Concert @Eastman

After a tiring but rather delightful week, we finally sat down quietly and appreciated art last Friday at Eastman School of Music. (Well, until then, we probably have visited all U of R campuses, both downtown and riverside)

The Concert was about African Drumming and Indian Percussion. This was actually the first time I officially listened to Indian Percussion at a concert. I’ve watched a few Bollywood movies and really love the music scores, and there are a lot of different drums (sorry I don’t know the professional name of the instruments) as well as post-productions in the movies. But this concert was purely instrumental and it sounded really beautiful. The backgrounds of the performers vary. Some of them are elementary students but have studied Indian music for several years, and some of them have utterly different occupations than music and have only studied for about a year. What impressed me most was the little boy who was going to the fifth grade played so well!

After intermission, the African drumming and dancing were more exciting and active. It was also instrumental. The music was loud, with a lot of dance moves. The performers were very skillful and enthusiastic. I bet their hands must hurt a lot, at least when they first started practicing. I must admit that I’m still reminiscing about it now. 

(Except the second photo: night view of Eastman, others credit to Google)