11/20/08

Symphony 'pops' concert earns its name

The Everett Symphony struck just the right chord for its November 7 pops concert at the Historic Everett Theatre.

Director Paul-Elliott Cobbs provided a humorous introduction to each of the four pieces performed during the evening, commenting on composer Gioachino Rossini’s love of cooking and eating—which explained the man’s sizable girth—and other interesting anecdotes that brought George Enesco and Tchaikovsky to vivid life.

Cobbs also told how, in a recent concert for school children, he lost the grip on his conductor’s baton and accidentally hurled it at the horn section. Letters from the students wondered if the horn section “had been bad.”

In fact, the horns—and the rest of the local orchestra—were very good in the concert, the second production of the symphony’s 70th season.

Patrons being ushered to their seats in the historic theatre were a little baffled about the paper bags they were handed along with the show programs until Cobbs explained the audience would have an opportunity to play the part of the cannons in the orchestra’s rendition of the “1812 Overture.”

To the audience’s credit, the bag rustling was kept to a minimum as the musicians deftly romped through “Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 in A Major” by Enesco and Rossini’s “William Tell Overture” and “Overture to the Barber of Seville.”

Finally the grand finale came and Tchaikovsky’s music provoked ­images of epic battlefields. Right on cue, hundreds of paper bags exploded as audience members provided the “pop” of cannon fire.

The evening’s encore, “Stars and Stripes Forever,” had folks clapping along fervently. So much for stuffy.