In class on Wednesday, we had a guest speaker who came in to talk to us about classical music and to also gave us a bit of an introduction for the philharmonic we will be attending this Sunday.   Before he came in, we had a discussion on the opera we had seen the previous week.  I enjoyed this part of the class because I was able to determine whether my peers had some of the same feelings or questions I had.  Also, I was able to get some of my questions answered.  Something I was glad to get clarified was Lui’s purpose of  the play.  When I raised this question in class, I was under the impression that Lui had no purpose due to the fact that nobody was paid  attention to her or seemed effected by her death.  Professor Kahan, along with some of my other classmates, opened my eyes to the possibility that she had a less obvius purpose.  The character of Lui existed to make Turandot’s heart melt and without her, Turandot would probably not have realized that she wanted to be with Calaf.  She also helped with the setting by communicating the view of servants/low class people in those days through her use of third person and her treatment in the play.

What I remember most about the second half of Wednesday’s class was how enthusiastic professor Sirotta was about what he was talking about.  The love and excitement he has for music and the subject/inspiration of his symphony truly amazed and inspired me.  I also enjoyed listening to his story about his first memory of music.  At first this didn’t seem very impressive, but I then attempted to recall my earliest music memory and was unsuccessful.  The fact that professor Sirotta was not only able to remember the song but practically every detail was actually very cool, and his decision to incorporate this memory into his present day work seemed nothing short of genius.  This, along with all the time and effort it took him to put together this symphony, makes me more than happy to show up and support professor Sirotta this Sunday.