The Live Concert Rush--Turtle Island String Quartet

Attending a live concert is a unique experience these days.  We have Mp3's and CD's and radios and streaming services such as Spotify and Pandora or Naxos and Alexander Street Press....places to go to find anything our hearts could possibly desire to listen to.  The culture of going to a concert and sitting in a hushed quiet hall with other listeners is something quite novel to experience.  This blog post is my plea to everyone to open your minds to the magnificent magic of watching people make music in a live setting!  Music making is an intimate pleasure, those of us who can play an instrument or use our voices practice hours and hours alone in a room making sure that when we get in front of an audience, we can give our best.  For most of us this music making and the eventual sharing of our talent is our best way of communicating to the outside world.  A live concert is part us, part that long dedicated practice toward perfection, part our side of a musical conversation....but it is equally part the participation of the audience. Our music is made for your ears, we dedicate ourselves to making the best music possible so that you--the audience--can hear it and experience it and come to an understanding with it.  Music is the universal language and the same performance will say different things to each different listener in the room.  The interaction is magical, though.  Seeing excellent musicians perform is electrifying!  Watching four individuals wordlessly communicate with one another and perform something intricate as if the four actually function as one large instrument is one of the greatest experiences anyone can have!  There is this inward rush one feels at seeing this occur, hearing the music live and watching the interactions of the performers creates a sense of anticipation and tension and moves us humans on a deeply spiritual and emotional level. Watch this video of the Turtle Island String Quartet...look particularly at how they communicate with one another as they play.

https://youtu.be/atUBSc22WFA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atUBSc22WFA&noredirect=1

This group is a string quartet--four stringed instruments, two violins a viola and a cello--all playing together.  They specialize in playing music not typical to what most people perceive that a string quartet should play.  These men are so deeply "in" to the music they play that watching them perform becomes half the pleasure of listening to them make the music.  At the end of the performance when the applause bursts forth from the audience you can hear one of the performers say "They liked that!"  You can hear the joy in his voice that the audience reacted to their music, that the audience concluded the musical conversation by expressing their enjoyment of the performance! Turtle Island String Quartet will be playing tonight, November 6th at 8pm in Petree Recital Hall at the Wanda L. Bass School of Music at Oklahoma City University in the first concert of the 2015 Distinguished Artist Series.  Their concert tonight focuses on jazz.  These guys have won two Grammy awards for best cross-over album and they are seriously, excellently, fantasmagorically cool!!  Come and experience the rush of watching four truly gifted musicians perform awesome, innovative music!  Come be a part of the mystical magical musical conversation!