After the Ball

I went to the ball and came home with both slippers firmly attached.

The ball was the annual Viennese Ball in Wilson Commons at the University of Rochester.

David Harman’s U of R Chamber Orchestra sounded glossy and polished playing Strauss classics such as the “Radetsky March,” “The Blue Danube,” and “Tales from the Vienna Woods.”

Harman even conducted a surprisingly elegant version of "The Chicken Dance." People flapped and clucked.

Upstairs, Irina Georgieva led the U of R Chamber Singers in a delicate, incisive rendition of Johannes Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzes.

The set up in the May Room was a little awkward: about fifty feet of empty dance floor separated the crowd from the singers. But the singing was superb, and I’m a sucker for those Brahms waltzes, anyway.

Unlike RPO concerts, where anyone under fifty stands out like a spring chicken, most of the attendees were nubile college students in gorgeous gowns and tuxes. They flirted and danced on two, tiered dance floors.

A few lined up at computer terminals to -- who knows -- make emergency facebook status updates? What could be so important? I wish I’d snapped a picture.

Rochester storyteller Jay Stetzer looked positively statesman-like in his tux.

Piano technician and music wizard Geoff Vincent said out loud what I was thinking, “Where IS everyone?”

Such a fun evening with live music, light refreshments, and uninhibited, physical joy in music should be thronged. Maybe next year.