Two very different musical events

[dorchadas]

Last Saturday, aaron.hosek and I went to A New World, the Final Fantasy chamber orchestra concert. As I mentioned in the post about the last time I went to Distant Worlds, the main Final Fantasy concerts are starting to get a bit stale for me, in that I've heard all of the arrangements of the best songs and they're starting to get into deeper and deeper cuts with songs that are, frankly, not as good and not as interesting to listen to. But with the chamber music format, that frees them up to do songs that would be very difficult to score for an 80-piece orchestra and 30-person choir, like the Town Theme or the Chaos Shrine Theme from Final Fantasy I. Or a piano solo version of Zanarkand, the best song by far from Final Fantasy X.

They had a music better representation overall of songs from the breadth of the Final Fantasy series, playing songs from every single non-sequel game except III, and it's entirely possible that they did play a song from III and I just missed it. aaron.hosek texted me yesterday and told me that Crimson Sunrise from XIV had been stuck in his head for days, but I was immune to that because I haven't played Final Fantasy XIV yet. Not until they revamp A Realm Reborn, and with how few video games I play nowadays, maybe not ever.

Also, having a smaller group meant that they could travel from city to city, which meant that they had practiced repeatedly, which meant that there were no mistakes I could hear, unlike the Distant Worlds orchestra. I may have hit my limit with Distant Worlds, but I'll definitely go back to A New World for their next concert.

Though aaron.hosek was right--it would have been better if they had played Red Wings too.

---

On Sunday, this month I did not join thosesocks at sea shanties because I had a conflicting event to go to. Instead, I went to "Singing as a Spiritual Practice," a Jewish sing-along held at Mishkan's office space and let by Steven Chaitman (stevenchaitmanmusic ), who lends his guitar to services most Shabbats. We sang a few songs that showed up sometimes at services--"Kol Haneshamah" (כל הנשמה, "All with breath", the text of Psalm 150:6), "Yah Ribon" (יה רבון, "Sovereign G-d"), "Ana Bekoach" (אנא בכח, "Source of Mercy," an old Kabbalistic poem with the melody written by Chaitman), and the classic "Shalom Aleichem" (שלום עליכם, "Peace Upon You") by Debbie Friedman. Chaitman kept asking if anyone wanted to teach any songs and I thought about offering up Ofra Haza's version of Kol Haolam Kulo (כל העולם כולו‎, "The Whole Entire World"), based on the famous saying by Rabbi Nachman:

כל העולם כולו גשר צר מאוד והעיקר לא לפחד כלל‎‎
Kol haolam kulo gesher tsar me'od veha'ikar lo lefached klal
"The whole entire world is a very narrow bridge, and the most important thing is to have no fear at all."

...but I didn't think I knew the melody well enough to sing it for everyone. Maybe next time!

It was great! It had the same energy that singing at Shabbat services does, so it was nice to get that atmosphere on a Mishkan off week. I just hope that next time, it doesn't conflict with sea shanties. I really value singing in groups and I'd like the chance to do a lot more of it.

Comments

[helvetica]

Man, I am starting to get super jealous of Chicago, there are always so many really wicked events!!

I love that saying, too. I need to remember sometimes that it is good to have no fear :)