I went to two different concerts this week:  Alison Krauses and Union Station at the Orpheum Theatre in Vancouver on Tuesday Aug 9th, and Vancouver Symphony Orchestra at Deer Lake Park on Friday August 12th.

Alison Krauss specializes in bluegrass music - pure accoustic mountain-inspired old-fashioned country music.  She has the voice of an angel, and is one of my favorite singers.  Dan Tyminski, plays guitar and sings vocals for the band as well, and is more well known for being the singing voice of George Clooney in the movie "O Brother Where Art Thou" for the song "I'm A Man of Constant Sorrow."

The audience was very caucasian... and middle-aged.  Sort of reminded me of the CBC radio concert for "Madly Off in All Directions."  It was a great concert with wonderful music and performances.  On the way to the concert, I joked to my girlfriend (who is caucasian) that I would probably be the only Chinese person at the concert.

"Omigod!" she exclaimed.  "You're Chinese!  You didn't tell me that!"  she joked.  We've only been going out just over two years...

But I did see an Asian person... a technician for the show... then 2 others in the audience as we were walking out.  So, I felt a secret kindred spirit with these strangers of Asiatic features, enjoying an exotic cultural musical delicacy.

Compare this to the audience for the Vancouver Symphony at Deer Lake Park in Burnaby- a Vancouver area tradition.  I would venture that one half to one-quarter of the audience was Asian.  And one-tenth of the symphony was Asian, including the guest soloist, a 16 year-old Korean born clarinetist.  In our social picnic group of 13, over half were Asian...  well one dragon boater was Eurasian... so she counts in both camps.

What is it about symphony and country music that creates cultural divides?  while attending the Alison Krauss concert, I felt that I was being very culturally proactive, like a fly on the wall, witnessing the  cultural traditions of a different very white culture. And yet the Symphony program was all based on dead white composers such as Bizet, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius - many of whom in my accordion concert repetoire!  Very interesting...

Hmmm... Bruce Springsteen concert tonight...
one of the first racially integrated bands in the early 1970's.
I can play "Dancing in the Dark" on my guitar, and "Fire" on the piano!