The China Festival at Carnegie Hall was an enjoyable experience. Although I don't play any instruments and the music at the concert wasn't anything that I put on my mp3 player, I was paying close attention to the performers and the way they were playing. The first pianist was boring me a bit in the beginning because he started off slow and somber. Then, suddenly, he hit a very fast "Tom and Jerry" pace. I noticed that he had a look of intense concentration throughout. I (and probably a lot of people) were tricked into thinking he was finished when he hit an emphatic note and let it ride out, but then he continued with the slow pace he started with and ended on a very soft note.

The 2nd performance I found to be particularly cinematic. It was a quartet of a pianist, a flute player, a cellist, and a guy who played a whole array of small instruments. The music was fast paced and ominous. It felt like it belonged to a thriller/suspense movie or a horror movie perhaps. Alfred Hitchcock and Scooby Doo came to mind (yes, I know, not closely related =P). You could almost see scenes in your head of people in dark environments, and sharp movements of shock/terror at the sudden changes in notes. At one point, there was a moment of semi-silence and then just the violin playing softly. The rest of the instruments start coming in softly one by one and the music gets more and more dramatic. Once again, this evokes a sense of cinema. It feels like a sophisticated score for a film or play. However, feeling like I was watching a movie also got on my nerves because there were points where it felt like they were building up to something and it never reached a climax. There weren't points of total emphasis, there seemed to be constant build up. Overall, I thought this was the most entertaining and engaging performance. I liked how different instruments were prominent at different points and used to evoke different emotions and images.