For quite a while now people have suggested that we start a Fry Street Quartet blog, and after years of contemplation, we finally decided to take the plunge! We have just embarked on a tour of the midwest, which seemed like an excellent time to start sharing some of our adventures with friends near and far.
It's also a great time to introduce you all to Robert Waters, our new first violinist!
Robert is an exceptional violinist, and he comes to us with an enormous body of experience as a performer and teacher. He's also an all-around awesome person, and we are thrilled to welcome him to the gang.
Of course there is no better way to bond as a string quartet then to set out in a minivan for a three-week tour of the midwestern states! Last night we flew into Minneapolis and picked up our dashing charcoal grey Chrysler Town and Country, then set off on the three+ hour drive southwest to Worthington, MN. Brad regaled us with some historical facts about our destination city on the drive (as he is wont to do), and also excited us all with the news that Worthington is home to an Ethiopian restaurant! This fact impressed us, as the population of the town is not much over 12,000 people. Now, as many of you might already know, the main hobby of any string quartet worth its salt is EATING. In fact, anything food and drink related is basically the main entertainment on tours like this, so we are always thrilled to find little gems in the various places we visit. Knowing that our post-concert dinner plans were in place, we all slept soundly last night.
This snowy afternoon found us at the beautiful Memorial Auditorium in Worthington, a lovely historic space that was just renovated last year. The acoustics were intimate and warm, and worked perfectly for a string quartet. We were pleased to find that a very large crowd had braved the weather to hear some Beethoven, Shostakovich, and Mendelssohn! One of our favorite things about touring to smaller towns is how appreciative the audiences always are, and Worthington was no exception.
We also laughed when we saw that some old friends had recently been in Worthington:
The post-concert meal was a real treat! We headed to downtown Worthington to find the Queen Sheba restaurant, and upon entering we discovered that it was much more than just a restaurant! The place was packed with people, most of them presumably Ethiopian expats, and it had the feel of a vibrant community gathering place. Many folks were enjoying the food, but many more were sitting around talking, playing pool, or watching Ethiopian television. We were warmly welcomed by the proprietress, who not only served as hostess and waitress, but also seemed to be the only one cooking! We even saw here serve as bouncer at one point, when a customer's behavior got a bit unruly - she literally grabbed him by his coat collar and dragged him out of the restaurant! She was quite a force of nature. The food was absolutely DELICIOUS! We had an assortment of meat and veggie dishes, all scooped up by the traditional injera bread.
In addition to being a perfect post-concert repast, we decided that the communal nature of the Ethiopian meal also makes it a very symbolic quartet dining experience.
Tomorrow we will hit one of Worthington's other highly-rated restaurants for lunch (this time, Mexican!) before departing for Redwood Falls, MN and our next concert/food adventure.
Good night from Minnesota!
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