My First Classical Music Concert

Kyung Jin

 

     Have you ever been embarrassed at a classical music concert hall? During the summer of 2003, my older son was 9 years old. He got an assignment that requires going to the classical music concert and writing about the concert. I searched a internet to find a classical music concert program and I found a suitable concert for us. It was a school classical music concert with explanation. I purchased the ticket in advance online and I was looking forward to the performance day. My friend and her son who was 9 years old too would go with us.  

    The day afternoon my older son and I took a subway to go to the concert. We arrived  Seoul Art Center in Yangjae dong, Seoul, around 40 minutes early. While we were waiting, I was drinking coffee and my son was eating an ice cream in a cafeteria. There were many mothers and kids in the cafeteria like us. Soon, my friend and her son arrived there and my son was happy to see his friend.     

     After the rest, we entered to the music hall and sat on cozy chairs. While I was waiting the performance to begin, I looked around the concert hall. The hall’s shape was like a horseshoe and had three stories. It was very large and seemed like the hall had more than 2000 seats. As the concert time approached, the hall was fully filled with audience with exited faces and they were
earing formal suits. Finally, the orchestra started playing various instruments with conductor’s explanation. The hall was so quiet and solemn we only could listen very beautiful, peaceful and harmonious sound. I expected that there would be no difference between listening from the CD’s player and listening from a real performance. But clearly it was different. The conductor explained the song will be played before starting every performance.

    Before the ending part, a soprano singer started to sing a song “Queen of Night”.My son and I was listening to the song joyfully but at the part where the soprano song high pitched notes,  suddenly my son started to giggle with a small voice but the place was very quiet so I got embarrassed the giggle would bother the audience and the singer. “Why are you laughing?” I whispered to my son. “The sight and voice of her singing is so funny” he whispered to me. I gave him a sign to be quiet with my finger. I tried him to stop the laughing and he tried not to laugh, he covered his mouth with his hand but it wasn’t. What’s more, laughing was contagious to my friend’s son and me. It felt like everybody was looking at us, so we lowered our head but our body trembled from laughing and my face blushed. The hall was so quiet that the audience sitting next us didn’t even say a word to us. They just looked at us intermittently.  At last, the singer finished the song and left the hall. After the singer leaving, barely we could stop the laughing.  It was for a while but I felt it was like an hour. I think maybe some people had experience like this situation in a class, in a church and in a theater, etc. and they would understand this situation.

       As the last song, the orchestra played the symphony Vivaldi’s Four Seasons that my favorite song. My son and I learned many things about each instruments, what symphony, sonata and concerto is. I enjoyed marvelous beautiful harmonious classical music. Sometimes I remember ‘The laughing at the concert’ and I feel the embarrassed emotion still. But my son has a dim memory about this concert. Since enjoying the first classical concert, I went several classical concert in Korea and in NY, but in my memory, I’ll never forget only my first experience the school classical music concert and I think it’s the best.