Classic Music Greets Passengers at YXS
Prince George, B.C. – Passengers arriving at the Prince George Airport this afternoon were welcomed with a musical treat.A free concert by the Alban Classical Artists Society greeted arriving passengers.
Clarinet player, Simon Cole, says the performance is part of a series of concerts the Society has been doing throughout Prince George. “We’re bringing classical music out to where you might not normally hear it” says Cole who says the last performance was in the barn at Huble Homestead.” We want to bring classical music out and expose it to as many people as possible. Often, as is the case at many of our concerts, people say they had never heard classical music live and they can’t believe how powerful and wonderful it is, so we’re always looking for opportunities to do that.” At Huble Homestead, the trio played a series of pieces written by Cole which was created to reflect a theme of homesteading “It was folk music based.”
Today, the music offered is what Cole calls movie classics “Where it’s more often more popular types of music, but it’s formed by the composition and structure of classical music, so it’s kind of high end popular music.” Specifically, the music was that of John Williams, and in the case of this afternoon’s concert, it featured music from the movie “The Terminal” which is basically the story of a man stuck in an airport.
The acoustics at the airport are perfect says Cole “This is a more reverberant space”. He says when music is recorded at Vanier Hall, the technicians have to add two seconds of artificial reverberaion to the sound to make it sound natural. “A normal concert hall has two to two and a half seconds of natural reverberation so it’s actually kind of a treat to play in some of these spaces.”
As the trio, made up of Cole on clarinet, Angela Alba on piano and Erica Skowron on oboe, started into the concert, passengers arriving from Vancouver started circling around the trio to enjoy the music while their bags made it to the carousel.
The concert was sponsored by the City of Prince George, the BC Arts Council, the Prince George Airport Authority and Alban Classical.
Comments
What a way to welcome people to Prince George, and playing to the tourists at Huble Homestead as well… great idea… we need more of this!
We can get more of this if we support the local artists who provide this type of benefit.
Then again, if we cannot do that, then this kind of benefit will either not be provided for us, or it will become horrendously expensive because we have to import the talent from elsewhere, pay for it with local dollars and ship the dollars out to the artists living in another community.
It is called leakage, as written about in another article on this site.
This should bring in those elusive flights that the airport claims are on the way, in droves.
I think you missed the point.
It is the PGSO that is doing marketing for the PGSO and is going to a variety of locations where there are people.
I doubt people will fly more frequently because there happened to be some live classical music during arrival and departure times when those passengers were flying.
Isn’t the airport’s hope to bring in long-haul cargo flights for refuelling? I don’t think they’re expecting a lot of new passenger traffic.
“when music is recorded at Vanier Hall, the technicians have to add two seconds of artificial reverberaion to the sound to make it sound natural”
And the uninitiated think that Vanier Hall is such a great facility. One more reason to provide a better quality experience.
Maybe we should get rid of expensive ice sheets in our hockey arenas and switch to using roller blades. ;-)
Seriously Jo … why does it always have to be one or the other? and a winking emoticon doesn’t get past the point that in civilized society both the arts and athletics can be supported …
YOU are the one who is suggesting it needs to be one or the other. Not me.
So tell me, how can both the arts and athletics be supported in this community? A private theatre, TNW, gets close to $200,000 to support its operation, mostly from the City and the rest from the province and the feds.
They could raise their ticket prices by 25% and not have to rely on any government funding, just the benevolent Novaks for providing them with cheap space.
:‑P
At Caticlan, on the way to Boracay, we were greeted by a retired group of musicians. It was so nice to see and hear them playing.
They put a smile on many a face, people lingered to listen for awhile. Just part of Philippine hospitality.
Very worthwhile.
Now if only something can be done about the smell when flying into PG….
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