Mix corn and lima beans and you get succotash.
Maybe even sufferin’ succotash from the lispy lips of Looney Tunes character Sylvester the Cat.
As a kid who cherished cartoons, I always figured the suffering was because it — at least to Sylvester J. Pussycat Sr., aka Puddy Tat — was a terrible-tasting mixture.
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Mix Pixar animation and the Marin Symphony, however, and whatcha get?
A delectable ear-and-eye confection, slightly over two hours (minus the intermission) filled with pure sound-and-sight wonderment, and joy.
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Exactly long enough to appease adults, and short enough to keep kids from getting antsy. Similar to what I’d felt when my dad dragged me, barely out of diapers, to Walt Disney’s Fantasia.
The glee paralleled, too, my experience on countless Saturdays watching one matinee cartoon after another (plus a double feature, a serial and a wacky race each week).
I haven’t been a tot, toddler or teen for more than half a century, sufficient in the long-ago department for my six-year-old granddaughter to conceive of me as having had dinosaurs as pets.
No problem.
I reveled inside the jammed 1,960-seat Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Marin Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium in San Rafael as Alasdair Neale adroitly conducted 80 expert instrumentalists in musical blurbs from each of Pixar’s 13 films while colorful clips splashed across a huge screen at the stage’s rear.
And my granddaughter — who’d never been to a live orchestral concert before but had thoroughly enjoyed “Peter and the Wolf” excerpts and other classical tidbits on YouTube — reveled, too.
She totally enjoyed it but decided the Toy Story 2 component was her fave.
From their vigorous clapping and squeals of delight, other kids fancied Finding Nemo or The Incredibles or Monsters Inc.
Only rarely did a tyke express displeasure by crying or talking loudly enough to distract anyone nearby.
Mostly they were rapt.
Mark Andrews, director of Brave who doubled as emcee, called the music “powerful” and “awesome.”
He was spot on on both counts.
The show’s range was surprisingly wide — touches of classics and jazz that alternately evoked happiness and sadness.
I smiled a lot, and teared up twice.
“Pixar in Concert” was the Marin Symphony’s first-ever Spring pops performance. Based on the standing ovation it received, comparable future shows also will fill the auditorium.
Many youngsters — and some oldsters — might never before have heard the names of Randy Newman, his cousin Thomas Newman, Michael Giacchino or Sir Patrick Doyle, but they definitely had heard their compositions.
And since “Pixar in Concert” accentuated action sequences rather than scenes with dialogue, few missed the voice-overs of Tom Hanks, Owen Wilson, Ellen DeGeneres, Billy Crystal or John Ratzenberger, not even children who’d seen the animation dozens of times on small screens.
Tickets ranged from $20 to $75, with not a bad seat in the acoustically puissant hall — even for the year-old cradled on his dad’s shoulder near me or for the near-centurions with crippling arthritis half an auditorium away.
The show wasn’t linear.
Tunes weren’t presented chronologically or bunched by franchise. And those selected wouldn’t necessarily appear on a “best of” DVD.
If you couldn’t make it to “Pixar in Concert,” I urge you to catch it anywhere there’s a performance within a Buzz Lightyear or two — in San Diego, for instance, where that city’s symphony is planning an Aug. 18 version.
The Marin afternoon, incidentally, was predated by the world premiere at Davies Hall in San Francisco, a second rendering in the Hollywood Bowl, another in Richmond, Virginia, and yet another by the Boston Pops.
This one marked the end of the Marin Symphony’s 60th season.
The next — playfully and seriously carrying the slogan “Fun. Seriously” — will include a “Waterfront Pops Concert” of movie music favorites by John Williams on Sept. 15, a Dec. 17 “Holiday Pops Concert” featuring a chunk of Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker” and Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas,” a “Magical Music of Disney Family Concert” March 16, and a “Pirates of the Caribbean” concert with film clips June 8.
The orchestra — which also has scheduled an evening of classical Russian composers, “Quintessential Beethoven” and a concert combining sacred and secular music — is strongly reaching out to a younger crowd while retaining Marin’s senior tsunami audience.
As for me, Peter Rodgers, the symphony’s director of marketing and communications, had given a two-syllable marching order: “Enjoy!”
I followed his directions — without missing a beat.
Marin Symphony tickets are available at the Marin Center box office in San Rafael; by calling 499-6800 or 479-8100; or online at www.marinsymphony.org.
