Boston Pops

So it has come to my attention that not everyone in the entire world has heard of the Boston Pops. While the Boston Pops are the Pops, I suppose it is acceptable for not everyone to know who they are. I mean, not everybody likes orchestras as much as I do... So. In the words of the conductor, Keith Lockhart: "The Boston Pops Orchestra performs the best music of the past and present, appealing to the widest possible audience with a broad spectrum of styles, from jazz to pop, indie rock to big band, film music to the great American songbook, and Broadway to classical, making it the perfect orchestra for people who don't know they like orchestras!" (from their website) But the Boston Pops are more than just an awesome orchestra, they are one of the most recorded orchestras and sometimes known as "America's Orchestra."

I couldn't really say what it was the introduced me to the Boston Pops, but I feel like I've known of them my entire life (I did grow up watching PBS, maybe that had something to do with it?). But when one of my friends approached me a week or two ago and asked if I wanted to go to a Boston Pops concert with her and some of our other friends it didn't take me long to say yes. And the best part was that she was getting free tickets from work. Not only was going to see the Boston Pops, but I was going for free! Since we came into these free tickets we decided that it would be an awesome thing to make an evening of it and go out to dinner. We went to this restaurant near the Commons called the Parish Cafe. Essentially what happened is that they (the Parish Cafe people) approached a number of well-known local chefs and asked them to create a sandwich for this restaurant. So all the sandwiches list what chef contributed it and their restaurant and they are all pretty amazing. I had a chicken sandwich with bacon, lettuce, and tomato on it, and it was fabulous.

So after dinner we headed over to Northeastern University for the concert. I guess this particular concert was special and was actually a part of the NU's commencement activities and so the Pops weren't playing that their normal venue, but it was still fabulous. The arena they played in had pretty terrible acoustics, but what do you expect from a sports arena? I always forget how much I enjoy going to concerts. I'm really excited for the fall. I discovered a month of two ago that the Boston Symphony Orchestra (of which the Pops are an offshoot) offers a fantastic deal for college students. You can pay $25 and buy a "college card" for the season and that allows you to get a ticket (at no additional cost) to any available show. From what I understand it's basically any show that hasn't sold out (with I'm sure some restrictions). Isn't that FANTASTIC! I am so excited. For practically nothing I can attend concerts to my hearts desire. Now I just have to wait for the regular season to start up again.

Tangents aside...The concert and the dinner and the evening and the company were all fantastic. It was so nice to get out and do something (especially something cultured) and to have people to do it with.