A New Standard of Musicianship...

It is about noon on Sunday here in Manchester, meaning most of you who are reading this probably aren't even up yet. It has been a great weekend. Yesterday I went through my usual routine of going to the gym in the morning and some practice in the afternoon. I am slowly starting to get these excerpts under my fingers - hopefully I can start to make some music with this barrage of notes on the page.

Last evening, I had the pleasure to go to Bridgewater Hall here in Manchester to hear the BBC Philharmonic. For those who don't know much about orchestras, the BBC Philharmonic is one of the best orchestras in Britain, and in recorded media as well. The orchestra is based in Manchester, and are known locally as a wonderful orchestra. But, they are known world-wide as a repertoire creating orchestra, meaning that they record a huge amount of CD's for release everywhere. If you were to stroll through Borders or Barnes & Noble, you could probably purchase at least 100 of their discs in various formats.

So, we had a few kilometers to walk (see that, getting the European lingo down), so I decided to take a few pictures. If you want more info on the BBC Philharmonic, click here. The walk down to Bridewater Hall takes us down Oxford Street, and across a small channel, and finally to the hall.

The large high rise building is the newly opened Hilton 5-Star hotel. It seems that everyone in Manchester absolutely hates this building, and I can understand why. There aren't many large buildings (about 20 stories is it in the city centre), and this thing is just massive. And, I don't particularly enjoy the look of it - myself.

The Bridgewater Concert Hall is about 10 years old, and is one of the nicest concert venues I think I have ever been in. They spent so much money on the construction - it is absolutely beautiful. The seating is great, and there are no blocked seats. For the first half of the concert, we were in the upper balcony - but there were seats free in the house for the second half, so we moved down. The organ in the hall is supposed to be one of the finest in the world - and is definitely one of the most massive instruments I have ever seen. Here are a few pictures of the hall and a close-up of the instrument. Just click them to enlarge!

I hope that everyone has enjoyed this little trip to the Bridgewater Hall, and through downtown Manchester. Thanks to my folks for sending me a few things - including the cables for my digital camera - so I can actually give you guys some real pictures!