Concert in Cobb by Cobb

We went to listen to The Cobb Symphony Orchestra at the Murray Center of Mount Paran School. It was the Symphony’s Christmas show. They mixed old Christmas songs with classical religious music. A choir complemented the orchestra. It was very moving and enjoyable.

The Murray Center was nice too. Only someone needs to learn how use the thermostat. We were cold during the concert.

The Cobb Symphony Orchestra is no stranger to us. This is about our sixth or seventh Cobb Symphony Orchestra concert. We have been to about three in Glover Park and this was our third Christmas concert.

Each one of the Christmas concerts we have been in a position to watch the interactions of the musicians. One time when they played at Johnson Ferry Baptist Church we had near front row seats. We were so close to the violins players I felt like one of them. Being close and being invisible I could watch their body language and facial expressions to one and another (the violin section). We could tell who had warm or cold feelings towards each other. It was an interesting social network… the inner cliques, and so forth.

One lady violinist was interesting to watch. She has long blond hair, slim and graceful with mannerism of a school teacher. The first concert I noticed her in she had a private joke with another violinist. They communicated wordlessly – they only needed their facial expressions and body language to share their wit. She looked in controlled until the end when they were to bow and thank the audience by a big smile. That was the biggest frozen fake smile I have seen in a long time.

Some people (including me) make it an effort to smile when they have to, like when posing for a picture.

A female trombone player was interesting to watch too. I remember her years ago when she worked in the deli at Kroger’s. She was witty and laid back. She and her middle age co-worker had the late shift and seemed to always be cooking up free samples (for themselves) – something about them reminded me of the 3 Stooges. Now, I see her old friend in the crowds of just about every concert at Glover Park. He appears to still be a useless slob.

However, she isn’t. She is rated on of the highest skilled musicians in the Atlanta area and the top musical synthesizer*, in the Atlanta area.

The music was great.

Another thing great was viewing the musicians through binoculars. Watching a musician intensely playing an instrument is – well profound. With the binoculars I scanned to each player and pretended to take a photo of the how focused and intense each one was. If only I was allowed to.

But, what good would it have done? I used up my photo allotment on the blog (Oh me).

It was sold out. Therefore when it was over, the parking lot was one big traffic jam. Most cars wanted to turn left out of the parking lot onto Stylesboro Road. It is very hard for a flow of traffic to turn left onto a heavily traveled road like Stylesboro. I hope next year they remember that if they have it in again at Murray Center and rent a off-duty policeman to direct traffic.

The concert we went to was at 3:00 and over about 5:00. And everybody had a hard time getting out of the parking lot, including the musicians. And they were to play at 7:00 across town at Johnson Ferry Baptist Church. I hope they all made it to their next gig time.

*whatever that is.