I went to two different concerts this week:  Alison Krauses and Union
Station at the Orpheum Theatre in Vancouver on Tuesday Aug 9th, and
Vancouver Symphony Orchestra at Deer Lake Park on Friday August 12th.

Alison Krauss specializes in bluegrass music – pure accoustic
mountain-inspired old-fashioned country music.  She has the voice of an
angel, and is one of my favorite singers.  Dan Tyminski, plays guitar
and sings vocals for the band as well, and is more well known for being
the singing voice of George Clooney in the movie “O Brother Where Art
Thou” for the song “I'm A Man of Constant Sorrow.”

The audience was very caucasian… and middle-aged.  Sort of reminded
me of the CBC radio concert for “Madly Off in All Directions.”  It was
a great concert with wonderful music and performances.  On the way to
the concert, I joked to my girlfriend (who is caucasian) that I would
probably be the only Chinese person at the concert.

“Omigod!” she exclaimed.  “You're Chinese!  You didn't tell me that!” 
she joked.  We've only been going out just over two years…

But I did see an Asian person… a technician for the show… then 2
others in the audience as we were walking out.  So, I felt a
secret kindred spirit with these strangers of Asiatic features,
enjoying an exotic cultural musical delicacy.

Compare this to the audience for the Vancouver Symphony at Deer Lake
Park in Burnaby- a Vancouver area tradition.  I would venture that
one
half to one-quarter of the audience was Asian.  And one-tenth of
the
symphony was Asian, including the guest soloist, a 16 year-old Korean
born clarinetist.  In our social picnic group of 13, over half
were Asian…  well one dragon boater was Eurasian… so she
counts in both camps.

What is it about symphony and country music that creates cultural
divides?  while attending the Alison Krauss concert, I felt that I
was
being very culturally proactive, like a fly on the wall, witnessing
the  cultural traditions of a different very white culture. And
yet the Symphony program was all based on dead white composers such as
Bizet, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius – many of whom in my accordion concert
repetoire!  Very interesting…

Hmmm… Bruce Springsteen concert tonight…
one of the first racially integrated bands in the early 1970's.
I can play “Dancing in the Dark” on my guitar, and “Fire” on the piano!