Anchorage Symphony excites!

How fortunate we are in Anchorage to have so much culture -- our Center for Performing Arts, which is located downtown (where you can still park on the street). In many cities, you drive 30 plus miles to reach the theatre, and then have to pay to park in a lot, if you can even find one, and walk some distance to the theatre. Sunday, October 28th, was the second performance of the season for the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Randall Fleischer. They played Bernstein, Milhaud, and Gershwin. But the star of the whole show was "Spontaneous Combustion", the World Premiere of Christopher Brubeck, son of Dave. The violin soloist was Nicolas Kendall, a dynamic young artist from the Washington DC area. They received a well deserved standing ovation, and humored the audience with a trombone and violin encore, of sorts.
I want to mention to the Governor's Award Banquet in Fairbanks on Friday evening. Although the governor couldn't make it, the spot was adequately filled by Talis Colberg, our Attorney General, who gave a great speech. In Alaska, the Attorney General is appointed, not elected, and this was my first opportunity to meet him. The members of the State Council on the Arts were accommodated at the Fairbanks Princess Riverside Lodge, which is within spitting distance of the airport. They also housed many natives who were attending the AFN (Federation of Natives) convention, meeting at the same time. They had almost 300 people in attendance, and the elegant dress of the attendees did not include mukluks. If you want details of this event, click here.
On a personal note . ..Flying Alaska Airlines to Fairbanks, the hostess spilled some coffee on me, so she's sending me some kind of voucher in apology, but the best apology was her giving me two extra packets of Macadamia Nuts. The return trip wasn't so lucky. We left 40 minutes late, and the 30 minute flight was 1 1/2 hours. When we landed there were emergency vehicles, blinking lights, red over red as the pilots say -- no, not that . . . but he did tell us after we were on the ground, that they couldn't get the landing gear down, so we had circled more than once before a perfect landing . . .. Here I am trying to lead a stress-free life . . .at that point, no-stress.