Our first stop was at a silver filigree studio, where we could see the jewelry being painstakingly made by hand. The work was gorgeous-- we looked at many filigree earrings and pendants (and bought a couple of smaller items), but also admired a few of the larger works which were either out of our price range, or not for sale. Among the other items in the store was a beautiful 3-D miniature filigree piano, complete with moving lid, as well as an exquisite silver filigree squirrel. We also chatted for quite a while with the man in the shop-- when we mentioned our orchestra tour, he said, "I think I've heard about your orchestra"-- and showed us a small article in today's local (Skopje) paper.
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| Canadian Orchestra performs in Bitola |
Then we wandered into a small art gallery, with many works by local Macedonian artists for sale. We also chatted with the owner of the gallery, and I ended up purchasing a small original oil painting (no photo for the blog, since it's packed up in my suitcase). There seems to be no lack of artistic talent here, and we were also impressed that a lot of 'regular' people here seem to be aware/knowledgeable about (classical) music. We ended our second trip through the Bazaar with some local beer, before returning to our hotel for lunch.
After lunch, our orchestra got back on the bus for a 3-hour trip (each way) to the town of Bitola, for an evening performance at the summer festival there. It was an interesting drive through the Macedonian countryside. We could see many of the people working their farms by hand (plowing, planting, watering crops), as well as using some very basic farm equipment. We passed through 'wine country'-- lots of grape vines, and even saw some storks nesting on rooftops.
Our evening concert was outdoors, in front of an interesting old building, which had apparently been used by the military before, and is now empty inside. It made a fantastic backdrop for our orchestra though, and we played to another very enthusiastic audience. Thankfully we weren't bothered by mosquitoes at this venue, though each concert we play comes with a new set of challenges! Tonight it was the wind-- we had clothespegged our music to our stands, but there were still a few mishaps of flying music (and flying stands). At one point, two boys from the audience came up to hold the music onto the solo violist's stand (the violist from the 'Music Progressive Quartet'), to keep it from blowing away. All in all a fun gig, and I'm sure it would be pretty entertaining to watch-- I believe we were being filmed for Macedonian TV.
That's it for tonight-- tomorrow we have our final concert here in Macedonia, for the Skopje summer festival.
-Elizabeth