New shoes? Any day from Zappos. New car? Maybe wait a year or three.
New concert hall?? Right away!
It's not every day a city gets a beautiful new hall, but on Sunday, Sept. 25, in Bloomington, Minn., the Twin Cities area adds a jewel: the grand opening of Ives Auditorium. It's a new addition to the Minnesota Masonic Heritage Center. So, who better to invite than one of the most famous of musical Masons: Beethoven!
"Ode to Joy" is an all-Beethoven concert to inaugurate the hall with music from the Ninth Symphony, Beethoven's opera Fidelio, and the Hallelujah Chorus (Beethoven's, not Handel's). And there's plenty to celebrate, as this shiny $20 million, 21st-century facility offers 450 seats of 18th-century charm and intimacy for all kinds of performers in the community. And it's a natural extension of the Masonic tradition of philanthropy.
I'll be emcee for the concert and the pre-concert talk. But I couldn't wait until Sunday, so I here's a pre-pre-concert talk with Artistic Director Craig Fields as a sneak preview.
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