Goodbye to family and the best concert ever

We said goodbye to the family after lunch. I sent them off with gifts of paintings. Andrew was inside playing online games with friends so he isn’t in the extra photo.

We drove to the Mount Baker Theatre to attend the Bellingham Symphony Orchestra’s eighth annual Harmony from Discord concert. What an amazing experience! It was like attending two world class concerts in one. The first half was “Hello Gold Mountain” by Wu Fei. It is a seven part piece for small orchestra and Chinese guzheng and Middle Eastern oud. Wu Fei played the guzheng and sang. Shanit Ezra Blumenkranz played the oud. The piece is about the 20,000 Jews who fled Europe and went to Shanghai in 1933 to 1941. It was a very moving and beautiful piece. You can learn more at www.hellogoldmountain.com. The second half was the Mozart Requiem sung masterfully by the Western Washington University Concert Choir and the Bellingham Chamber Chorale and four fine soloists. And the full orchestra of course. Just wow. Both Shelly and I have sung this so that added to our joy listening to it. What a day!

PS No photos of the concert are allowed so I took a shot of the two instruments on stage before it started.