Saturday, May 23, 2015

Speechless

Another Nyman concert, this time at the Teatro de la Ciudad with his Band and the Mexico City Philharmonic Orchestra. Interesting programme: some short familiar soundtrack pieces from his Band to begin with; Symphony no.2 with full orchestra (together with a projected compilation of  snippets of 20th Century Mexican cinema); and ending with Musique a Grand Vitesse from 1993. 
But the evening began with a strange incident. A couple of days ago, a Mexico City official phoned us to say he would be making a speech onstage before the concert began and would I like to say a few words about UKMX? So I said yes and got there early, but no sign of the official. Turned out the Philharmonic musicians wanted to talk to him about pay or conditions or something. So finally he arrived backstage and onto the stage we went. Just as he was about to speak, a heckler in the audience shouted out "We're already 20 minutes behind time. We didn't come here to see you, we came to see Nyman!"  Some applauded, others tried to shhhh him, but ultimately it had the effect of truncating his speech and under the circumstances I decided not to give mine. Actually, I had some sympathy for the guy... 

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