I used to have that ELP album

While leaving the auditorium, I overheard two women discussing the Dvorak's Symphony #9, "From the New World."

Woman 1: It was sure negative. He just wanted to prove it wasn't American.

Woman 2: Yeah, I liked the "Pictures at a Galleria" one better.

(Referring to a previous "Inside the Score" featuring Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition")

- Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall

-- Overhead by Steve, who writes:

"Inside the Score" is a series in which OR Symphony director Karlos Kalmar discusses and demonstrates parts of a classical work, then has the orchestra perform it in its entirety. On Sunday, they did Dvorak's Symphony #9, "From the New World," and the discussion was centered on just how "American" this work is ("not very" is the consensus that most any music student or connoisseur already knows).

Kalmar started out debunking any relationship to jazz, which didn't appear until decades after the symphony was written.

Sitting next to me in the audience was a woman and her two young daughters. (They tittered, talked and whispered through the whole show.) At one point, Kalmar demonstrated a bass line, and the woman says to her girls, quite excitedly, "It's jazz!" She repeated this a few times to make sure everybody around heard it.