On Saturday night, my friend VerLaine and I went on an excursion. I had won tickets to the Andre Rieu concert (Andre Rieu and his Johann Strass Orchestra) through my local Public Radio station. After my DH turned me down on the opportunity to accompany me, I invited "Chickie" to go. We decided to make an evening of it starting with some Thai food at my favorite local hang-out, then proceeding into the morass of downtown Minneapolis to the Target Center and wonderful music.
The Pad Thai and crispy rolls were amazingly good. We ate too much, and it was all good. Then we hopped into "Da Grape" (that's my PT Cruiser for those of you who may not know my car by sight) and continued on to downtown Minneapolis. The Target Center is on the western side of the downtown area and while getting there, we also passed the location of the new Minnesota Twins outdoor stadium currently under construction. It's looking as if it will be a gorgeous structure - all large blocks of assorted blonde stone and contrasting gleaming metal. Very nice. After admiring the new stadium from several points along our skyway walk, we picked our tickets up from Will Call and found our seats (very good seats, BTW). The audience seemed to be an assortment of all ages, but by the end of the evening everyone was enjoying the music. Mr Rieu is quite the showman - rather like Victor Borge without the comedy or Liberache without the candelabra or Swarovski crystals. The orchestra was extremely competent - high compliments to the clarinet player who also played the Irish bagpipes and the oboe player who was amazing on the tin whistle. The vocalists were top-notch also - opera-trained voices working alone and together in wonderful harmony. We had a great time spending 2-1/2 hours with Andre Rieu and his orchestra and want to put out a big "Thank You" to Minnesota Public Radio for the tickets.
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