The New Kid on the Block…in concert!

I just got really excited about next week’s performance called Beyond Sibelius. To start out with, I didn’t realize that Timothy Jones was going to be back until recently. Because of my job, I attend a lot of performances here (I’ve been at 21 of the 32 concerts we’ve had this season). I don’t know if I could make a “Top 5″ list, but if I could, our September A Waterbird Talk performance would be on it. Timothy Jones was the hen-pecked husband/soloist and was hilarious.

Anyway, next week is the second concert in the Ardean Watts Contemporary Chamber Series (which, sadly, has been furloughed next season because of budget constraints). If you missed A Waterbird Talk and like music that’s a little…different, you won’t want to miss this one.

So, the other reason I just got really excited is because I found out that the piece Timothy Jones will be singing takes its text from one of my favorite books as a child – The New Kid on the Block (not to be confused with The New Kids on the Block). It’s a book of poems for kids, kind of along the same line as Shel Silverstein’s books of poems, that I thought were hilarious when I was growing up.

There are four poems specifically that are in David Heuser’s piece Immaculate, Bored, Off-key and Vain – “Dainty Dottie Dee,” “Today is Very Boring,” “Euphonica Jarre,” and “I’m the Single Most Wonderful Person I Know”. You can hear some samples of the pieces on the composer’s website.

I asked around the office and no one remembers the book like I do (which I found unbelievable), but I’m sure there are some fans of it out there. Try to make it to next week’s concert if you can! It may be the only time in your life that you get to see the Utah Symphony perform music from The New Kid on the Block (again, NOT the boy band).