Slatkin, Shaham, Mussorgsky (and fireworks!) at the Bowl

It was a packed house at the Hollywood Bowl tonight, thanks to fireworks on the bill. Perhaps the real pyrotechnics though, went off when Gil Shaham brilliantly played Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto during the first half of the evening; there were moments of virtuosic fun and others of sweeping tenderness. The audience included all manner of non-usual classical concert goers, causing bunches of ruckus from some folks dropping a wine bottle and seeing it roll down the hill and shatter a few rows down to kids clammoring at their parents - everyone comes on fireworks night. But it was OK. I mean, it was cool to see all of the kids there hearing the music, and there were a lot of people who were sitting through their first fully classical concert. That can't all be bad, right? Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition capped off the evening, with crowd-pleasing (and me-pleasing) fireworks in the climactic finale.