The Planets with the Eugene Symphony

Last night I listened to the Eugene Symphony perform The Planets by Holst. I had performed this a few years ago, but I had never seen it performed live.
The concert was great! The Hult Center is a beautiful hall and seats 2,500 people. It has two balconies and the walls and ceiling are a very interesting basket weave. We were sitting off to the side on the slightly raised section of the main floor and could hear everything just fine. However, we couldn’t quite see all of the trombones and basses.
The soloist for the evening was Nokuthula Ngwenyama. I’m pretty sure that she played with the Flagstaff Symphony two years ago which means that I played a concert with her before. When she played the Teleman Viola concerto in Flagstaff with an encore of Preludium and Allegro by Kriesler. Last night she played the Walton Violin concerto which was amazing. I have heard the Walton performed many times, but always with the piano accompianment. The orchestra part (as usual) really added a whole new dimension to the piece for me and I’m excited to add it to my listening list.
Since the Eugene Symphony does special ticket pricing for students I’m going to have to take advantage of the wonderful concerts they are offering this season. Plus I’ll have to practice a little harder so that maybe next year I could make an audition.