Riffs, Roams and Raves uncovers the creative, noteworthy and accomplished in the Wimberley Valley and beyond with tips on who to hear, where to go and what to see from managing editor Teresa Kendrick.
Riffs: Underground Cello Concert in Boerne One of the most unusual venues for a concert I’ve attended in recent memory was the Texas Cellos concert in Boerne last Saturday. The performance was held in the Queen’s Throne Room in the Cave Without a Name. A little over an hour from Wimberly off FM 474 and Kreutzberg Road, northeast of Boerne, the living limestone cave has six major rooms and is a National Natural Landmark, a rather rare designation as landmarks go. Others in the world are the Grand Canyon, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, Niagara Falls, and the Galapagos Islands.
Before approaching the cave, concertgoers like me checked into the gift shop where our proof of reservation was traded for a ticket. The 80-foot descent into the cavern was facilitated by concrete stairs, 126 steps in all, built with landings where the winded could rest while others skirted past. Going down was not difficult but we were advised to hang onto the handrails and to mind our heads. While the wind gusted in the 40s outside, the cave was a comfortable 66 degrees.
As one of the last people to arrive, I was dazzled by the floor-to-ceiling formations that were illuminated to show them to their maximum advantage. On one side of the room was the stage. Facing it were approximately 200 chairs and nearly all of them were filled.
Texas Cellos is a nonprofit group of cello musicians from Dallas that exists for the love of sound expression and to enjoy the friendships that music creates. Admission to the group is through auditions and once admitted, rehearsals require a serious commitment. Their aim is not only to build excellence but to provide performance opportunities for their members. From reading their performance schedules, it appears they play widely throughout the Northern part of the state.
The nine young members on the stage in Boerne were relaxed and unmiked. They opened the concert with a piece by Handel that was followed by a very old piece by the Italian composer Palestrina.
Then they performed Ravel’s “Bo-lero,” tapping the bodies of the cellos or plucking the strings to create the piece’s Spanish dance rhythm. While part of the cellos engaged in the rhythm, the rest played the melody, which is repeated in the composition eighteen times in a slow crescendo before it reaches its finale. It proved mesmerizing and I noticed that the people around me listened with their eyes closed before they stood to applaud the performers with a long blast of appreciation.
After a short break, the musicians took the stage again to play “more accessible” songs from popular artists such as the Beatles and Ennio Morricone’s “Man with a harmonica” from the film “Once upon a Time in the West.” It was an excellent, memorable performance.
Roams: Wassailfest
My roam this week took me to New Braunfels for the town’s annual Wassailfest. Downtown merchants greet visitors at tables outside their shops with tiny paper cups filled with wassail. Wassail is a warm spiced cider simmered with apples and oranges that’s an anglo-saxon tradition adopted by many European countries to usher in the holiday season.
A few of the tables I visited had versions that were slightly spiked with vodka, but getting a buzz would require bringing your own bottle. In fact, Wassailfest is not at all equal to the high energy of a Wurstfest. It is a family event where kids can pose with the Grinch or beg Dad to buy a lightsaber for them to wave around.
The event’s epicenter is the intersection of Seguin and San Antonio streets where the town’s stately bandstand towers over the square. Like the bandstand, the downtown’s venerable oaks are clad in white lights and their lighted limbs can be a breathtaking vision against the dark sky.
For six blocks on either side of the square, the streets are blocked off so that pedestrians have free rein to sample wassail and do a slow promenade from table to food truck and back again.
Every half hour, students from different elementary schools sang carols or played music on various stages. One of the stages was in front of the Faust Hotel which displayed a sign saying “Closed for Renovations.”
The best thing about the event for me was preordering a commemorative wassail cup from the city’s website. For $10, I got a glass wassail cup in the shape of a beer mug, with a red cord tied to its handle. Like everyone else who had one, I wore it around my neck so that it wouldn’t be a nuisance to carry. The cup was the size of a shot glass and had a metal emblem on its front. Finding the table handing out the wassail cups proved to be the toughest challenge of the evening. While looking for it, I talked with several people who carried older versions purchased in previous years. Over the years, the cups have been whittled down in size from a juice glass to a shot glass.
Raves: Universal Love of Dolls An exhibition at Suzanne Oliver’s 220 Fine Art Gallery on Old Kyle Road opens on Saturday December 16. Called the Universal Love of Dolls, the exhibit explores the cultural, psychological and spiritual significance that dolls represent for humans. The opening begins at four and ends at seven p.m. Anyone interested in the doll as an art form should check out this educational and interesting opening.
