One of the greatest things about living in New York City is the ease of access to the arts and live performances and theater. We have historic venues and theaters to go with some of the most up-and-coming performers, some of the most talented artists in the world. It would be unheard of to be a singer/major music group, do a tour in the U.S., and NOT stop in New York City; some artists even have multiple dates just in New York City. We’re even luckier on average because we live just a few blocks from Lincoln Center and minutes away from the theater district, Carnegie Hall, and other major performance venues. So when I started subscribing to Lincoln Center’s email newsletter last year to keep an eye out for low/no-cost performances for littles, I also got email notifications regarding Lincoln Center’s annual Summer for the City series. The series consists of lots of different free or pay-what-you-wish performances and events. There’s a huge summer stage that has been built in Lincoln Center Plaza for things like swing nights. It’s definitely been popping. And it’s even more inclusive because the events are low or no cost.

I got pay-what-you-wish tickets for two orchestral events. The first one was tonight at David Geffen Hall for Huang Ruo’s North American premiere of City of Floating Sounds, followed by Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 (“Pastoral”). A friend drove in from New Jersey to have dinner and see the show with me. Act I was the modern “City of Floating Sounds” piece, while Act II was Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6. I’ll be honest and say that City of Floating sounds… was a bit too modern for me. For the first ten minutes of the piece, I genuinely thought they were all tuning their instruments. But as the music heightened and became more intense, it became more enjoyable towards the end. The real highlight, as un-modern as this may sound, was Beethoven’s “Pastoral.” It was familiar and soothing, and I loved the way the sound of the violins and cellos grew more and more intense. The flutes were also a highlight of the performance.

Lots of theater and arts experiences are expensive in New York City, but we’re very lucky in that many more are also low-cost or free thanks to generous donors. The last few times I’ve seen live orchestral performances was during free NYC events: one was a jazz event at one of the open public spaces owned by Lincoln Center, another was at Damrosch Park (two blocks from us, and just steps away from Lincoln Center Plaza), where Yo-Yo Ma was the star performer, and the other was to see New York Philharmonic perform in the summer “concerts in the parks” series at the Great Lawn Central Park. The one paid instrumental performance I saw was Lang Lang and friends at Carnegie Hall. Before that while in college, I’d seen the Boston Philharmonic perform once. And before that… I honestly can’t remember. I remember seeing the symphony regularly while in elementary school, as these were field trips that were covered by school. In the last year, I’ve thought about things that I enjoy, and live orchestra music is definitely one of them and something I’ve kind of forgotten about over the years, regretfully.

While working during the day, while I do play Spotify occasionally, I realize that my focus is not great if I listen to music with words. So instead, I’ve switched to classical music and sometimes even sound scapes. I find it very soothing. I added the Chinese song “Butterfly Lovers” to a separate “Chinese instrumentals” playlist. It reminds me of my time in Shanghai in the summer of 2006, when I learned about the Chinese legend, the tragic love story of Liang ShanBo and Zhu YingTai as butterfly lovers… and their untimely demise.