We Went to the Symphony!

On the 23rd Dad took Mara, Helena, and me to the Symphony. This was the first time I'd ever gone to the symphony.
They performed "Urban Runway," which was composed by the conductor, Bramwell Tovey. He is British, and he composed this piece for the fourth of July, which he made a bunch of jokes about. I really liked him, and he looked like he really enjoyed what he was doing. He reminded us all of Lawrence Welk. This is a photo of Tovey:

Photo courtesy of Bethel Woods Center for the Arts

They also performed Erich Korngold's Violin Concerto in D Major. The concerto is based on the music he wrote for three different movies: Another Dawn, Anthony Adverse, and The Prince and the Pauper. In The Prince and the Pauper, this theme accompanied the hunt for the royal seal, and those of you who have seen this movie know how great the music is. The soloist was Philippe Quint, who was born in Russia and graduated from Juilliard. Helena says he looks like Josh Groban. I hadn't heard of either of them before, so it doesn't really matter to me. This is Quint:

The last piece they performed was Antonin Dvorák's New World Symphony. My favorite part was the part in the third movement that he based off of an Indian dance scene in "Hiawatha," because it took the overriding theme and made it very dynamic and exciting. In the first movement of the symphony, apparently Tovey's baton broke because something white went flying off into the first violins and he conducted the rest of it with a slightly shortened baton.
Personally, I don't think I really know which piece was my favorite. They all were very nice in their own way.