Sunny Spoleto Part 2

The concert started about 15 minutes late in Spoleto, partly because everyone coming to the concert was so relaxed, and why not. Its one of the prettiest towns I’ve seen, lots of nice places to sit outside and eat, tiny cobbled streets, and an evening of beautiful music followed by fireworks to look forward to. Whats the rush?

I should mention by the way, that we were being filmed by Italian broadcasters RAI for a television show of the concert next year, so we were under a little extra pressure. Hot lights, cameras on stage and a swoopy boom camera that flew over our heads were all extra distractions. Its amazing how much noise an audience can make simply by sitting talking and moving around whilst we tune up. Its often not until everyone is totally silent and we are about to begin that you become aware of the ambient noises around you. This didn’t really matter as Daniel strode onto the stage, turned to us and launched in Don Juan, all you could hear was the sound of the LSO reverberating off the ancient stone walls which surrounded us.

Gradually the light levels began to drop, Daniel returned to the stage to conduct the Firebird. Now if you don’t know this piece, the first minutes are incredibly quiet, and outside they are almost inaudible. I have to tell you that the Italian audience were incredibly attentive and quiet in seats which didn’t look the most comfy in the world, they also tipped forward down the hill and I imagine, were still a little damp from the earlier deluge. Now when I used to live just off Guildford High street many years ago, I would often be woken up or indeed have my al fresco (thats Italian) wine drinking shattered by the local youth racing up and down on small scooters or souped up cars making a right racket. The young people of Spoleto were not to be seen anywhere, but the second we started playing, very quietly, about 30 swifts decided to swoop endlessly around the courtyard where we were playing. Their shrieks drowned out most of the first ten minutes of the Firebird, and the bird like figurations from the woodwind in the 2^nd part whipped them into a frenzy over my head. I had one hand poised at my umbrella. I have heard that they throw vegetables sometimes in Italy if they don’t like the performance. I couldn’t see the birds carrying any vegetables, but I’m sure they were armed and I only had one set of tails. We scared them off in the infernal dance, but once again in the very quiet horn solo at the end, David was drowned out by the constant shrieking of the birds. Being as famous as he is however, I’m sure its not the first time.

We had an interval of 15 minutes during which time everyone stood up, wandered around and then sat down again as there was nowhere to go. We all looked up at the sky as by now the wind was picking up a bit and it was turning an ominous shade of black. Oh well, the show must go on.

The second half began with a huge gust of wind as we played the opening of Brahms 2. I reached for my pegs and carried on. Its all right when you are a string player, as you have two players to a stand, so at least one of you keeps playing whilst the other puts pegs on everything. I am always left in a bit of a pickle. Take the first page turn of the Brahms. It is pegged to the stand on the left and right hand sides. At the end of the right hand page I have 4 bars to turn, always a bit tricky at this speed, but much worse when you have to undo two pegs. To make matters worse, on the next page is a solo, so I have to decide whether to sacrifice the last few bars of page 1 and peg down page 2 to play the solo; or do I play the last 4 bars of page 1 , turn and leave page 2 unpegged, thereby courting a possible wind induced solo malfunction? I should add that whilst I am making such important split second decisions, there is a camera on a boom swinging over the second violins coming straight at me for my solo. It is at this point that I am sitting on the edge of my chair, my flute on my lap, trying to peg down one side of music with the other peg in my mouth, looking like a right idiot. Should make compelling viewing. I bet you never knew playing the flute could be so stressful.

Sp predictably, music and stands became separated by the wind throughout the first movement. You can always tell when it happens, because all of a sudden the first bassoon, for instance, suddenly stops playing, to be replaced by frantic rustling of papers and usually a fair amount of swearing. We can but hope that there are no subtitles on the TV broadcast. In situations like this, there is very little you can do but laugh, shrug your shoulders and carry on. That is until we reached the second movement.

I was fairly relaxed, I’d kept all my music on the stand, and there were no page turns in this movement so I had 4 pegs on. The wind was whipping across the stage and ominous black clouds were racing across an ever darkening sky. It all started well enough and we reached the half way point when gradually it became evident that it was starting to rain. When this happens in Britain everyone gets their brollies out and we carry on playing under the all weather canopy. There was no canopy and we were getting wet, and the rain was getting harder. Everybody was watching Lennie the chairman to see what we should do, and as quick as a flash, without stopping playing and Daniel continuing to conduct, they had a conversation which went something like this,

“Its raining”

“Yes, I’d noticed”

“Lets get off”

“OK”

It was the quickest negotiation in the turbulent history of the LSO.

The last time I saw the orchestra get off stage that quickly, was when we had the free beer in Cologne a few blogs ago. Of course there was little for us to do but stand under the arch and wait for the rain to pass, which took about 15minutes. We went back on to huge applause, the audience put away their umbrellas and we started the second movement again. I am happy to report that the swifts had gone to bed and the rest of the concert went smoothly. Although the woodwind section nearly all missed the last section of the symphony when the oboe player( who shall remain nameless, but read the last blog if you want to know!) made a basic outdoor concert error. In his relief to get to the last page before more rain, he forgot that he had pegged it down and succeeded in ripping half the page off in a spectacular fashion, he then spent the rest of the piece trying to stop it being blown away. It kind of summed up the day really.

All that followed was a very nice meal and fireworks and a mercifully short night in the worst hotel in the universe before returning back to now sunny London.

By the time you read this, we will all be on a very well deserved holiday and my flute will be in its box until we reconvene for the gargantuan Prokofiev cycle which we will be playing around the world. I hope you have enjoyed our blogs over the last year, let us know what you think. Its been read over 12500 times now and only 50 of you have left comments. Stop being so lazy! Enjoy the summer and see you soon.

All the best

Gareth

Sunny Spoleto: Part 1

Everything was going terribly well this morning. I had breakfast with Henrik, from the Gothenburg Opera, who is playing second flute with us. We had time to catch up about student days in the palatial surroundings of the hotel in Palermo. We were discussing whether to have lunch beside the open air pool in Spoleto or the nearby restaurant; and then it happened, I bumped into Mark from the office. Thats the LSO office nothing to do with Ricky Gervais.

“Bus leaves in 5 minutes guys. Oh, and by the way, its chucking it down in Spoleto.”

I’m sure some of you will be having a moment of schadenfreude about now, and certainly I feel I may have mentioned the lack of rain here a little too often in the last blog. However, my perfect day of lounging by the pool followed by a concert in the outdoors was in doubt. Now I am going to have to word this very carefully, as I don’t want you all to think that I am not totally committed to my job, but, well it did occur to me about 5 seconds later that as my outdoor lunch and swim would have to be cancelled, then there was the slightest chance that perhaps the same fate might fall on the concert itself. Of course dear reader, this would be awful for me, a night off in a beautiful hotel in Umbria in July, thank goodness I brought a book or I would have been bored.

This is where the day really started to go pear shaped. We arrived at the hotel/spa/leisure complex (their description). My basic creative writing skills cannot do justice to the strange beige atmosphere that greeted us in the foyer, the lift doors which tried to kill you if you weren’t quick enough, the crackling polyester bed linen, which had already been used by the previous occupier of the room. Or the inexplicable tackiness of the carpet in my room, and yes I am referring to both the Pollackesque design and also its keenness to liberate my flip flops from my feet. I could tell you about the mad woman on the desk who was sending people to eat at the local pizzeria, a ten minute walk in torrential rain-it was closed. Despite being told it was closed, she continued to send people there. I quickly realised this must be some form of queuing system for the hotel restaurant (the two bars were closed). There were so many people trying to get in to have lunch, that she was forming a giant circular system to prevent the restaurant being overwhelmed.

The restaurant was overwhelmed.

I sat down and waited for a menu, to be told that there wasn’t one but you got what you were given. As a waiter approached my table with a big bucket and a ladle, I and several others decided to make a break for freedom. I couldn’t stand a hungry afternoon in my box so I leapt on a bus which was going into Spoleto, a 40 minute drive away. The rain was getting harder..

Spoleto is a very beautiful place indeed, even in the rain. We saw the area where we were going to play, possibly. There was a stage in front of a lovely church and then the square and road sloped naturally upwards to make a raked seating area. It was a lovely sight and completely waterlogged. Oh yes, there was no weather protection for the orchestra at all. Now a few drips here and there are ok, but some of the stringed instruments in the LSO are worth a small fortune. Some players bows alone are worth as much as a conductors fee, if you can possibly imagine such a high figure, and that varnish isn’t the same stuff you put on your fence to protect it from the rain. A shame as they do some very nice colours. I was now getting very concerned that we may be forced to have an evening off.

Sharon and I had lunch in a lovely little family restaurant with a few other friends and we watched as the rain just kept on falling. It was very nice food involving lots of truffles, the local delicacy . We were seriously considering whether to ask what time they opened in the evening as quite clearly the concert wasn’t going to go ahead, when suddenly the clouds parted, it stopped raining and the sun came out. Well you can imagine our relief.

Gradually, the orchestra arrived on various coaches, and we tried not to look smug having not spent the afternoon in the hotel. We all drifted down to the stage which was covered in people drying the chairs, Carina was putting music on the stands, and extremely well dressed Italians were drinking wine before the concert. The sunshade was in front of the stage to protect us from the now searing heat, which fortunately was now needed. We had our regulation clothes pegs to hold the music down just in case it got windy, but right now there were no clouds in the sky and we looked set for a lovely evenings music making. What could go wrong?

I’ll tell you that tomorrow.

A Hot and Steamy Sicilian Night

If you are reading this in England, you might want to go and check your email for a moment and come back in five minutes.

We left a very wet Stansted Airport at 9am this morning, and landed 3 hours later at Palermo airport. If you are enjoying the English summer of rain, I have to tell you that it is 30 degrees and very sunny here. It is a huge contrast to the concert earlier in the week in St Pauls where we concluded the Mahler cycle with number 8. It rained a lot that day. If you missed the concert, you can still hear it on the BBC website or if you go over to St Pauls, you can probably still hear the reverberations. Or you can wait for the CD release later on in the year,

Anyway, back to Italy. We are here to do two concerts with Daniel Harding, playing Brahms 2, Don Juan and Firebird. After arriving at the hotel we had a quick lunch, fortunately, being in Italy, it is culturally relevant to have a quick bowl of pasta, and it always tastes better than in England, I expect its the rain-sorry to rub it in.

We drove straight past the concert hall, I hadn’t read the schedule, as it turned out that we were playing outside. Now I have a soft spot for outdoor dates as I spent every summer of the first 5 years of my career in muddy fields with the Bournemouth Symphony-happy days. We played on an open air stage with no roof, no chance of rain you see. Sorry! I was concerned at the ambient noise during the rehearsal, the stage was surrounded by Cyprus trees full of crickets who felt the need to join in. However, I am happy to report that they stayed quiet for the show. Sadly the local dog population did make their presence felt during the quiet bits in the second half.

Its always strange playing outdoors as the lack of reverberation makes it feel like you are playing in a dead box. It is quite difficult to judge how loudly or quietly you are playing as well. Rather disconcertingly, the applause was very quiet, although as it was fairly prolonged, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Even the dogs and crickets.

We began with a hot and steamy performance of Don Juan with a beautiful oboe solo from our guest principal oboe, David Theodore. Wearing tails is never my outfit of choice, but in the humid Italian evening it was almost unbearable. So as the opening of the Firebird competed with an offstage mobile phone ringtone, a cool breeze drifted in from the east, physically and musically. Most welcome. Almost as welcome as the cold beer after Brahms 2.

At the end of a very long day, most of the band drifted into the centre of town in search of a quick bite to eat. My small group managed to find a lovely little place down a small side street which it turned out had a kitchen 5 minutes walk away, not a good sign especially as the pizzas arrived two by two over a 30 minute period. Always being sensitive to local custom and traditions, and having had pasta at lunchtime, we all decided to eat pizza.

It was the worst thing I have ever eaten in my life. Probably the equivalent of an Italian having his first roast beef and Yorkshire pudding in one of those reheated carvery/refectory places. Next time I pass the one near me and see some tourists, I’m going to take them round to my mums for a proper roast dinner.

Still apparently there is an outdoor pool at todays hotel. And still no rain.

I’ll let you know how we get on.

Oh Cologne!

The hall in Cologne has a lovely acoustic but also the steepest stairs I think I’ve ever seen. That bit of time at the start of a concert before the oboe sounds the A, you know, the bit where you stare at us waiting to start and we stare back at you. It often reminds me of those ridiculous meetings two boxers have on television before a fight, although I assure you, I’m not trying to psyche you out, I’m just trying to spot my mum. Anyway, as I was playing a few notes, I watched a mature member of the audience climbing up the steps towards her seat. To be honest, these steps look almost vertical from the stage, I half expected her to make base camp at row F until the final ascent during the second half, but I’m happy to say she made it to her seat for the start in good time. I expect that she abseiled back down and was first in the car park queue after the show.
It was the final performance of Bruckner 6 for us this evening. I find this the most difficult of his pieces to play personally. The notes themselves aren’t too hard, but there are so many different rhythms going on at once, that it can be tricky to hold onto the pulse. Fortunately in the crystal clear hall, it was very easy to hear all the details and I think this was one of the best shows, and certainly the last. Sir Colin kept the tempo up in the Schubert as well, just when you think it might get a bit cosy, he drives it forward again. Maybe he went to the chocolate factory as well.
As well as being a beautiful city, with its fantastic cathedral and small cobbled streets, there is one other reason I like going to Cologne. The management of the hall have this wonderful tradition of providing the orchestra with free local beer after the show! I think this is a tradition well worth adopting around the globe. I realise that after we bare our souls for you on stage, this might seem a bit shallow - but I can live with that. Its a hot and sweaty business playing in the orchestra, and with my limited language skills, I can only hint at the overwhelming joy of coming off stage, my flute still hot and vibrating , and having a glass of cold beer placed in my other hand.
I do hope you’ve enjoyed reading this blog. I shall try to write to you soon and let you know how we are getting on in Italy with Daniel Harding in a week or so. After that it will be the enormous Prokofiev cycle, and you can be sure I’ll have something to say about that.
Anyway, got to go now, apparently I’m allowed more than one free beer…

Dusseldorf, Cologne and Chocolate

Since we last spoke, the LSO has been busy with Gergiev doing Mahler, Strauss and Mozart with Haitink, and Mozart and Brahms with Previn. It has been non stop, with a whistlestop trip to Paris that was so brief, I didn’t have time to tell you about it. We now have 3 weeks left before the end of term with one more trip to Italy later on in June, and then we can all relax for a couple of weeks before the Prokofiev Cycle starts in Edinburgh before we cover most of the globe in the following months.

I am writing this in my hotel room in Cologne as we tie up a few loose ends from the last tour. We are playing Bruckner 6 and Schubert Unfinished with Sir Colin. Last night we were in Dusseldorf in a concert hall which looks like a cross between the London Planetarium and Guildford Borough Council Chambers. I’m sure you can picture it perfectly. We actually got on a bus after the show and came to stay in Cologne. It made for a very long day as we had checked in at 8 am in terminal 5, but it did mean we all had a very welcome lie in today.

Now those of you who follow our travels, will probably be smiling at the thought of the entire LSO losing their luggage in terminal 5, much like when the instruments didn’t arrive in Dijon. I am happy to report that this time, everything went smoothly, although despite my previous experience of Gordon Ramsey in NY, his full English at £16.50 lost out to a coffee and sandwich in a well known chain.

Of course, as I didn’t have to get up this morning, I woke up bright and early and went for a run along the river in the ever increasing temperature. Its amazing how many people from the orchestra you bump into, running on tour. Mainly the thin ones of course, but with so much sitting around on planes, trains and woodwind sections, it certainly does help blow the cobwebs away.

Sadly any good I did was destroyed by a visit to the Chocolate factory here in Cologne, and the shop. There is a long line of machines which do various things to chocolate and finally spit them out into bags which a little old lady ties up and packs away. Rather disappointingly, she was a normal old lady, didn’t sing and there was no river of chocolate.

Sir Colin is on fine form once again and once again he coaxes a sound out of the orchestra which is unique. Someone asked me last week, why different conductors make the orchestra sound so different. The answer is that I really don’t know, and to be honest I don’t want to think about it too much. I’m sure somebody knows why Sir Colin, Haitink, Previn and Gergiev all make us sound different, but don’t tell me, I’m enjoying the magic.

Besides, I’ve already discovered that umpa loompas aren’t real, and the river is made of water. I can’t take anymore revelations today. I’ve got a concert to do.

Home Again

I suppose that this technically isn’t a tour blog, as I’m actually writing this sitting in my kitchen. We returned to Stansted airport this morning, mercifully before the end of half term rush. I also feel a little guilty, as a large proportion of the orchestra had a few hours at home before rushing up to Angel Studios to record with Placido Domingo. I managed to take that off, hence the guilt-although I’m not suffering too much. But please bear it in mind next time you feel like asking a musician what they do during the day.

Last night we gave the second concert in Madrid (repeated on Sunday at the Barbican-tickets still available). Colin still used his stool, sometimes, and sadly still didn’t kick it off the stage ! Sharon (THE piccolo player) caught up with Sir Colin in the interval and asked how he was feeling. He replied that he’d felt better, but it was difficult to feel ill when we all played as beautifully as we did ! He’s so nice, and I think Sharon, judging by the far away look and teenage smile on her face, was suitably charmed. As I said in the last blog, he’s not man of the year for nothing.

Before the blog masters at LSO towers start getting twitchy at my irreverence, although I know Sir Colin wouldn’t, I suppose I should tell you about the concert!

Schubert’s unfinished symphony is always a favourite of mine. This is partly due to there not being anything terribly difficult for the flute in it. I am always astonished at the blend of sound my woodwind colleagues get in the main theme in the first movement. When the oboe and clarinet play in unison, even though I am sitting right beside them, they sound like one instrument. It really is incredible, I feel like I’m intruding when I have to join in.

Bruckner 6 is a strange work in my opinion. I think its one of those love it or hate it kind of pieces. I know Andrew Marriner is evangelical in his enthusiasm for it, I am a little more unsure. Last night was the second time I have played it with Sir Colin, and it really did start to make sense. Once again, his mastery of the architecture of the whole piece makes for a great performance. I think that the string section all deserve a medal for playing more tremolo bowing than it is polite to ask for. There was a small amount of relaxation for aching joints after the show in the various bars and restaurants, but not too much as we had a very early start this morning.

Its always nice to get home after a tour, although I suppose it doesn’t really finish until Sunday night in London. But I do get to stay in my favourite hotel for a few nights before we welcome Valery back for more Mahler next week.

If you are coming, enjoy the concert on Sunday.

I will.

The Rain in Spain

In case any of you were feeling a little envious about our globe trotting exploits, especially now the figures about commuting have been shown to be false, I am happy to tell you that it is raining cats and dogs, and bulls, probably. Bulls, in case you were wondering, because we are in Madrid. I’m sure there is a famous song about rain in Spain but with all this Bruckner going round my head, I seem to have mislaid it. I expect it will come back to me on the plane home.

We arrived here yesterday from Lisbon after performing Bruckner 6 and Schubert’s Unfinished symphony. The concert hall there looks like an old bull ring, maybe it is. The acoustics aren’t particularly helpful for the pieces we played, but it was s good concert none the less. The hall in Madrid is wonderful with a, rare, nice backstage area which provides us with espresso strong enough to wake the dead, which is how some of us are feeling in a very busy year of touring. Sir Colin has been feeling a little off colour, and as a result has been provided with stool for the concert. I have never seen him conduct sitting down in a concert before. Tonight is no exception, he sits down for the first few bars, but cannot resist standing up at the first climax, which is in about bar 20. Every now and then he remembers to sit down, but is soon on his feet again! He drives the scherzo along with such energy, I half expected him to kick the stool off the stage like a classical Jerry Lee Lewis. Well, he is man of the year you know!

After the show, I had a quiet drink with Joost our second bassoonist, where we managed to put the world to rights in under two hours, a new world record for us.

Today is one of those luxurious days which don’t happen very often. We don’t have to work until the concert. A free day in Madrid has meant not having to set the alarm(most welcome) and a trip to the Prado Museum to see the Goya exhibition. With all the death and destruction in his work, it was very pleasant to come out blinking in the sunshine. I took full advantage and sat outside on my own in a pavement cafe, eating tortilla and reading a book for an hour. As a busy father of three, this is a guilty pleasure which I enjoyed immensely!

So now I am back in my room getting ready for the Bruckner 6 concert later, and then home tomorrow morning.

Any questions, you know where I am.

International Commuters

I was sitting on my suburban train last week, amusing myself by reading the Metro free newspaper. Most of the time, like you I’m sure, this is a way of filling in time on a hot and overcrowded train, and also helps to avoid eye contact with other humans thereby avoiding conversation. I don’t think I’m being controversial by saying that its articles don’t have the same gravitas as those of the Times or the Western Mail, for instance. However on this occasion there was an extraordinarily in depth article which said that if you spent two hours of your day commuting, at the end of your working life you will have spent 12 years of your life sitting on a train. Or in my case standing up. It struck me, that as an LSO player, we often spend significantly more time “commuting” to various places around the globe. This week for instance, we are spending over 24 hours in transit. This is not unusual for us, but does mean that if you spend your entire working life (I joined when I was 28 and am now 36), you would spend about 20 years commuting, roughly. Angela Barnes in the horn section was 21 when she started-I recommend getting a travel card now before the annual price hike.

Anyway, the point in this ramble is that i thought I should do something more constructive on my commute, so I bought a tiny, whizzy new laptop, which I am using right now on a flight to Lisbon. Whilst I think its too early to say that the Metro paper changed my life, when my first blockbuster novel appears, I shall certainly thank them in the blurb.

It does also show how odd an existence life in an orchestra can be. We are currently on the second day of a trip to Spain and Portugal. Yesterday I got up at 5.30am and drove to Stansted Airport, caught a flight to Valencia, had a bite to eat for lunch and then went to a rehearsal and concert. Finally I crawled into my bed at about 1 am . A very long day indeed. We played Schubert 5 and Bruckner 7, the same concert as last Friday in the Barbican. The hall in Valencia is one of my favourites , it has a very good sound and you are surrounded by the audience. It almost feels like you are playing in the round which can be quite unnerving if something goes wrong. However, with Sir Coin Davis wielding the baton we are in very safe hands. I love playing the Bruckner with him. In such a huge work, you really need a conductor who understands the overall architecture, otherwise it can end up sounding like a long line of unrelated chunks of sound. Sir Colin really keeps the music flowing, and doesn’t let the long melodies wallow around getting slower and slower. When we do slow up at an important climax, such as where the cymbals and triangle make their only appearance, in the slow movement, it really makes a huge impact. By the end of the symphony, I am always aware of the long arching journey we have made form start to finish,, which isn’t the case with some other conductors. Last nights audience certainly agreed, as Sir Colin was called back on four times!

Tonight in Lisbon, we are performing Schubert’s Unfinished symphony and Bruckner 6. You can hear this concert on Sunday night at the Barbican if you wish to make this blog a truly interactive experience. I shall no doubt write some more blogs on this trip over the next few days. But until then, dear reader I shall leave you with a mathematical question to which you may email in your answer. There is no prize, its just for fun.

If you spend 12 years of your life commuting when you travel 2 hours a day. Sir Colin is 80 and probably commutes many many more miles than the average commuter. As his “working life” is already far longer than most normal men, by my calculations, he will have commuted for almost 120 years fairly soon.

This either means my maths isn’t what it used to be, or the Metro article has some slightly inaccurate figures.

I await your answers.

Brussels with Pierre Boulez, 6 & 7 May 2008

With all the flying visits the LSO makes, often playing in a different city every night, it was somewhat of a relief for the players to be performing two concerts in the same venue on consecutive nights! This was however slightly tempered with the knowledge that the repertoire for these two concerts in the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels was far from straight-forward: music by Schoenberg, Bartok and Pierre Boulez, and the European premiere of Matthias Pintscher’s latest work, Osiris. Not only that, but it was all conducted by arguabley the most influential figure of contemporary music, Pierre Boulez himself! The opportunities for relaxation would be few, concentration levels needed to be at their highest.

The tour started well, with a very pleasant trip on the Eurostar. Not even two hours from London to Brussels, no changes, minimal fuss. After arrival at the hotel and a quick lunch it was off to the hall for rehearsal. The LSO truck had arrived (a relief after the drama of the trip to Dijon in March, when the truck was delayed at Dover and the concert had to be given in civvies and with borrowed instruments and music! See http://lso.co.uk/detailedreleaseinfo&detailid=17&showdetailstype=release for the full story!) and stage manager Alan and his team were in the final throes of setting up the enormous battery of percussion required for the concert, looking somewhat exhausted.

The people of Brussels had turned out in force for the concert - fantastic to see such a big audience for this kind of repertoire. Boulez had also been part of a mini residency at the Bozar which included concerts with Mitsuko Uchida and guest-curating the Paul Klee exhibition, so the audience were eager to see him conduct again. The concert ended in rapturous applause and an encore of one of Boulez’s Notations, not your usual standard encore repertoire!

Back to the hotel after the concert, and the opportunity to relax over a couple of drinks. Aside from the barman who seemed as if he’d been watching Fawlty Tours as a training video, it was wonderful to be able to chat to the players and disect the concert - for someone who is usually in the admin offices, this was one of the most pleasurable parts of the trip!

An early start for the second day, with a morning rehearsal to attend. As I was there to film the players on tour for a new video for the website (coming soon - should be available by the end of the summer) we spent most of it taking shots of the players coming in and out, around and about the venue and preparing for an interview with Boulez and LSO Principal Percussion Neil Percy. We also took advantage of the beautiful sunny weather to get some establishing shots around Brussels - of the Royal Palace, the formal gardens and the Palais des Justice.

The afternoon was free, with many people choosing to use it catching up on rest and practice, but others taking in the sites of Brussels in the fabulous sunshine. Then it was back to the hall for the second concert, again to a huge and very appreciative audience. If anything the repertoire for this concert was much more challenging than the first - certainly the Matthias Pintscher piece was the most difficult for the players. But the audience lapped it up, giving ovations to Pintscher and several call-backs for Michelle DeYoung and Peter Fried, the soloists in the Schoenberg and Bartok. And of course, Boulez himself, who looked as if he’s enjoyed every minute.

After the concert some players went off to favourite post-concert dinner haunts (the LSO has visited Brussels several times in the last few years), whilst others went back to the hotel bar for a few drinks before bed - it was a fairly early start in the morning for the Eurostar home!

All-in-all a great trip, what a privilege to be able to spend time with the players and to watch one of the greatest composer/conductors at work. And excellent preparation for the players for the repeat of the second concert this Sunday in London!

Here are a few photos of the LSO on tour:

NO7. Chicago - London - and a nice cup of tea

Well everyone, this is the last blog of the tour. I expect someone else will do the next one as I seem to have filled the server to capacity with my ramblings.We have left the sunny, warm New York City for the sunny, cold Chicago. This morning we flew in and had a few hours to have lunch or look around. Chicago is one of the noisiest cities I have ever been too, partly due to their underground trains, which run about 30 feet above street level on iron girders. Its still called the subway. Who said Americans didn’t do irony?

The hall in Chicago is one of the most beautiful I have played in and has more dressing rooms than a spice girls reunion concert. It has warm up rooms for the leader, principal cello, conductor, principal horn and others. I stopped looking as soon as I realised there was no room for a Principal flute. Typical. My favourite rooms though were the rooms where you couldn’t play, three of them actually. I am not making this up, they really are called A Quiet Room, B Quiet Room and C Quiet Room. I was going to take a picture, but I couldn’t be bothered, it being the end of the tour and all, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

The concert was great. I don’t know where Colin gets his energy from, I really don’t. He had, pretty much the same travel arrangements as us, and I was very tired. He however seems to just keep going !

Paul Lewis was again, very well received by the audience with even louder cheers than in NY. The review of his last performance suggested he eat a few Weetabix for breakfast. I had hoped to report on this, but he was staying in a more upmarket hotel. But it sounded like it.

After the show, I had a couple of drinks in Millers bar by the hotel and then turned in for an early night. I was very pleased to discover that I had been provided with the most comfortable bed I had ever slept in. I know this because I don’t remember going to sleep and I woke up about 10 hours later.

We had a few hours before our flight so, the orchestra dispersed around Chicago for the morning until we reconvened for the flight home overnight.

By the time you read this, we will have arrived back in London on Wednesday morning and then its back to work on Thursday morning for the next patch of work. Its hard work, but then , you now know how much fun we’ve been having so I can hardly moan. I am looking forward to seeing my family and having a cup of tea in typical British fashion, but looking back, its been a very successful trip and a most enjoyable one.

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Cheers