Vive Le Musique!

The whole family trooped down to the Sunday Market @ The Arts Centre after church yesterday.

Best Stall (in my opinion): House of Capes. I thought capes were meant only for certain comic book superheroes, but the lady who owns HOC re-educated me with her huge range of short, medium and long capes of all kinds of fabrics, colours and patterns. There are capes with raincoat material. Wool capes. Capes with fly-away hoods, with collars, with strap ties.

Afterwards, we visited the Arts Centre. I was actually looking for a private place to nurse Baby J. We walked in the door and were met with a welcoming sight: a comfy red sofa just off the entrance, red carpeting, gold pillars...and hardly anyone about. It was like walking into a 5-star hotel, minus the doorman. I plonked myself into the depths of the sofa immediately, so relieved not to have to nurse out in the cold.

Later, Baby J and I strolled through the George Adams Gallery. The centrepiece of the open space is a conductor's podium and cutouts on the floor showing the exact location of every instrument/instrumentalist in an orchestra. From the ceiling dangled the instruments themselves. A huge white wall formed the backdrop for the screening of recorded concert performances. We walked in as Swan Lake played. I positioned Baby J's pram directly in front of the screen. You should have seen her expression. She was staring in rapt attentiveness at the image of the conductor waving his baton at the orchestra. Am so pleased with her responsiveness. Must look out for more such opportunities to expose her to classical music.

Found a great classical website today: ClassicalArchives.com. You can sign up as a free or paid subscriber and listen to clips of recorded performances. Was so thrilled to be able to hear Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, which I'd studied for the 'O's eons ago. Got Beth to join me in listening to the recording. We had a lot of fun mimicking the conductor. She wants to learn drums, piano, the flute, trumpet, oboe...Let's see how that works out. Pity we didn't take our Clavinova with us (too ex!).