Editor,
I want to express my voluminous gratitude for the Laguna Beach Live Festival that took place last week. It surpassed my greatest wishes in every sense of the word. Celebrating their 10 anniversary as Laguna’s own music festival, performing at the Laguna Playhouse as well as other venues around town and in private homes, the music performances were perfect and superb. Joshua Bell, violinist extraordinaire, Sam Haywood his flawless accompanist, virtuoso Edgar Meyer on string bass, the outstanding and superb Calder Quartet from the USC Thornton School of Music performing in Laguna for the second time and the Calidore Quartet, formed in 2010 at the Colburn School Conservatory of Music and top winner of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition in 2011.
The music transcended time and space and took me and the audience to heavenly places! As each day of our human experience brings us closer to the “ultimate reward,” I no longer have to ponder the mysterious existence of heaven. I have been there — in the presence of Joshua Bell playing the Mendelssohn Violin Sonata in F Major followed by the Tchaikovsky String Sextet in D minor, where he was joined with five other string players.
Thank you, Laguna Beach Live, and all the other workers who put this together. And a gigantic thanks to Joan Halvajian, who had the vision of this suberb music festival and the gift of her former husband, Ed Halvajian, 1935-2009, who I hope joined with us in this heavenly recreation of music! It was wonderful!
Amen!
Carol Reynolds,
Laguna Beach
