Hilary Hahn was...

Hilary Hahn was...

Hilary Hahn - the world famous violin soloist that came last night to play with the South Bend Symphony - the same Hilary Hahn that I've admired since she burst on to the world stage at 17 with an energetic recording of Bach's Suites and Partitas for Solo Violin - the same Hilary Hahn that I purchased concert tickets for over two months ago - was...

Early.

Yes, you read it right: Hilary Hahn was early.

When I got my tickets in the mail in early March I put them in my wallet because I didn't want to lose them. They were showing some wear and tear from riding in my back pocket with George and Abe and Andrew, but yesterday morning I took them out, double-checked the concert time, yep - 7:30, and figured backwards when I'd need to leave my house to have to dinner with a friend and still get to the concert on time.

Everything went without a hitch. We had decided to eat at the Thai place on N Main so that we could park once and walk around the block. As I pulled up (around 6pm) I saw people heading to the hall, but I figured maybe there must be a pre-concert lecture that we hadn't signed up for. My tickets said 7:30. Everything was cool. So we had a leisurely supper and arrived 15 minutes before the curtain to find the foyer virtually empty.

A friendly volunteer said "Oh, you must have been one of the ticket holders who didn't get notified. They moved the concert forward an hour. It started at 6:30. You can't go in until the intermission."

I was proud of myself: I didn't swear once at any of the volunteers. I thought for a while that they would put Hahn's solo at the end of the concert and that I might still hear her. But no, she played right before the intermission. After her solo they let us into the hallway that buffers the concert hall from the outside foyer, and we could watch her play an encore - the first movement of the Bach Partita in D minor - through a glass window. I could only hear fragments. It was like being in a dream - a bad dream.

Then it was intermission, and I found a Symphony employee to vent to. She took it, but there really wasn't anything she could do. (Really - even then I didn't swear.) They've promised me a refund, and yes I want my money. But I wanted to hear Hahn. I could have stayed and watched the second half, but I was too upset to sit quietly and fume about what I had missed.

In the course of human affairs - with wars waging in Afganistan and Iraq, with global warming and a declining dollar and record oil prices - this is a minor event. But moving the concert ahead an hour was a boneheaded thing to do. My anger has subsided, but I'm still disappointed.