Concert in the Park

We went to the last Concert in the Park for Sun Prairie this summer. The air was clean and mildly cloudy, the breeze strong enough to keep mosquitoes at bay, and the band tuned up in a shelter on the hill. Large trees dot the grounds, and to the north there was a riot of different shades and textures of green darkening into the shade.

The band had practiced well, and treated us to Sousa and Rogers and Hammerstein and more recent compositions. The conductor had offered other band members a chance to conduct, and so from time to time she would take a different instrument and someone else would conduct (or try to conduct and hold onto the music in the breeze at the same time). We lounged in camp chairs and talked to a few friends during the intermission.

The last number was "On Wisconsin," for which we were urged to sing and clap; but the skies started clapping too and we packed up quickly. We walked by a clarinetist trying to disassemble her instrument before it got wet.

There was room for many more people, and there weren't as many kids as I expected, but otherwise it was straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting: citizens enjoying an amateur music show.