THE SYMPHONY

Lets do the negatives first, I emailed new conductor David Itkin about my concerns, STARTING LATE, LATE SEATING, INTERMISSION, CELL PHONES AND SCREAMING BABIES, he failed on all but the last.
God in the last row of the balcony (great sound up there incidentally) some jackoff in front of me is going to play video games on his cell phone for the second half of the show, what is my recourse ? 8 minutes late with a 26 minute intermission, thats 34 minutes of time I have been raped out of, still late seating.. even after intermission, at least the nursery did not arrive in my row !

The Music. Berlioz 1844 , Mendelhossen 1844 and Brahms 1877 all conventientally constructed prior to the cutoff of great music (1970). Again all the great music already written, proved emphatically here.
Mendelssohn's violin concerto in E minor, op.64 among the great pieces of music ever written (I still remain a softie for the violin concerto). Guest Kiril Laskarov could not have been more brilliant in this challenging rendition, all from memory, perfectly married to the orchestra. Brahms symphony number 2 was passive, but I was distracted with video games.

Music here world class as are the distractions in Ham Hall on UNLV campus, we are building a new venue for this stuff but the sound could never be better than it is here.

A couple other observations, the program on glossary paper had an aromatic smell that really was enjoyable, I don't know why this pleases me but it did, also this high gloss fully advertised publication which I highly approve of, had no bio on the violinist ? Richard McGee wrote some terrific information stuff about the music, I really like it, McGee the current assistant conductor had been doing the Pre game show talk which I have yet to attend, evidentally now the conductor does this, I need to go.

Finally I highly recommend the symphony review by Julia Osborne in the Las Vegas Review Journal, not because I almost always agree with her observations but because they are informative, well written and strong.

90 A- not for the music A+, BUT FOR DISTRACTIONS....ITS HOPELESS