The best things are free, sometimes

best-is-free

Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto.

It was incredible.

Every summer, Aspen has a music festival where classical musicians from all over the world come to learn and perform. The schedule is very full. Each day there are at least four or five events. the showcase symphony concerts at the big music tent are not cheap – try on $72 a ticket. We couldn’t feature spending $144 for one evening’s music. So we dug a little deeper. A young artists’ orchestra was performing at the music school. Free.

Ray Chen was the soloist. He gave it his all. The small hall was about half orchestra and half audience. It was like he was playing just for us.

Fabulous.

Takeaway: Before you spend the big bucks, check around to see what’s free. You just might be surprised.

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3 Replies to “The best things are free, sometimes”

  1. I like “free” too – we just saw Tim Shepherd – remember him? Of course if you buy bunches of CD’s afterwards then it’s not so free anymore. It was great- took us back to college days.

  2. Coincidentally, I’m in Louisville for work and decided to take a stroll down the waterfront parkway along the Ohio River tonight. I ran right into a bluegrass festival. There were many musicians on the bill, but at $40, that’s still outside of my budget. However, since this was an entirely outdoor stage, the only real reason to pay the entrance fee was so that you could go inside the gated off area to spend MORE money on beer ($6!!!) and concessions. Outside on the large, grassy field, people were setting up chairs, blankets, coolers, etc. to enjoy this “hillbilly hootenanny”. I got a basket of fish’n chips from Joe’s Crab Shack and enjoyed it picnic-style while listening to great music and watching a huge orange sunset over the river. The evening was perfect, but I left wondering why it takes going out of town to have this kind of fun. It made me kinda sad, actually. I’ll have to change that.

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