1. I thoroughly enjoy these trips Debbie and I (or I alone) make to Spokane to participate in the Science/Nature book club, hear the Spokane Symphony, listen to Northwest Passages presentation, attend symphony conductor James Lowe's lectures, and hear the Spokane String Quartet.
All of these pleasures have enlarged my understanding of the world, music, and life itself.
Today was no exception.
The Spokane String Quartet played this afternoon at the Fox Theater. This was either the third or fourth concert of theirs I've attended and today's was unlike any of the others.
For starters, today's concert featured a pianist, Frank Huang.
The concert opened with Frank Huang as a soloist, playing a stunningly difficult and emotionally complex composition by Franz Liszt entitled Totentanz. I thought the piece pushed Frank Huang to show us the full range of virtuosity with its thunderous and drum-like passages, mind-boggling stretches of rapid runs, and sudden moments of tenderness and calm.
2. Then the concert featured not a string quartet, but a piano trio featuring, along with Huang, violinist Amanda Howard-Phillips and cellist Helen Byrne playing the Antonin Dvorak's Piano Trio No. 4 in E minor. My enjoyment of Dvorak grows out of his ways of weaving together Slavic folk tunes, dances, and marches with moments of sorrow, soaring energy, and great beauty.
The concert's last piece featured the famous piano quintet, known as "Trout", by Franz Schubert, one of my favorite pieces of classical music. I was unfamiliar with the first two offerings of this program and very much enjoyed settling into hearing music I've been enjoying for over twenty years.
I loved that I came to a string quartet concert and heard everything but a quartet! We heard a solo, a trio, and a quintet and enjoyed three of classical music's most brilliant composers.
3. As Debbie and I walked back to where our car was parked, we decided to pop into Whistle Punk, one of my favorite breweries anywhere. I didn't know what their non-alcoholic offerings were, but I was confident that Debbie would enjoy whatever she ordered. And I was right! She did. And I struck gold! Whistle Punk carried n/a IPAs in cans brewed by the mighty Fremont Brewing. First, I drank a fine n/a West Coast IPA and then a dark IPA, a style of beer I hadn't drunk since the good old days of Firestone Wookey Jack IPA.
We loved the brick-lined comfortable tasting room, the fine service of the guy who poured our beer, and the enthusiastic young dudes at the bar who talked about topics ranging from the Spokane Greek Festival to where to eat great ramen in Spokane to their admiration for old music like Credence Clearwater Revival.
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