Apologies for the lack of blogging on this centenary trip (there is a lot of material coming your way soon...). We are on our way to the airport as I type and glad to be coming home. I have to confess that this week, I have written and rewritten this blog four times and...
So, the traffic into New York City is terrible this evening. However as I have my laptop and the clever American bus has Wifi, I thought I'd let you know about an article in the New York Times. Some of you may remember the twitter account we had using diaries from the 1912 tour...
The concert last night was in Frankfurt. Because of the Book Fair there, the publishers and book sellers of the world were using every available hotel room and so at the end of our four hour bus trip from Luxembourg, we found ourselves in a brand new hotel in Darmstadt. You...
Pairing up the four symphonies of Szymanowski and Brahms has provoked some discussion within the band and the press. Why put these two composers together? Does the performance of the two composers bring anything to the other, is there some illumination provided by hearing the...
“Is there a park nearby?” I enquire in faultless French. “I want to go running.” “Yes of course, sir.” The man on the desk spins around and produces a map which he marks a series of lines, circles and arrows on. I study the map because that is what one does when...
Finally, after almost two weeks away, we are back home. In fact, it’s longer than two weeks because this trip came straight on the back of Edinburgh and Lucerne/Salzburg. A grand total of 20 concerts in 26 days. Upstairs at LSO Towers, eJo has marked all the places we’ve...
This is a very hard trip indeed. Somebody told me that we have done 20 concerts in 26 days in many different countries since we came back for the closing ceremony of the Olympics. I would like some clean clothes, I would like to sleep in the same bed for more than two nights and...
Leaving the lovers of Verona and arriving in Berlin only one hour later is a shock. The ancient stones of Italy and the marble walls of the amphitheatre seem a long way away as we arrive at the hotel which was once in East Berlin. If Verona lays claim to the human tragedy of...
Back in the real world, it’s back to school for my kids and thousands of others as the long, languorous days of the summer holiday fade away. The collective tension of thousands of shoe shop workers around the country increases to unbearable limits as a stream of parents and...
Although in name we are the London Symphony Orchestra, there are in fact very few members who are from London itself. The great metropolis has always been just down the road from my home town of Guildford, but a quick glance down the list in our programme will see some decidedly...
