Thursday night we went to a Berry College concert featuring the Berry College steel band “The Berry Breeze” and the Berry Jazz Ensemble. We both thought it was very good. We were surprised by the steel band. They use steel drums (or steel pans, or just pans).

I used my new camera, the Olympus EPL7. I used the relatively slow “kit” lens, which required me to shoot at a fairly long exposure. That caused some blurring of the performers. Maybe one day I’ll get a faster lens for things like this.

My favorite piece was Paul Simon’s “Late in the Evening.” The Berry Breeze performed for about a half an hour, and then the jazz ensemble performed for another half hour. Their repertoire was mainly jazz from the ‘40’s, with some slightly more modern.

I know very little about music, but I thought these students were professional quality. One of the things I enjoyed most was seeing how much the students seemed to enjoy their performances.

The performance was held in Berry College’s Ford Auditorium, one of seven buildings constructed in the late ‘20’s and early ‘30’s in the Collegiate Gothic Style. According to the marthapedia (from Martha Berry, the founder. The marthapedia was actually a class assignment at Berry) says that the buildings were financed by Henry Ford, but were not named for Ford until after his death. Apparently Ford was afraid if they were named for him he would be expected to maintain them during his lifetime.

The Berry Department of Fine Arts gives over 40 free concerts every year. We’re thinking about attending more.

On Saturday we decided to go to the Intercultural Fest held in downtown Rome. It was supposed to offer food, music and lots of other stuff. We first attended our own Intercultural Feast at our favorite Mexican restaurant. The Intercultural Fest was supposed to go from noon to midnight. Unfortunately, it had slowed down considerably by the time we got there. A Columbian dance group had just finished when we walked in. After that there was a West African bell and drum solo, which, I have to confess, did not impress except through the soloist’s enthusiasm. After that a local Latin rapper performed. By this time there were only about 30 people watching.

The event was almost entirely Hispanic. The mistress of ceremonies would speak a few sentences in Spanish, then say a few sentences in English, and then switch back to Spanish. I don’t know Spanish but I could tell that she was not just translating herself.

The light was so dim that any shot I took required an even longer exposure than at the Berry concert. The most visually interesting thing we saw was this.

A little baby’s hand and foot. I had to put the camera in my lap and shoot for about a second.

The Intercultural Fest was a disappointment, but we’re hoping they do it again next year. If they do, we’ll go earlier in the day.