Friday will be a farewell: it is the last "Friday 6.5 show" of the season, a last dance of sorts, if only to make sense of our title. The performance is at 6:30pm, so people can go straight from work in their Friday casual attire. Gosh, do they wear shorts? We don’t know, we try to go earlier in the run so as to share our opinion as quickly as possible. We are very partial to the Thursday matinees, the little old ladies are so sweet. Anyhow, the show being about 2 hours long typically, you get out just in time for dinner at Zuni, Hayes Street Grill or Citizen Cake, and the night is still young and full of fun ahead. Being artsy and classy early in the evening gives you a good excuse to do the dumb things you’d do on a Friday night anyway. It all evens out.

This week’s series features an eclectic mix of old and new, challenging and pleasing. A Beethoven symphony (not the ta-ta-ta-tum one, not the keeping score one and not the ode to joy one, another one), and his Romance for violin.

Picture of Hans Graf courtesy of Houston Symphony