Salon Concert

On Thursday, I attended a "Salon-Concert to benefit talented young musicians." It was in a 100+ year-old, very European flat with classy drapes and chandeliers and multiple candelabras. A Finnish entrepreneur began the monthly philanthropic series 9 years ago, and I was invited to it by some folks in the Hash club. It was a classy, well-to-do affair. It struck me that I did not rub elbows with the Chicago circles that would put on such events.

This month's installment was a tribute to Georgia. First, the 40-member crowd listened to a 16-year-old Georgian prodigy/pianist play works by Beethoven, Liszt and a Hungarian composer (Ligeti). Mid-way through the performance, a woman in an apartment across the street turned on her light and started busying herself before realizing 40 people had a clear shot of her. She hurriedly closed the curtains. We then retired to a Georgian painter's "working gallery" for complimentary wine and Hungarian snacks. (These snacks included cheesy biscuits and cookies. Mmm.) I spent most of the time talking with people from the Hash and had a lot of fun. One of them promised to loan me his copy of "Slap Shot." :)

The whole thing seemed like a very neat, very European thing to have done. It was also quite cool to get in on a semi-private classical music concert. There are a ton of classical performances going on all the time in the city - Budapest is very big on classical music. Franz Liszt is from Hungary, and I live directly across the street from a square named after him. There is a pretty famous classical music school named after him on that square, and I'll often stop in my tracks while walking by it because the sound of people practicing inside is so amazing.

The rest of the week, I stayed busy with lunches with senior people in the office, language lessons, office dinners, Hungarian tapas/wine dinners, rocking and rolling on Hungarian natural gas regulations for my project and running around with folks to the expat hot spots on Friday night. One takeaway is that I do not care much for goose liver, but perhaps it is an acquired taste.