More Music and a Night at the Zoo

We had a week much like last week, with one exception: the zoo.

Leipzig has a very fine zoo and we had yet to visit until this week. This is kind of strange, since we ride past it any time we ride the tram into town. They were holding a month-long “light festival”, so we thought it might be a good time to check it out. We did see lights, and that was cool. There were various animal displays done in lights and in black-lit neon paint. They have a huge domed structure that has a tropical rainforest with big trees, bamboo, and other jungle plants. There are rope bridges, tunnels, and a river with boats. It was mostly dark and they had various parts lit up with different colors and they projected stars onto the dome. There were various performers around, including wandering “animals” that were all lit up. I had a run-in with the “jellyfish” performer when she took off running and I was unfortunately in her path. One of the groups performing was a “fire and ice” show with fire-breathing and various LED light baton things. It was really cool and I’ll be able to share a bit of that when I make the next video.

However, we saw very few actual animals. In fact, if they hadn’t had the aquarium open, we would have seen almost none. The fish and jellies and things were fun, though, and it was nice and warm inside. We caught a glimpse of a tropical bird in the dome, and that was about it.

We got out and saw some music again this week. There is a lunchtime concert every week at the Old Town Hall, which is now a city history museum. It has a really cool big room where the town leaders used to meet. It’s from the Renaissance and that is where they hold the concert. We saw a violin student from the Music School perform, accompanied by one of the faculty. It was a nice concert, consisting of music by Dussek and Prokofiev. The violinist was fighting new strings on her instrument, but she did well despite that.

We also attended a truly excellent concert at the Mendelssohn Haus in celebration of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s 215th birthday. The pianist, Matthias Kirschnereit, is world-class. He played pieces by Mendelssohn, Mozart, and Chopin and then three encores by Schubert, Brahms, and Debussy. It was all excellent and it was fun to revisit the museum for a concert.

We walked to a bakery that I marked on my map months ago. They are a true patisserie and we had a lovely little layered cake with spices and lemon curd, along with a macaron and a yummy chocolate cookie. We went to our favorite café in town, Café Centrale, and had lunch after the lunchtime concert. We had only ever visited the café for breakfast before, so it was fun to try some new things. Nathan had a curried fish soup and I had a chicken sandwich on french toast with avocado.

We also caught another service at the Thomaskirche. They weren’t presenting a Bach cantata, however, so it was pretty low-key as far as church services go. The best part, at least for me, was the postlude: Wagner’s Pilgrims’ Chorus from the opera Tannhäuser. Enjoy it at the beginning of this clip…not exactly the right interpretation of the original music, but enjoyable! 🙂  

We spent a lot of time studying and practicing. The weather was pretty good for most of the week, so we took our usual daily walks and soaked up some sun. This week we are going to hop on a plane and see some different scenery for a bit, so there will be more to report next week!