Andre' Rieu

Last night my Mom and Step-Dad treated me to dinner and a concert; Andre’ Rieu. My Mom has been going to see him for a few years and invited me to join her this year. Andre’ is a violinist from Holland and has an orchestra he conducts also. He also had three tenors who sang and several women who sang opera. I thought Andre’ Rieu would be stuffy and think he was better than us because my Mom had said previously that he doesn’t like it when people are late. However, I was pleasantly surprised by his personality. He was funny, making jokes and facial expressions that made the crowd laugh. He was also light-hearted and did many things or the orchestra did many things during the show that made the crowd laugh. After about five songs he did say something to someone walking in late, but he did it in a comical way and not a demeaning way. He said “You’re late. I’m from Holland. We are on time. Ahh, they are Dutch.” It was nice that he didn’t take himself too seriously and the orchestra looked like they were enjoying themselves too.

I was surprised to see the orchestra stood up for applause after every song. The women were dressed in beautiful ball gowns and the men in tuxes with tails. The music filled the room and sounded fantastic.
I grew up listening to classical music and opera so I was pleased to see I knew many of the pieces. Some of my favorites were My Heart Will Go On from Titanic, Time to Go and Amazing Grace. There was another waltz that I can’t remember that I enjoyed too (ok there were several that I can’t remember the names of, just know the tune). During that one many audience members got up and danced. At the end he played a song during the encore then would encourage the audience to applaud if they wanted more songs to be played. He’d play another and again encourage us to applaud for more. At one point he told us to Go Home, didn’t we have anything to do tomorrow? He played Brahms Lullaby during the encore and it was beautiful.

He said he has played all over the world and was happy to be back in Manchester. He asked if we were all from Manchester and only about 5 people raised their hands. He asked a woman in the front row where she was from and she said Contoocook, which is a small town and is pronounced “kun-tu- kick”. I couldn’t believe he got the pronunciation correct. And he kept saying it throughout the night and each time he did the audience would erupt in laughter. It was a wonderful night!