A short little piece today to heighten the mood of a summer on the cusp of coming to an end for another year. Only one month left remaining and it almost feels like yesterday that I left Lethbridge because school was over.

In a way I feel sort of relieved to be returning to the environment that sinks me into the world I love. On the other hand, it means moving again and leaving all the friends I made in Calgary over the summer. Here's a piece to tribute both situations.

The works of Dimitri Shostakovich were under constant scrutiny because of the era in which he wrote music. With the Stalinist regime taking full control of all social aspects to the music that Shostakovich was forced to write through most of his career, it is possible to imagine the feelings of near freedom once that regime came to an end.

The Festival Overture in A Major, Op.96 is a work that really means nothing. It has no political undertones, no hidden subtleties into the progression of the working class like there was with his Fifth Symphony.


St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Y. Temirkanov conducting

The Overture is simply a becoming work that dares to ask the question, "why not?" to almost everything.

Why not enjoy it? Why not dare to have fun in life?