November 11, 2006 - Saturday
Last Saturday evening, I took Harry to a fancy jazz concert. (Well, jazz concerts can hardly be stuffy affairs no matter what, but it was an adult concert.) Tonight I took Jeremy to an even fancier concert; a chamber music concert at the very intimate Kalliroscope Gallery. Jeremy's been to several "formal" concerts before - including faculty recitals, the chamber orchestra, the Indian Hill Pops, and the Boston Pops - and he's done well at all of them, save falling asleep at the April Fools Pops. But tonight's concert of just cello and piano, Allison Eldredge and Max Levinson, was his most formal yet. I suppose it might be hard to top the formality of Boston Symphony Hall, but the Boston Pops has a little more levity and that's a big hall with lots of people and an inevitable amount of white noise. The Kalliroscope Gallery is small, all wood, and you can just about hear someone across the room slouch or cross their legs. But tonight Jeremy was as well-behaved as anyone in the audience. He sat straight-backed and on the edge of his seat for the entire concert and really seemed to enjoy the hole thing. And so did I.

Given the intimacy of the Kalliroscope it seemed important for me to again asked the Executive Director if it would be appropriate for Jeremy to attend. A cellist herself, she's always been very encouraging and has watched Jeremy at many concerts. She seemed absolutely fine with the idea, ultimately conceding the unspoken: that the age limit of six was there as much for the parents who don't know how to have their children behave as it is for the children themselves. And she'd not only seen Jeremy at concerts, she's seen me with him, usually huddled down close to his level, often with my arm around him, ready to put my ear right on his mouth should he have something to say, or just to reel him in were he to get too fidgety.

That's how tonight started, too, with me down at his level. We were in the second row with a clear line of sight to the cellist, and back I'm sure. I was so anxious for this to go well. Jeremy was very excited (it was his idea to wear a tie - I happened to have this knit blue tie that is far too short for me - and he was very proud of it), and certainly well rested (after Harry fell asleep last weekend I was committed to getting Jeremy to take a nap this afternoon, and actually had him nap yesterday and Thursday just to get in the habit). Yet after a typical beginning, this concert was much different. Jeremy was into it and for the first time I stopped watching his every move and just sat back and enjoyed the concert myself, too. It didn't take too long for it to become absolutely clear that Jeremy was both interested and knew just what he should and shouldn't do.

I suppose it didn't hurt that the Kalliroscope is an art gallery. I had told Jeremy about the art that we could go see after the concert. And it didn't hurt that at intermission, the artist, Paul Matisse, explained how his kalliroscopes work. It also didn't hurt that Jeremy "knew" (he's heard them on CD) three of the four pieces the cellist played (including Brahms Cello Sonata in F, Beethoven's Cello Sonata in g minor, and Paganini's showy Variations on a Theme by Rossini. But those were probably just extras. I think Jeremy was just excited about the event. He knew it was special and he treated it that way.

After the concert was over we did go to look at the gallery in the back, but as we were standing looking at the first kalliroscope I noticed that the cellist and pianist were standing right behind me (I'd inadvertently been standing right in front of the door where the performers come out to greet the audience). She immediately asked about Jeremy and mentioned how he good he had been. 'He can be in my audience any time,' she said. When he came over she asked Jeremy what piece he was working on and offered a couple of the obvious ones from the first Suzuki book to fill the silence of his initial shyness. I think "Ode to Joy" caught her a bit off guard. She also said she had two small children of her own, the older of a similar age, and she'd been leery of bringing them to a concert like this, but said that maybe she'd reconsider. I mentioned how Jeremy had been to other concerts and really seemed to like them and, naturally, that he particularly liked cello music.

Ms. Eldridge was hardly the only one to inquire about Jeremy. I number of people came up and asked about his interest in the concert and by the time we left, at about 10:30pm with Jeremy still wide awake with excitement, I'd over-heard whispers and more than one conversation that went something like: "did you see him? he was so well-behaved. He's 5 and he plays the cello, you know."


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