a night at the bowl
On Saturday evening, September 16, Caleb and I went to a concert at the Hollywood Bowl. We had such a fun evening. We packed a picnic dinner in our new picnic backpack we got from Lucas and Christie for the wedding. It kept everything cold!After hitting more traffic than we thought we would, we finally arrived at the L.A. Zoo around 6. From there we were picked up by a Bowl shuttle that carried us the rest of the way up to the theater.
With blankets and picnic in hand we headed up toward our seats, found a spot just outside the entrance, and set up our dinner on the curb, among hundreds of other Bowl picnickers. Our dinner was complete with fancy sandwiches, potato salad, fruit, chips, homemade cookies and sparkling cider.
We got to our seats about 45 minutes before the actual concert started and enjoyed just people watching as the 18,000-person capacity theater slowly filled up.
The concert itself turned out to be one of the conductor's farewell concerts. John Mauceri has been the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra conductor for 16 years, but is leaving to take a post at a school back east. He talked quite a bit during the show, summing up what its been like to live in L.A. and conduct the orchestra for so long. He was extremely well spoken with a great sense of humor. Then, our show included a wide variety of numbers, including some new compositions never performed before. We heard an opera singer sing a couple songs from Candide (she was one of my favorite parts of the night). There was a ballet performed by members of the Joffrey Ballet. And of course, Miss Piggy and Kermit each did a couple songs. The show "ended" with a fireworks show. Only, as all great concerts are never really over when they end, there were several encores. The night was only over when he walked back on stage only to take the concertmaster backstage with him.
It was a fun night with great music, good food, and my favorite company. A night at the Hollywood Bowl has started to become a tradition for our summers (last summer we saw a John Williams concert), and I look forward to going again next summer!
