"It has been my hope that through live concerts, motion pictures, recordings, international competitions, and interesting public forums, a larger group of people will learn to love classical music and attend live concert performances." - José Iturbi,

Hello, everyone! How's it going? Did you all have a good 11/11/11? Did you make wishes? My 11/11/11 didn't start off so well, but it ended pretty nicely. I also have a lot of gets from the day to show all of you too! I can't believe November is ticking by so steadily! It'll be Christmas so soon!
But before that, I'm happily waiting on those Black Friday sales. I love shopping so much! I need many more things. :3

So, I'd like to thank my newest followers:
Madam.Momo (no link available)
Aki
Thank you as always! It means so much to me!


So, just as promised, I'm doing my absolute best to get through my backlog! After this only one more post to go! I want to be a good blogger worthy of all my followers!

On October 30th, Alexa invited me to accompany her to a classical piano concert in Hollywood. The concert was put on by the Jose Iturbi Foundation and featured the musical talents of Anastasia Markina & Dmitri Levokivich. The concert took place in the grand ballroom of The Hollywood Museum.
For those of you who have never been to the Hollywood Museum, the name pretty much gives itself away. It's a huge show case of everything Hollywood, from the classic dramatic 1940s, to the 2011 HBO hits. In addition to the display cases, they have actual replicas of starlets make up/dressing rooms, large photographs and a collection of costumes used on set with an explanation behind the design and the materials.

The original crime family.

 When we where there, they had the display of costumes from The Borgias out. I have never seen the show due to my lack of cable television at home, but reading about it and looking at the outfits, it seems right up my alley! Plus it has Jeremy Irons. And I do love myself some Jeremy Irons. (Right up there with Rick Allen)

The concert took place on the third level, so Alexa and I decided to take the stairs. Normally I would be against such a crime towards my high heels, but the stair way was lined with classic movie posters and it was very interesting to read them all!

:3 Lots of 'splosions

Once we got to the ballroom, we had some time before the concert, so I looked around and watched the world burn people mingle amongst themselves. The set up was to be expected, they had some very comfy looking sofas on the side of the ballroom, but we were sat in chairs. Our seats were closer to the back, so it didn't provide much of a view of the stage, but luckily the foundation set up plenty of TV screens for us to look on in comfort.

 Before the concert, Mr.Iturbi's God-daughter and CEO of the foundation gave us a a long winded very detailed speech about the history of her God-father and his foundation. They finished with a fifteen minute film reel high-lighting the major points of Mr.Iturbi's career and his personal history. After the film, the concert began.  Of course I photos and filming was not allowed, and even if they were my crummy cell wouldn't have gotten anything good, the room was so dark.

The opening song was a duet of "Danses Andaloues, III, Gracia (El Vito)" for two pianos by Anastasia & Dmitri. After it was over, Anastasia began her set. We had a brief intermission in which we were treated to another movie about Mr.Iturbi accompanied with cookies. After the intermission Anastasia and Dmitri performed "Brazileira from Scaramouche (Mvt. 3)". When it was over Dmitri was to begin his set, however there was a delay in the transition period due to technical difficulties. Once everything was sorted out, Dmitri  took the stage. On the whole, I had to say that I enjoyed the songs he performed more than the ones Anastasia did. The concert ended with a final duet of "Rhapsody in Blue".

After the concert we were treated to a fabulous dessert reception!

The lighting was so dark!

 A lot of the desserts were a bit too 'chocolatey' for me, but the fruit based ones were devine! I wish I could have gotten better pictures, since all the dessert was as pretty as it was tasty! I am not shocked to say, people and myself went back for seconds. We were also able to meet and greet the artist for a small time after the event.

Since we still had a little bit of time until the museum itself closed, Alexa and I decided to browse around the display rooms.

We're all in this together!

A display of fashions from HSM 3. I only watched the first one, but the dresses were so pretty I had to take a quick shot. After looking around, the museum was finally about to close, so Alexa and I were on our way. Before we walked back to the car, I decided to snap some shots of Hollywood, since I'm so rarely down there, and especially at night!



And that was the end of our evening out! So before I go, the sweet Miss Banny tagged me to do a little survey!

Anyone who wants to do it! LOL COP OUT.

So tell me, do you guys like classical music? Classical Hollywood? What's your best concert experience?

Labels: events, friends, fun, outings