Old music, old church

Attended a Suzuki school concert in a 500-year-old church last week, and no, the roof didn´t fall in when I entered.

Public schools down here don´t teach music -- that must have been a hell of a tax-vote battle. So, any families that want their kids to learn music send them to a private teacher or school.

The 15-year-old son of the family I´m staying with has been in his Suzuki school for six or seven years. He´s the boy with classes in the middle of the picture above. Some of the students have been in longer. They put on a semi-annual concert involving a cello, played by the unofficial conductor of the group, a piano accompanist and several violins.

The concert was held in the Iglesia de San Blas, iglesia being Spanish for church and San Blas a ritzy neighborhood. The music was classical, and sounded no different than any of the high school or college orchestras I´ve heard, once the introductions were over and the music began. Two people even clapped during the lull between the first and second movements in the first piece -- a mistake often heard in U.S. concerts.

The wall behind the altar in Iglesia de San Blas is at least three stories tall.

The church is known for three things: 1) it´s very old, 2) the wall behind the altar, about three-stories tall, is mostly gold plated and has many little vignettes depicting Biblical individuals, as well as at least a couple of popes, but I couldn´t get close enough to tell.

The third thing, not pictured, is a pulpit, added to the side wall some years after the church was opened and rebuilt by a mid-1600s earthquake. The pulpit is wood, and incredibly detailed. Apparently, it has international standing as unique, valuable and incredibly artistic in its craftsmanship.

This church also is known locally as one of several that are super hardass on banning photographs inside. Instead, they make dough selling pics they´ve taken. I got lucky because by going with mom, dad and grandma to watch sonny boy, we were on off-peak hours and security didn´t mind photos -- they just asked we not use a flash.

So, except for the fact that we were in a church more than twice as old as the U.S., everything about this school concert was the same as in the U.S., except that they didn´t go for ice cream after.