Mary Mitchell, a colleague from my days at Dow Jones, sent me an email the other day. She was inviting me to join a group of classical music fans in Central Park to experience an eclectic selection from the Los Angeles-based group, Delirium Musicum as part of the Naumburg Orchestral Concert series.

You can listen to the entire program as broadcast by WQXR.

I didn’t know what to expect but I was very much looking forward to it as it had been a busy day at work and I needed to unwind. What unfolded was a beautiful selection of compositions, some original, some variations of familiar pieces, but all of them fresh and joyfully played. You can read the full program here.

You could see the orchestra was having fun and it was infectious.

Later, while listening to Erik Satie, the birds glided overhead in the dusk – seemingly dancing to the gentle, sparse melody. On the back of the program was this passage from EB White, describing the very spot where I was sitting,

Another hot night I stop off at the band concert in the Mall in Central Park. The people seated on the benches fanned out in front of the band shell are attentive, appreciative. In the trees the night wind sings, bringing leaves to life, endowing them with speech; the electric lights illuminate the green branches from the under side, translating them into a new language. On a bench directly in front of me, a boy sits with his arm around his girl; they are proud of each other and are swathed in music.

E.B. White’s Here is New York, 1949

The Naumburg Orchestral Concert series is a free concert series, perpetually funded by the late-Elkan Naumburg, a merchant banker, who established the series in 1905, “to encourage and stimulate the public’s interest in symphonic and classical music.”

Concerts are put on every summer at the Naumburg bandshell in Central Park. There are two more concerts this year (July 21st and August 4th) and I would encourage you to pack a snack, bring a friend, and enjoy the communal gathering.