Rockettes Christmas Spectacular

We took the train to NYC today to see a matinee performance of the Rockettes in their Christmas show.  It was quite a spectacle.


But I sure can do without the New York crowds.  It was particularly bad when we got out of the show.  We hadn't realized when we bought the tickets that this evening was the lighting of the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center, which is near Radio City Music Hall.  The police were out in droves and there were road blocks everywhere.  So it was a bit of a challenge to make our way back to the train station.

A Great New Jersey Day

We had tickets for a concert in Princeton at 6 PM, so we planned a Princeton afternoon.  We drove to Kingston and walked along the tow path for an hour.  Then we went to the Princeton Shopping Center on North Harrison Street to drop off a sewing machine for repair.  While we were there we stopped in to the Shanghai Park Restaurant for an early dinner.  It was really good, so now we have another place to eat while in Princeton.  Then we drove to our usual parking garage and walked to Richardson auditorium for a concert by the Cristina Pato Quartet featuring the Galician bagpipe.  It was a "Performance Up Close" so we sat onstage in the front row.  It was great.  Then to Thomas Sweets for ice-cream.

Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and NJSO

Now that we are back to NJ and attending lots of concerts I need to resume posting them.  I completely forgot for the first one, a concert by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at NJPAC on Sunday  afternoon, October 22nd.  It was great and included a Mozart piano concerto played by Andre Watts.  But unfortunately, I don't remember the exact program.

Today we went to NJPAC again for a NJSO concert.  It was at 1:30 PM.  We have decided to try mostly daytime concerts this year so we don't have to drive at night.  But it took us an hour to drive to Newark, so that wasn't too great, though the traffic didn't seem so bad.  The program was

• Beethoven "Overture to Coriolan"
• Bartok "Piano Concerto No 3" which we really enjoyed; more melodic than one usually expects from Bartok
• Beethoven "Symphony No 5" which we also really enjoyed.  I thought I would be tired of it, but hearing it live, and directed by the NJSO's dynamic new conductor, it was really great.