Classical Guitar

Last night we ventured out with the husband's mother and his aunt for a meal of Chinese at CL Asia and then an hour of classical guitar music at St. Mark's United Methodist Church in Daleville.

The food was terrific as always, although my mother-in-law and aunt did not enjoy it. This was my mother-in-law's second time ever to enter a Chinese restaurant and apparently it was Aunt Nancy's first. Both claimed not to like Chinese food, although I do not understand how you can dislike something you have never even tried. My mother-in-law ate sweet and sour shrimp, which she had the last time and found palatable (we had sampled several dishes dishes that first trip). Aunt Nancy would not try anything except fried rice. Ah well.

The guitarist was Rafael Scarfullery (you will hear his music on the website if you click the link), who is a classical guitarist, composer, and conductor. He currently teaches at Sweet Briar College and is music director at Aldersgate UMC in Charlottesville.

For our concert, he played a total of seven Christmas carols, including Away in A Manager, O Holy Night (one of my favorite Christmas songs), and Silent Night. The audience of less than 50 people sang along on the last song.

He also entertained us with pieces by Heitor Villa-Lobos and Antonio Lauro, neither of whom were familiar to me but were interesting to listen to and watch as performances. One of the pieces by Villa-Lobos, I believe it was Prelude No. 1 but am not positive, sounded a little disturbing to me but it was an excellent piece nevertheless.

I am amazed at the talented people who surround us and we are unaware of it. People everywhere go about their desperate lives, seeking whatever they think will bring them fulfillment (and likely never reaching it), and some of these folks have amazing talent that is never fully acknowledged or appreciated. We do ourselves a disservice as a society when we fail to nurture people, in whatever way, and we do that quite regularly, I fear.

These were some thoughts that crossed my mind as I listened to this man play his songs. I am not quite sure why; sometimes music brings things into my brain. Occasionally it brings tears to my eyes or makes my stomach tense up.