Wednesday: rain, clouds, darkness and a couple things we're reading.
KC Masterpiece: Sometimes it takes an outsider to reintroduce the familiar. Kansas City's music scene was focused on our own Chicago Symphony Orchestra which performed there this week. The Kansas City Star review noted many of the Kansas City Symphony players showed up to watch what the critic called "an invigorating experience." Ahead of the performance, CSO conductor Riccardo Muti spoke of his choice to perform Beethoven's Symphony No. 5.
"Of course, the fifth symphony is a very popular piece. Everybody knows the beginning, duh-duh-duh-duuuh," he said. "The first movement was used by the Nazis as an example of the power of Germany. Deutschland über alles. They used poor Beethoven to emphasize their horrible power. So the fifth became full of exaggerations, making gigantic performances of a symphony that belongs to the early 19th century and is the expression of a composer concerned about the architecture of his work.”
Google Grants 97-year-old Woman's Wish: Olive Horrell grew up without electricity or indoor plumbing and dreamed of being an engineer but her father, who was an engineer, discouraged her because he didn't think a woman could get a job as an engineer, Business Insider reports. Arranged through a partnership with Wish of a Lifetime, Horrell toured Google HQ, where she rode in a self-driving car and got a peek at new product demos.
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