Four tiers of mahogany. My jaw muscles lost the ability to hold my mouth closed as I walked into the cello-shaped Verizon Hall on to watch the Philadelphia Symphony orchestra on Saturday night. I chose to apply to Penn in partly because I loved the cultural resources that Philadelphia offers, so it’s pretty pathetic that it’s taken me a year and a half to venture over to the Kimmel Center.

Another confession: I know very little about classical music. But the symphony was still magnificent. For two hours I had an excuse to let my mind wonder–even for me, a boorish cynic who was fired from piano lessons in elementary school because I couldn’t sit still long enough to practice, the music still seemed beautiful.

Saturday night, Christoph Eschenbach, the internationally acclaimed music director of the Philadelphia Symphony (who kind of looks like Psychology Professor Shatte from far away) acted as both conductor and soloist. During the two hour concert, the orchestra played two pieces–Mozart’s 23 and 24 Piano Concertos–and the wind section played Mozart’s Serenade in C minor.

So what was the cost for this classy evening of entertainment by a world renowned conductor? Ten dollars.

You see, the Kimmel Center has a student rush program. The program is admittedly a little bit cumbersome, but if you arrive at the Kimmel Center 30 minutes before the show with a Penncard (depending on prior ticket sales) you can buy a student ticket. The seats are actually really good– the ushers seat you in the best seats that weren’t sold. Saturday, for example, I sat on the orchestra level. Pretty sweet, huh?

In short, Saturday night was simply delightful. Maybe it was the comfort of being surrounded by sparkly grandparents out on the town. Possibly it was just the music. Or perhaps it was that last Saturday was the first really cold night this winter, I couldn’t fathom spending the evening roaming around campus, and the mahogany felt so warm. Yeah, it must have been the mahogany.

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