Vol 4 No 7, July 2010
©2010 Salt Lake Vienna Waltz Association
“In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.”
Andy Warhol
Stay with me here!
It’s summer, the doldrums for Viennese Waltz. What do you do to pass the time while the ballrooms are shuttered? We
have our Friday nights with our waltz coach Matthew, but we still need opportunities to dance more often. Of course,
there’s Murray Arts Center which hosts ballroom many nights of the week, but after a hard day at our day jobs, getting
out to dance later in the evening often seems daunting.
Last weekend, we reserved a hotel room in Deer Valley, and drove up to see Ben Folds perform with the Utah
Symphony at the symphony’s outdoor amphitheatre at Snow Park Lodge. A summer symphony at Deer Valley has
become somewhat of a tradition for us, and we have seen Utah Symphony perform with Tony Bennett, Elvis Costello,
and others.
The venue, where freestyle skiing took place during the 2002 Olympics, can get very crowded, and there is only a one-
way single-lane road out. We've always enjoyed spending the night in Deer Valley, continuing our mini-vacation there
the next morning rather than facing a traffic-choked two-hour commute back to Salt Lake City post concert.
Ben Folds was great. Having just flown in that morning from a tour in London he managed the 6,500 feet Deer Valley
altitude with little problem, although he did good-naturedly complain about his shortness of breath. The Utah Symphony
was superb as usual, and a small corps of backup singers ─ a baritone, especially ─ complemented Folds’ singing. We
missed Concertmaster Ralph Matson, but I suspect he was taking a well-deserved vacation. Listen to the live version of
Folds’ “Army,” including the audience sing-a-long, add an orchestra to his piano, and you’ll get an idea of what we
heard.
Now, the “fifteen minutes of fame” I mentioned above. Waiting for the symphony and Ben Folds to take the stage, we
perused Utah Symphony’s program for its Deer Valley summer series, and unexpectedly came upon a photo of us in
the program performing an underarm turn during a dance in front of the stage when Tony Bennett performed a couple
of years ago. We always dance for a few numbers during these concerts, and the symphony’s photographer happened
to capture our turn for the 2010 program. For the remainder of the 2010 season, we hope concert attendees get an
inspiration to dance from seeing our photo.
Should you go to Deer Valley, get up and dance! You’ll be the only ones who do (unless we’re also there) and you just
may find your photo in a subsequent year’s program.