Showing posts with label Thanksgiving Point. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thanksgiving Point. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 29, 2021

Summer of Outdoor Performances

In my opinion there is nothing better than sitting outside under the stars on a warm summer evening listening to music or watching a performance.  It is my favorite thing to do in the summer and I really missed having the opportunity last summer.  This year I was determined to visit all of my favorite outdoor performing arts venues and I even made a list!  I can happily report that I officially crossed off all but one venue on my list (I had planned on going to a concert at the Gallivan Plaza, the final venue on my list, last night but it was cold and raining so I decided not to).  Now that it is officially fall, I thought it would be fun to recap all of my summer adventures.

Murray Park Amphitheater
My sister Marilyn and I took our Mom to see The Little Mermaid at the Murray Park Amphitheater and all three of us really enjoyed this fun and quirky production.  My Mom had a smile on her face the entire time!  I loved all of the costumes for the sea creatures (especially the jelly fish) and Ursula was an absolute hoot because she was characterized as an over-the-top drag queen!

Engelstad Shakespeare Theatre
My first road trip of 2021 was a weekend in Cedar City for the Utah Shakespeare Festival and it was such a great experience.  I was able to see two plays in the outdoor Engelstad Theatre (I also saw a marvelous production of Ragtime in the indoor Randall L. Jones Theatre) and I thoroughly enjoyed them both but I think Richard III is the highlight of the summer!  It is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays and the lead actor was brilliant in the role!

Waterfall Amphitheatre at Thanksgiving Point
The Utah Symphony performs in various outdoor venues during the summer and the annual Concert at the Waterfall is always a good time!  The concert this year featured lots of patriotic favorites and culminated in a spectacular version of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, which is incredibly stirring, and fireworks!

Snow Park Outdoor Amphitheater at Deer Valley
This year I was able to attend two concerts at Deer Valley!  I love being in the mountains (where it is usually much cooler than in the valley) and eating a picnic while waiting for the show to start.  My first concert was Kristin Chenoweth and it was so much fun because she is such a dynamic performer!  The highlights were "Popular" from Wicked and one of the best performances of "Bring Him Home" from Les Miserables that I have ever heard.
My second concert at Deer Valley featured the Utah Symphony and guest conductor Enrico Lopez-Yanez (he is so charming and engaging) performing music from the Harry Potter movies.  I really enjoy these movies so it was a lot of fun to hear selections from the different scores performed live.  My favorite pieces were "Double Trouble" from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (with vocalists from each house) and "Courtyard Apocalypse" from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II.

Eccles Outdoor Stage at Sundance
This year the Summer Theatre production at the Sundance Mountain Resort (in conjunction with the UVU Theatre Department) was Footloose.  This is not my favorite musical but I enjoyed many aspects of the show and I definitely loved being up in the mountains because of the fresh air, the cooler temperature, and the smell of pine!

Sandy Amphitheater
I am a huge fan of Queen so I was really excited to see The Magic of Queen (a great tribute band) at the Sandy Amphitheater.  Lead singer Brady Dolyniuk sounded a lot like Freddie Mercury (but he didn't try to imitate him) so it was a lot of fun to hear all of Queen's biggest hits performed live.  Of course, my favorite was an epic rendition of "Bohemian Rhapsody."

Tuacahn Amphitheatre
I was able to go on another quick road trip to Southern Utah to see Beauty and the Beast at Tuachan.  I used to see at least one show at Tuacahn every summer but I hadn't been for a long time.  It felt good to be back seeing a show with the beautiful red rock as a backdrop.  This was an absolutely magical production of Beauty and the Beast (with lots of unexpected special effects) and it made me feel like I was seeing it for the first time!

Red Butte Garden Amphitheatre
I always love attending concerts at Red Butte Garden because it is such a beautiful venue!  This year I was really lucky because Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real, one of my favorite bands, was part of the Outdoor Concert Series and somehow I was able to get a ticket (it sold out very quickly).  I thoroughly enjoyed this show because they played so many songs from their new album (which I love) as well as many of my favorites.

USANA Amphitheatre
Another highlight of the summer is seeing Alanis Morissette at USANA with my sister Kristine.  We are both huge fans of Morissette and we both love the album Jagged Little Pill, which she performed in its entirety to commemorate 25 years since its release.  It was so fun to be back at USANA for the first time in over two years for such an amazing concert!

It has been a great summer!

Thursday, July 8, 2021

Utah Symphony at the Waterfall

It was a lovely night for an outdoor concert last night!  This Utah Symphony concert at the Waterfall Amphitheatre at Thanksgiving Point is always one of my favorite events of the summer and I really missed it last year!  It felt so good to be sitting outside listening to wonderful music!  I brought a blanket, a picnic, and a book and happily waited in the sunshine for the orchestra, under the baton of Conner Covington, to take the stage for a stirring and patriotic program.  The concert began with Liberty Fanfare by John Williams and continued with Variations on America by Charles Ives (I loved all of the different versions of the theme from My Country, 'Tis of Thee in this piece).  Then the orchestra played the Overture to West Side Story and this made me really excited for the new movie coming in December.  Next came Semper Fidelis, which is the official march of the U.S. Marine Corps, by John Philip Sousa and this was quite stirring!  The first set concluded with Lincoln Portrait by Aaron Copland.  It was narrated by Lt. Governor Deidre Henderson and it was amazing because it combined the words of Abraham Lincoln with incredible music.  After the intermission, the orchestra played Silver Fanfare by Peter Boyer, Olympic Fanfare and Theme by John Williams (this made me realize that the Summer Olympics will be on in just a few weeks!), "Hymn to the Fallen" from Saving Private Ryan by John Williams, and "Nimrod" from Enigma Variations by Edward Elgar (which was absolutely beautiful).  The final piece, Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, is a Utah Symphony summer tradition and I am really happy that it is back!  It is absolutely epic and the final theme (you can probably hear it in your head right now) gave me goosebumps!  I loved it!  For the encore, they played a rousing rendition of Stars and Stripes Forever by John Philip Sousa which ended in a spectacular fireworks show!  I had so much fun at this concert (I love outdoor performances) and I am looking forward to seeing the Utah Symphony perform several more concerts at the Deer Valley Music Festival this month (go here for information and tickets).

Thursday, June 27, 2019

Utah Symphony at the Waterfall

Last night I was able to go to another outdoor concert, this time with the Utah Symphony at the Waterfall Amphitheatre at Thanksgiving Point.  I always try to attend this concert every year (go here and here) because it is such a lovely venue.  I brought a picnic and a blanket and spent a wonderful evening listening to music under the stars.  The program featured many film scores by John Williams including the Superman March from Superman, "The Devil's Dance" from The Witches of Eastwick (I loved the chimes in this piece), "The Flight To Neverland" from Hook, the Theme from Schindler's List (the solo violin was performed by Concertmaster Madeleine Adkins and it was so beautiful), "Harry's Wondrous World" from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and the Suite from Star Wars (I loved "The Imperial March").  The concert concluded, as it often does in the summer, with the 1812 Overture by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.  Conductor Conner Gray Covington joked that while Tchaikovsky actually wrote the piece to commemorate the defense of Napoleon's invasion of Russia, for some reason it has become a symbol of American patriotism!  He also joked that every major American symphony orchestra plays it at least once during the summer and I had to laugh because it seems like I hear it every summer!  The orchestra performed it brilliantly and I especially loved the real live cannons provided by the Cannoneers of the Wasatch.  It was pretty spectacular!  For the encore, the orchestra played "Stars and Stripes Forever" by John Philip Sousa and that was immediately followed by an awesome fireworks display above the waterfall!  Evenings such as these are what I love most about summer!

Note:  Go here for more performances by the Utah Symphony this summer.

Thursday, May 2, 2019

Tulip Festival 2019

Yesterday when I woke up there was snow on the ground but the sun came out eventually and it turned into a really nice day.  I decided to spend the afternoon visiting the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point.  It was absolutely perfect because the temperature was cool and it wasn't crowded.  There are fifteen different themed gardens featuring 280,000 tulips in hundreds of varieties imported from Holland.  I loved wandering through all of the blooms.
The Creek Garden
The Italian Garden
The Fragrance Garden
The Secret Garden (my favorite)
The Tulip Festival has been extended through May 11 at Thanksgiving Point.  It is open Monday through Saturday from 9:00 am to 8:00 pm.  Tickets are $20 in advance for adults and $15 in advance for children ($25 at the door for adults and $20 at the door for children).  The tickets this year are time specific.  When you buy an advance ticket you will be asked to pick a time to visit.  This is so they can control how many guests are in the garden at any one time and I really appreciated that as it does sometimes get very crowded.  Go here for more information and to purchase tickets.

Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Time for Three at the Waterfall

Last night my friend Angela and I had the opportunity to attend another outdoor concert, this time at the Waterfall Amphitheater at Thanksgiving Point.  It was another concert featuring the Utah Symphony with special guests Time for Three, a string trio made up of Ranaan Meyer, Charles Yang, and Nicolas Kendall.  I saw Time for Three several years ago at Red Butte Garden and I loved their performance so much that I knew I wanted to see them again.  All three of them are classically trained musicians but they come across more like rock stars.  They are known for their mash-ups of classical pieces with contemporary music and this concert was absolutely brilliant!  The Utah Symphony began with "The Star-Spangled Banner" and then Time for Three took the stage with a medley from Hamilton.  Obviously I absolutely loved that!  Then they played three pieces which were written specifically for them, "Vertigo," "Banjo Love," and "Darling Calypso." and I enjoyed all of them.  Then they played a mash-up of "Eleanor Rigby" by the Beatles and "Lacrymosa" from Mozart's Requiem.  This was absolutely amazing and I was pretty much overcome by it.  Before the intermission they did another mash-up, this time it was Saint-Saens' "Organ Symphony" with "Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve which I also really loved.  After the intermission they played yet another mash-up with "Sweet Child O Mine" by Guns N' Roses and selections from Kindertotenlieder by Gustav Mahler.  This was so lovely and atmospheric. They then played a beautiful rendition of "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen and concluded the concert with "Songs of Joy" which was an epic arrangement.  As an encore the orchestra played "Stars and Stripes Forever" by John Philip Sousa.  I enjoyed this concert so much.  The Waterfall Amphitheater is such a lovely venue with beautiful gardens all around and the temperature was just perfect for a concert with a slight breeze.  After the concert there was a fireworks show behind the waterfall which was quite festive and got me excited for the Fourth of July!  The perfect ending to a wonderful evening!

Friday, May 8, 2015

Tulip Festival 2015

One of my favorite things to do in the spring is to go to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point.  The flowers are always incredibly beautiful and it wan't very crowded yesterday because it was a bit overcast.  Walking along the pathways was so peaceful and relaxing!
This year my favorite garden was the Creek Garden.  I stayed in this area quite a while because the sound of the moving water was so soothing!
I also really love the Secret Garden.  It is usually really crowded but it was almost empty while I was there.  I loved sitting there and listening to the birds!
I really enjoyed myself wandering through the gardens!  The Tulip Festival continues at Thanksgiving Point until Saturday, May 9.  Tickets are $15 for adults and $12 for children.  Go here for more information.
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...