Seattle Symphony Spectacular

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 3:10 pm

My wife and I went to the Stars Wars Spectacular performance of the Seattle Symphony last night. Eric Kunzel was conducting and it was spectacular.

There were five French horns that powered through the loudest passges playing perfectly, punching out some incredibly high notes. How they are going to do it again today and tomorrow I don't know. My lips hurt just thinking about it.

Trumpets and trombones also did a fantastic job. The whole orchestra did a fantastic job.

But the star of the night was Chris Olka. There were several juicy tuba parts that he played perfectly. He was switching back and forth between CC and F duing many of the numbers. When the orchestra was going at fff and Chris joined the playing, it instantly went to ffff - he had a huge sound on the CC. But, the highlight of the evening was Jabba the Hutt. Olka was incredible and when the piece was done the audience went crazy. Kunzel had him take a second bow because the audience would not stop clapping.

Bottom line, if you are anywhere near Seattle, you have to go see this concert. http://www.seattlesymphony.org

ZACH336 · Post by **ZACH336** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 5:48 pm

Cool souds like a good concert! Chris Olka is one really amazing tubist.

Tom Holtz · Post by **Tom Holtz** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 7:28 pm

Olka is a beast. Glad he got his props for "Jabba."

Norm in Bellevue · Post by **Norm in Bellevue** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 3:30 pm

Mark,

Thanks for posting this. The wife and I attended yesterday afternoon's concert. It didn't sound as though anyone's lip was shot! In fact, they were really letting it all hang out. Chris was just fantastic on both the big Yamaha F in Jabba the Hutt, and on the giant Nirschl-York for most everything else. What a sound, and what a thrilling concert!