Ladies and Gentlemen…please welcome the Chairman of the London Symphony Orchestra
I...
It's quite usual for me to arrive in a city, leave the hotel, which is different to the one we stayed on previous trips, and not recognise anything at all. There are times when I begin to doubt myself and think that maybe I'm mixing places up. The one constant is the concert...
The eagle eyed readers will have noticed that whilst a large proportion of the LSO is in Aix, almost all of those left behind performed...
The final day of the tour and we have a bit of a marathon to run, or hobble at any rate. Leaving the hotel at 6.45 am after a concert the night before in Lucerne, we get on a bus which takes us on a short journey to Zurich airport to arrive by 7am. Sunday mornings are never...
The orchestra sat in near silence on the train this morning. The tension rising with the outside temperature as we sped through the mountains. I haven't felt this much pressure on a train since Sue Mallet was on a trip and was looking for volunteers for something or other. She...
I am at the moment sitting in a...
Mahler's Third Symphony is always an event, partly due to the size of forces needed and the space required. The famous opening with the horns in full flight is truly astonishing writing and the power unleashed by Gergiev's hands in the ample acoustic of the Lincoln Centre is...
Another year, another blog. Yes, I know its February but this is the first time I have managed to put virtual pen to...er...virtual paper. I was looking through some of the old blogs the other day which date back to 2007. The reason for this is that we are off to New York soon...
As an encore at the recital the other night, we played a little melancholy Welsh folk song. Simple but effective in its main aim of bringing a lump to the throat and a tear to the eye. A member of the audience asked me at the reception afterwards if all Welsh folk songs were...
After negotiating the ticket system of Europe, we successfully performed in the Chateau and consequently enjoyed a well earned lie in the next morning when the rest of the orchestra was on a very bumpy flight from Gatwick. As we met up with some wet colleagues in the foyer, it...
