Virtuosity, Musical and Trivial: The Fall Concert

On Friday evening, lightly bundled against an early autumn chill, students made their way to the Fritz B. Burns Auditorium for the first concert of this year’s St. Vincent de Paul Lecture and Concert Series. “Listening to recordings of great music is good — but there’s nothing like a concert with a master,” remarked Dr. Michael Letteney, dean of Thomas Aquinas College, California. The evening’s performance proved to be exactly that. 

World-renowned pianist Ilya Yakushev led his audience on a musical adventure, ranging from the sublime restraint of Bach and stately lyricism of Haydn and Mozart to the thunderous emotional extremes of Rachmaninoff and Beethoven, whose famous — and famously difficult — “Appassionata” sonata Mr. Yakushev played in full to close out the evening’s program. 

Between pieces, the pianist bantered with his audience, offering remarks about the music and admiring the venue: “I’m blown away by your college and this campus!” For their part, both students and faculty were enthralled with Mr. Yakushev’s virtuosity: They begged for an encore and hastened to St. Cecilia Hall’s lobby after the concert to meet the master in person. 

But the evening was far from over! In keeping with a longstanding tradition, the first concert of the year is followed by a game of Trivial Pursuit, in which the students battle a team of tutors in a clash of minds for honor and glory. 

To ensure no team had an unfair advantage, the teams used questions from two different card decks — one from the game’s 1996 edition, and the other from 2016. The resulting range of the questions gave both teams equal parts trouble and advantage, with utterly unknown pieces of trivia punctuating streaks of familiar questions. 

This year, age trounced youth: The tutors carried the day, much to the flamboyant chagrin of the students. One way or another, it still proved a great night. “The collection of students and tutors who showed up made for great bonding between the students and faculty,” reflected Steven Argo (’24). “It was very exciting!”