A slightly different way of attending a concert

And not any concert.

It was the concert that SMO - Symphonic Music School Orchestra of the state of Saxony-Anhalt gave yesterday afternoon. My son was also playing there - that is why it was so important for me.

You probably know that moms are always proud of their children, but seeing your little (or grown-up) child - it doesn't matter actually - on the stage gives you a special feeling.

A little confession: I am not proud of those moments when I missed out on a concert or a performance of my son. And it happened a few times... (more than I would like). Even if you are successfully juggling work, family, leisure time and all sometimes you can't achieve being at two places at the same time.

This time the only difficulty in attending this concert was the distance between my home and the venue where he played with the orchestra. I checked with Google Maps; it says 2239 km.

Luckily we were given a solution, a link to the live streaming of the concert! My husband and I had VIP seats on our sofa and the music was about to start. The concert was scheduled for 17:00.

They played the first composition, and we listened to it from our home, like all the other parents who could not be there in person but then the less exciting part of the concert took place: the part when the organizers give a speech. In a language you don't understand.

But it would be all bearable if the person who was hired to translate did a good job. Well, that was not the case, so the speech lasted for 45 - 50 minutes. Complete despair for spectators at the venue and at home. I guess the young musicians were not thrilled either as they had to be seated and wait their turn so they could play what they learned during the last week.

We could read about the first days of their stay in Altenhausen here, but many cool things happened to them after that - like an excursion to the city of Magdeburg to listen to an organ concert and feel how cold winters can be in Germany. Snow also made the stay more exciting and a snowman was built in the yard of the castle. That photo of the snowman can be seen in the comment section of my previous post.

The activities of SMO appeared in the news and after many hours of rehearsals every day (he said that the average was 7 and half hours of intensive playing - divided into a few slots), they had free time for games in the evening.

The evening before the concert my son sent me a photo that scared us a bit. He hit himself while playing table tennis and his thumb nail turned blue. But he proudly said that he won the point, so it was worth getting that bruise! 🤦‍♀

In the comments of my previous post, someone mentioned that the castle reminds him of the college that appears in the Harry Potter movie. Well, to my surprise we also heard a composition titled Harry Potter - Eine Kleine Sinfonie (Harry Potter - A Little Symphony).

So, here is the program that the members of SMO performed yesterday and which I got today as the young man arrived home a few hours ago.

I hope you can read from the paper the compositions, if not, let me know so I can write it in the comment.

And in case you want to listen to the concert (without the speech part), please feel free to click this link. 🎶

Listening to this concert through the screen was different than attending it in person. Not the same, however, I applauded after the compositions and laughed about it with my husband.

But tell me, wouldn't you do the same? 😁