I recently participated in a focus group at BYU. They were gathering opinions about the arts at BYU, specifically theater, and as we are frequent theater goers, I was chosen to opine, something I do well. For my efforts, I was given a $20 gift card good for any upcoming performance during the fall semester. I emphasize that because it was in November when they had us come in, and I had already purchased our tickets for everything we wanted to see in the fall semester. As a result, I sort of scrambled to find something for us to do, and selected tickets for the University Orchestra and University Strings. They were going to play the Star Wars Suite by John Williams, and I knew the kids would like it, and tickets were only $3 each. That was somewhat problematic because at $3 each, that meant I had only spent $12 of the $20 I had to use. So I bought tickets for the following week to the Symphony Orchestra who was playing "Sorcerer's Apprentice," another piece of music I knew the kids liked.
As we all went to hear Star Wars music, I was hopeful that it would be the last piece of the first half and that we could go home at intermission. It wasn't. It was the last piece of the whole concert which didn't end until about 9:20pm. That is late for the kids who are always sound asleep by then. I asked several times if they wanted to go home early, but Brandt always said, "No! I want to hear the Star Wars music." Blythe would have gone home after the first number. In fact, just before the concert started, she said, "What play are we seeing?" When I told her it wasn't a play but a musical concert, she said, "I want to go home now." Too bad for her; we stayed until the very end. It made for a long night.
Tonight when I enthusiastically said we had tickets to another concert, Blythe said, "I'm not going." She was firm about that, too. Kent agreed to stay home with her and Brandt and I went. He was very good through the performance which was much shorter than the week before, but he told me he wanted to go home at intermission. I agreed, though "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" was the last piece on the program. The first half ended and Brandt didn't get up. In fact, he grabbed my phone and started texting Guy, and it wasn't until the orchestra had finished tuning that he turned to me and said, "I want to go home! You said we could go home!" We had to stay through the first number, and then it would have been the one he really liked, but we got up and came home. It wasn't worth a fight, and Brandt got to bed at a decent hour.
While the children have become excellent theater attenders, I'm not sure we're ready for regular symphony orchestra attendance.
A really bad selfie of me and Brandt.
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