor guy was there alone, which means that he is a huge LOTR fan, but didn't look like one of those scary kind - he wasn't in costume anyway) was very gentlemanly and when I stood up to stretch at the intermission, he without saying anything held my program for me so that when I sat down I didn't sit on it. I hadn't even known that he had taken it. What a nice guy. But then, he didn't take the initiative to talk, and I wouldn't want to be with a guy who won't take the initiative anyway, so that's that.