Super short Sydney trip!

I've somehow been whirlwinded into classical music and had decided to browse performances at the Sydney Opera House, and stumbled upon Maxim Vengerov performing a recital! And I decided to buy premium tickets to see how a violin master plays in real life! It was also good for a short trip to see if my pigeons can survive unattended for a few days, in case I decide next year that I want to do Singapore for a few days.

The owner of Steam Tank coffee still recognised me after all these years! And this espresso was really good!

And AP Bakery's egg sandwich! I was really hoping that there'd be mortadella on this too, but it was just cheese and egg, so I decided to add on some ham, but it really wasn't needed! That egg was a really great custardy texture, definitely worth getting, and I was lucky that there was barely any wait when I visited!

Did you know the seats in the Opera House concert hall are such a pretty colour?!

Oh yeah, that was a great performance! The sound was so clear, and watching his bowing was amazing! How can he put the bow on the strings and it all just sounds perfect, while I'm there scratching away haha!

I am definitely enjoying this classical/performance phase!

Sydney 2024

Just a photo spam! Seagulls are forever bullies, and the new parts of Central Station are so pretty!

MONA - the proper visit!

Finally, a chance to redeem myself! When I realised I had the chance to come back to Hobart and revisit MONA, I was determined to do this properly this time! Look at mustardy MR-II, though I ended up going on the grey MR-I, just like last trip. I've tried not to double up too much on my previous content, and I had a lot of fun properly exploring the outside too!

I didn't manage to get the shot exactly in the middle lol.

I love the trip up the river, the factories are fascinating!

This is the first winery I've noticed that doesn't allow people in it - the humanoid exclusion zone signs are hilarious!

Oh wow, this is new. This is an exhibit that wasn't there last time - it's a person who starts composing at the beginning of the day and then at the end of the day, a string quartet comes in and sight reads it. I think that's a really great way of showing an aspect of how music is created, as well as the artistic process!

This is the exhibit that leads to Faro restaurant, one of the fancy restaurants within MONA. It's a bit of a trek to get to from inside the museum and you can't use your phone or camera once you're on the pathway - for the reason that you have to watch your step; if you veer off the path there's a little drop!

Ok Faro restaurant is not only artsy, it actually makes great food! This beetroot mocktail was great!

Oyster salad, which had chopped oysters instead of whole oysters. And look at those succulents! I'd forgotten just how long it's been since I had really tasty ice plant and sea blight!

More eating the problem, this venison was soo good that I didn't actually need the cafe de Mona butter or any other condiments, but I ate it all anyway because it was all delicious!

This lemon parfait was cute, have you ever seen a cube ice cream before? Haha. All the food was so good, I should have spent more time and tried one more item on the menu too!

I think White Library was actually here last time too, but somehow I'd missed it. I'm not entirely sure how considering it's opposite Kryptos, but maybe that's exactly why I missed it haha. I love the concept of so many white pages, that's both inspiring and daunting!

And of course my favourite Kryptos. This time the exhibit had more traffic than last time, so it was fun listening to others get jumpscared by the final chamber haha. I still love the mood of this one!

And no more ladies lounge :( I missed out by a week or two, I'm so sad!

I stayed around till 4PM since I sensibly booked the last boat of the day, and was rewarded by a lovely session of string quartet performance! It was like a free concert built into my ticket, so awesome!

There was also a fun exhibit called Confession, where there's a soundproof chamber in the shape of the inner ear, and it's also super dark. At the end you get to speak out loud and the sound goes to the outside of the museum where passers by can have a dialogue! Of course anyone who is above ground and doesn't know about the exhibit would be so confused! I think that's so cool!

Whoops I forgot to post a picture (though I did take many) of a really random exhibit where two goldfish are in a shallow bowl with a knife in it. It's super fascinating to think about because from a human perspective, we freak out that it's so dangerous for the fish to be in the bowl, that being next to a knife is such a scary experience. But the fish don't know what a knife is, and it probably can't cut them, so they live on blissfully. Isn't that so interesting?

I was much happier with this visit and installed the O App as well, so I did it right and enjoyed it so much more! Hooray for art!

Elgar's Violin Concerto + Shostakovich Symphony No. 12

I feel like in the last decade, I've done so much that I thought I'd never actually do in my life. Going to a classical concert is one of them! Once again I have Twoset to thank for that inspiration. I really want to actually have a better understanding of the violin, something I never cared about as a kid. This concert caught my attention because I feel like I would enjoy the intensity of Shostakovich. I'd never heard any of Elgar's stuff before but the sample I heard sounded interesting.

It wasn't until just before the concert that I realised I'd made an error in randomly booking a seat. I'd only been thinking about how much of the stage I'd be able to see, but hadn't put any thought to what I would see on stage. For ballets, this didn't matter as much since I generally just use my imagination, but in the case of an orchestra, I couldn't see pretty much the entire violin section! A grievous mistake that I can't make again! I have to remember to take the right side, when facing the stage. That being said, I did enjoy watching the cellos and double basses!

Just like my Swan Lake experience, there was a lot to take in, for the first orchestra I've watched. I almost didn't know where to focus and tried too hard to look at everything that was going on, while also trying to focus on the music. I definitely lack experience being an aural person, so I think the more concerts I go to (especially if I end up seeing one that I am familiar with), the more I'll be able to relax and actually enjoy it. My brain was mostly in overdrive watching each different section of the orchestra.

For Elgar's violin concerto, the third movement was my favourite, but as I've noticed from other concertos I've listened to; my favourite movement is generally only my favourite because of the contrast or complement from the other movements, so it's a bit contextual and depends on my mood. The soloist performance was so good, it was fun to finally see live how everything works together instead of just on Youtube! What was interesting was that I tried to use my ballet viewing experiences to interpret the music; I knew that it had three movements, so in my head I started to visualise how it would play out if it was danced to. Is that weird? I'm probably overthinking it again!

I appreciated the concerto more in hindsight once I saw the Shostakovich symphony, which was a complete contrast - there was a huge percussion set (gogo timpani player - my favourite percussionist so far!) which included an epic looking golden triangle with concavely curved sides, a giant gong, a gigantic drum, and a marching drum kit thing? I don't know what they are called. And the timpani! (Oh, side note - it was really fun to eavesdrop on a mother and her child identifying different instruments, it was really heartwarming to see children interested in this stuff! We have hope for the future!). More musicians were on stage too, and oh my goodness the piccolo flute was indeed super piercing at times! A single one can get SO LOUD! As I am still learning how to get cultured on classical music, I could be naive in saying that my favourite parts of the symphony were the double bass and cello mood sections (that mood! reminded me of my favourite Psycho Pass scene actually), as well as when the orchestra went full out and ALL the percussion was going off! So epic!!!!

What was even cooler is that my instructor was playing in the symphony, and she described Shostakovich like Star Wars, even though I'm not well versed in movies, I think the description is very fitting!

What I also realised is just how much of a visual person and an overthinker I am; I really have no natural affinity for music, which is a real challenge! I found it hard to get immersed in the music itself, I realised at many points in the performance that I was far more interested in how the drummer was slouched back against the wall, how the french horn players continually emptied the water from their instruments, inside chair page turning, often with great urgency, how the concertmaster's score didn't look like the rest of the first violin section, and looked more like the conductor's score, how absolutely energised and alive the conductor looked, facial expressions, when the baton switched hands, when he was barely conducting and enjoying the moment, when the conductor and the concertmaster giggled while they waited for someone's dying cough to stop before they started the next movement, what were the post-it notes on the conductor's score for, one of the bassoon players also played the contrabassoon, did the violins all have mutes on??? when did they put the mutes on??? i want to watch them take off the mutes NOOOO i missed it cause i was looking at something else, timpani player is epic, omg the principal flautist and bass clarinet player faces are so red by the end of it, so on and so forth. Riveting content!!!

I can't wait to watch more concerts!!! I think the more I go to them the more I'll enjoy them!

La Bayadere

I guess I'm a ballet enthusiast now? I really enjoyed watching Swan Lake and Echoes of Van Gogh last year and was looking into this year's lineup.

La Bayadere, it turns out, has a very high degree of technicality and it was super impressive! WA Ballet's interpretation is different from the original, and I enjoyed the plotline. I think I was holding my breath for most of it, especially during Act II, The Kingdom of the Shades, the arabesque train down a slope!!! Omg! All the ballerinas were trembling, it must have been so intense! I have so much respect for the strength of ballet dancers!

This time I also paid some attention to the orchestra too, I feel like part of the magic of ballet is also that the conductor is watching the ballet in order to make sure the orchestra is in sync. So cool!

There's nothing quite like the intensity of watching live performances!