This has been a really cool weekend. Yesterday I went out in the afternoon to the Celebrate UCI / Wayzgoose / Earth Day festival out in Aldrich Park on campus. I was there to man a table for a student group I’m in, but I also had a chance to walk around and soak in the festive atmosphere. Wow. Classic cars being shown, booths with funnel cake and ice cream and soda, pony rides and moon bounces (for the kids — lots of community members and alumni there), and medieval swordplay (apparently this is also a medieval festival??). Over where the student groups were set up, there were two stages, one for musical performances, and the other for dance and martial arts performances.
And of course, our very own campus celebrity made an appearance:
Later that day, I went to watch the Pacific Chorale at the OC Performing Arts Center. This is where I did not bring my camera (and regretted it). First of all, the new Segerstrom Concert Hall is beautiful — it’s supposed to be shaped like waves, to reflect the relationship between Orange County and the ocean. The show, by the way, was “Behold, the Sea,” and featured two ocean-themed works — more on this later. Another architectural feature that was very cool was a sculpture outside, shaped somewhat like a pentagonal column. But if you walk inside, any sound you make will echo as if it were bouncing off a distant cliff wall.
The performance was incredible. First they (the Pacific Chorale and Symphony, and singers) performed Golijov’s Oceana, which was based on the poetry of Pablo Neruda. Accordingly, the piece was full of latin jazz-like elements (but obviously there was a LOT more: layered sounds, chantlike singing, imagery of an ancient goddess being invoked). Parts of it actually made me gasp, it was so amazing.
The second half was a performance of Ralph Vaughn Williams’s A Sea Symphony, which is based on the poetry of Walt Whitman. So, same subject, but a completely different take on it. I liked this as well, although I don’t really know enough about music to talk much about it. Suffice to say, the performers were all amazing. I thought that the poetry, already very philosophical and moving, was made even more expressive by the music. It was like listening to a magnificent sermon or worship service, but for a congregation of transcendentals. (The Golijov, too, had a spiritual element, but for the pagan goddess of the ocean).
Anyway, it was fantastic. I wish I had photos, but here’s one I found on Google: the inside of (the new) Segerstrom Hall. Isn’t it gorgeous?
