Music@Menlo

Posted at 5:04 PM on July 24, 2006 by Brian Newhouse
Filed under: Concerts

And we're off! Music@Menlo gets underway tonight with the first of the Encounters, a multimedia lecture/presentation designed to open up the music we'll hear tomorrow in Menlo's first concert. It's going to be very interesting to watch audience turnout this year. As my dad would've said coming in from the field in late July, It's hotter'n heck out here. Up and down the Bay Area of California, communities are being walloped with heat they’ve never seen before. Late Monday afternoon right now and it's nearly 100 degrees in Menlo. Normally, you’ve got 82 sunny degrees and a light breeze off the Bay, day after day after day—one of the reasons that real estate runs something like a thousand dollars a square inch here. But this is smashing through records and knocking out power grids and emergency shelters are trying to get seniors inside where it's cool. So, when they're used to Paradise will audiences venture into what feels a little like Hades? (Coming from Minnesota, concert presenters ask the reverse when it's January and a zillion below zero. Always the risk, which smarts in light of the endless hours of rehearsal, planning, fund-raising… ) I'll let you know.

If they stay away, it won't be for unimaginative programming in the concerts or the level of artistry. Check out this great lineup: http://www.musicatmenlo.org/

Music@menlo audio archives