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I love American audiences. When they enjoy a concert, they whoop and holler and stand up and shout and it feels great. Sorry its been a while-my laptop died, so if anybody works for a computer company and would like to sponsor the blog with a new one, please get in touch!
Since I last wrote, we’ve been to Boston (great hall and clam chowder), Washington (Sorry Mr Obama, just didn’t have a window, maybe next time), Newark (Enormous hall!) and yesterday we arrived back in NYC for the final two concerts. We came in by bus, and unlike when we were here last week, the skyscrapers were met by the sky which had come down in a low grey cloud. It really did look quite eery to see the top of the buildings just fading out above your head.
I have to tell you that after a lovely party hosted by the wonderful Jane Moss at the Lincoln center, we were all a bit tired at the 10am rehearsal this morning-especially Valery. As it was all rep we knew well, we played through bits and pieces but mainly slowly and then went for an early lunch. It felt a little like we had to get through the show and then we could go home, just a couple more hours of concentration and then home. Of course I hadn’t bargained on one thing. Valery.
I don’t know what he has for breakfast, but it must involve at least 25 Shredded Wheat. When he flew onto the stage for the final concert, he had woken up and it quickly became clear that we were not going to go quietly into that good night. We were raging.
By the time we came back on for the second half and our final symphony of the cycle, No 5, he looked like a man possessed. I can’t really describe the performance, but if you were there, I doubt you will forget it. He drove us harder than ever and any tiredness evaporated in a hot sweaty fever pitched show. Its not often that the bunch of cynics that we are come offstage smiling, having had so much fun, but the concert tonight will remain in my memory for, many years. The audience leapt as one to their feet, and every section of the band was stood up to huge cheers. My limited vocabulary simply fails me.Nobody knows how to judge a concert quite like Val.
I was going to go to bed as we have to leave at 5.30am, but I am writing this to you at 1am because I have to. We had to wind down with a drink after the concert and as we are in Manhattan a cocktail was in order. I’ll give you the recipe for my favourite.
1 Fiery Russian Spirit
96 international Mixers
7 dashes of Prokofiev
4 concertos
3 Solo players
8 cities
13 concerts
shake, stir, set alight, sit back and enjoy.
I did.
Wednesday 25 March Boston. Two musicians drop in at the offices of Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Company (our tour sponsor) to play to 200 employees after a hard days work. The whole event had a truly British theme with bowler hats and British beers in abundance.
Do you ever get that feeling that someone is watching you. I do. I mean obviously, on stage, but that’s kind of obvious, no, I mean in every day life. I’ve blogged before about the visa process to get your admission ticket to the US. If there are any American citizens reading this (Hi, by the way) then you may not be aware that to get into your wonderful country we have to jump through hoops and queue in the rain for hours and then queue some more and then give fingerprints, then queue some more and then have a photo taken, queue, then smile and answer questions and fill in forms, then pay vast amounts of money to get a visa. If you are a man aged 18-45 you have a special supplementary form which asks questions such as, have you ever been involved in genocide and have you been involved in chemical training, or were you a member of the Nazi party in Germany?
Has anyone ever answered yes? Well actually, Chi our principal E flat clarinet player is a Doctor of Chemistry, so he answers yes, although genocide and fascism aren’t really his style. Anyway, we always go as groups of 10 or so which is supposed to speed things up, but actually slows things down. Well it does if Sharon is in your group anyway. I don’t want you to think she is disorganised, far from it, but every time she is in my group at the embassy, everything grinds to a halt. When we went a few weeks ago, it became clear why. The guy behind the glass asked for some more information on Sharon as her name is flagged up on their computers. It turns out that there are two other Sharon Williams who are on the FBI most wanted list. She assures me that she is neither of these people.
The point in this is that I had noticed a look of recognition on the audiences faces every time we played one of the encores on this trip. In fact as soon as the opening bars of the march from The Love of Thee Oranges started, people looked at one another and laughed. Now I know the concept of being in love with even one orange is a bit weird but it didn’t explain the reaction. Valery, having brought the orchestra and audience their feet several times, rushed back on stage, and in one sweeping movement he bowed, turned to face the orchestra and whipped his hands round like a discus thrower and launched the full fury of the trumpet section followed by stratospherically high oboes. It sounds angular and odd and not the kind of music to bring a smile to oneself. My sources tell me however, that the reason for this reaction is that it used to be used as a theme tune to a radio show about the FBI in peace and war. In the dark days of the cold war, I suppose the irony of a Russian conducting the FBI’s theme tune would have brought a shiver down certain sections of the audiences collective spine, but we’re all friends now. Sharon on the other hand, is quite clearly being kept under surveillance by dark forces. The long history of hidden codes in music, from Mozart’s three chord masonic calls, to Shostakovitch and his constant DSCH utterances is being continued in our encore. I’m sure I saw a couple of guys in suits and sunglasses reach for their earpieces as soon as they heard our signal. I’ve suggested Sharon starts checking into hotels under a false name and checking for bugs.
Interestingly, when we were in Chicago…er…was it only two days ago, I think, there was a notice backstage next to the CSO’s latest pay rise (You can buy the beers next time Mathieu) that had suggestions for repertoire. It had a long list of pieces that players had written down that they hoped would be played in the coming seasons. It was fascinating stuff. A lot of it was music that is standard rep in Britain, like Elgar and Vaughan Williams along with some other pieces and composers I had never heard of. I thought I’d leave a suggestion of my own. I wrote ‘The theme from Z Cars’.
If you go to see the Chicago Symphony next time they play in London, listen out for their encore just in case they use my suggestion. I can hear the satellite dishes at GCHQ bristling with anticipation already.
It’s one of those days on tour when you’d quite like to be able to pop home for a bit. I don’t know whether its the mid tour blues, or if its just a case of homesickness, but today, I’d quite like to be at home. Its mothers day back in the UK and I have been on the phone to my own mum and also my wife who is a mum herself – of my kids in fact. Technology is a wonderful thing and because of the webcam on my laptop I was able to not only talk to my family, but I was also able to inspect the cuts and bruises from various rugby matches and bike accidents.
After speaking to my mum, I was reminded of the need for motherly care no matter how old you are. I had just got changed and came up the stairs in Chicago to see Tim, our principal cellist fiddling with his socks. It was one of those horribly long days where we had to check out of our hotel before the concert which meant making sure we had everything we needed for the rest of the day with us. Quite regularly, somebody forgets a bow tie or something, but usually a spare is found in time. This afternoon, he had forgotten his black socks. Now if you think where he sits, at the front, this is quite important, especially as the ones he had on were black and white stripes. The scene that met me at the top of the stairs was of Tim colouring in the white stripes with a black marker pen. They were thin stripes, and it was taking him ages. After he had finished, someone suddenly found a spare pair of black socks. Funny how they only appeared after all the white stripes had gone. So maybe in future tours we should take a mum with us for moments like this.
The concert in Chicago was fantastic. It is a wonderful hall with an incredible history and the orchestra played out of its skin-this usually happens when another orchestra is resident, especially as Chicago Symphony had played the night before-we had something to prove. As the final notes of No 5 flew out into the hall the audience leapt to their feet. I don’t remember this happening before in Chicago. Valery was smiling again, but this time it was after the Classical symphony, so I relaxed.
There was no time to stop though, we had a plane to catch. We were on the last one out of Chicago to New York City, one of my favourite places on earth. Like a lot of the band, I was feeling tired, it had been a long day and I dozed off on the plane. When I woke up, New York was unfolding beneath us. It was nearly midnight and the lights along the linear street patterns glowed bronze. The various bits of the New York area looked like an elaborate Christmas decoration made of copper which glistened in the winds below. Just like a child staring up at the tree with its twinkling lights, looking down on NY, my home for the next two days, I began to feel that same excitement. You never quite know whats going to happen.
That familiar journey (I can’t remember how many times I’ve been here now) through dull looking suburbs never quite prepares me for the breathtaking sight of a floodlight Manhattan as you approach one of the bridges. When you first see it from the bus, everybody stops talking and just looks at it, almost pinching themselves to check that they are really there. In the middle of a long tour away from home, friends, family and my mum, the sight of the skyscrapers glowing the way they do, looking just like in the movies is a very comforting sight.
Despite the fact that it changes every time we come here, it never really changes at all. It’s noisy, smelly, exciting and always welcomes us with open arms. Its good to be back.
Well, what a nice surprise. After the concert in San Diego, we clambered aboard buses with beer and sandwiches. That’s not the surprise by the way, thats just everyday glamour on tour. The sandwiches were enormous with enough ham for a week of packed lunches for my kids, but I digress as usual. No, the surprise was that we arrived at the hotel in Costa Mesa at about half past midnight and it looked much like any hotel I have stayed at around the world. We had already had a long day travelling, playing and deplaning so most people went to bed, myself included, and what was particularly nice was that we didn’t have anything on until 5.30 the next day, so I slept a righteous sleep.
I awoke the next day with sun streaming through the curtains and I stumbled across my room to look out of the window. When I went to bed I couldn’t see anything, but now there was a glistening blue swimming pool which looked extremely inviting. I went for a run and then dived in (after showering of course). It was at this point that any thoughts of sight seeing left my head.
When I finally made it back to my room, I could see an enormous traffic jam on the freeway, and I was glad that I had made the right decision to stay at the hotel. I asked the guy on the desk if it was usually this busy and he told me that it was because Barack Obama was visiting town. Blimey I thought, we had better play well if we are to maintain the special relationship between our two countries, I hope he likes Prokofiev.
I ironed my shirt and polished my shoes and made my way to the rehearsal. There was a buzz in the air, as although we do occasionally get politicians coming to concerts, he’s quite well known.
Of course being a pro, I had to put aside thoughts of possibly meeting the President and concentrating on the music. I had to negotiate through another Classical symphony. Valery strode onto the stage in the fabulous hall with a big grin on his face. This is a bad sign for me as it usually means it is going to be quick.
It was. Just as the last movement started, he looked over at the woodwind and smiled. Oh dear, and I hadn’t fastened my safety belt. One added frisson of tension, like I need it, is that with the repeats in the last movement, there are five page turns. These all have 4 bars to turn before the most difficult bits appear. So far, I have managed to do them, but I have a reoccurring nightmare that one day, my music will fly off the stand. You’ll be the first to know. As we flew up onto the final 6 top D’s, Siobhan and I looked at each other and laughed and then my hands started to shake. I think its probably the same adrenaline rush as bungee jumpers get. 6 more of those left.
When I came off stage, I hoped that the president would have been impressed, but I hadn’t seen any massive security guards, so maybe he didn’t make it. But what’s this, a large group at the end of the green room all laughing and joking with someone and shaking hands. Could it really be the President of the United States of America come to see us?
Well…no, actually it wasn’t, but it was a leader of men. In fact our old, sorry, previous managing Director, Sir Clive Gillinson. I only joined towards the end of his time at the helm of the LSO before he left to run the Carnegie Deli in New York, but a lot of the way we work now is down to his leadership, and we certainly have a lot to thank him for. There were a lot of people who were actually much more happy to see him than Mr Obama. No offence to him of course. In fact when we are in Washington, I shall try and pop in and say hi. My parents house is called ‘Ty Gwyn’, which is Welsh for the White house. I find its aways good to have something in common as your conversation starter.
Chicago tomorrow.
At this moment in time, we are flying up the coast to San Diego where we have a concert tonight before going on to Costa Mesa. It says on the schedule that this is a “Ryanair style flight”.
I have no idea what this means.
As it is St Patrick’s day or St Patty as they insist on calling him over here for some reason,(I thought she was a Charlie Brown character), I thought that a Ryanair style flight might be some kind of upgraded groovy charter for fashion designers and models. We of course would fit right in. However, now that I am wedged firmly in my seat and have been shown the prices for the drinks and ‘appetizing snacks’, I fear I may have misunderstood the concept somewhat. We all had numbers on our boarding passes and had to line up next to the appropriate pole with our number on. After standing around for half an hour I got bored and went to get a coffee, which of course got the queue moving straight away. I leapt back into my alloted slot and when I got to the front of the queue he called my number and I said “Bingo!”
“I’m just doing my job sir, please move along or we may have to deplane”
I have no idea what this means.
Maybe bingo is a terrible insult here, and I find the thought of somebody deplaning me rather unpleasant. Still, I am now on my stylish flight safe and sound with my plane firmly still in place.
We are leaving San Francisco and I think I have left a little bit of my heart there. We had a great time, such warm and friendly people and I have to admit to getting a thrill playing in Davies Symphony Hall. I tried to get a t shirt for my dad, sadly they didn’t have any but I did get a picture of me next to the “Davies after hours” late night concert series poster. They have a lot of pictures backstage of artists who have performed in my hall. There is a picture of Valery from 1990 and loads of other celebrities, I have uploaded a picture of some of them, which I’m sure the LSO office will enjoy…
I’m feeling a little tired today as it was a very long concert last night and I have to admit to enjoying some “Davies after hours”myself which was mainly libation based. The show began with No 2 which is probably the loudest symphony, and at times unrelenting. I wasn’t playing in that one but could still hear it thundering through the walls for 35 minutes by which time the audience looked pinned back into their seats. You could almost hear a collective sigh of relief as the pounding gave way to Beethoven’s Piano concerto No 5 with Volodin. It was fascinating to hear him play such a different piece after his stunning playing the previous night, although this time he used both hands for the whole concerto.
By the time we went back on for the second half it was already 10pm and jet lag was still lurking despite the backstage coffee which was the same viscosity as crude oil. But as ever with Valery at the front, no matter how tired we all feel, he manages to whip up a storm. We played No 7, one of my favourites, with its cheeky last movement and that fantastic melody from the first movement. Its one of those times when the sound of the band takes my breath away. The big tune starts off quite low and soars in a huge arc which make it completely orchestral as the range it encompasses would take you from bass to soprano if you tried to sing it. But the wonderful thing about it is that it is played in about 3 octaves at once from the basses right up to Sharon’s piccolo and the sound is immense. Valery said in the rehearsal he thinks it sounds like a giant bird soaring over the mountains. He asked us to make as long a phrase as possible and not to flap our wings too much! By the time the melody returns near the end of the last movement it is at its grandest and as I looked up in the concert, Valery was conducting with a big smile on his face, arms outstretched like a giant bird. We knew just what he wanted and I remembered the soaring birds over Alcatraz the day before. The audience roared their approval and we did a little encore.
It was some Prokofiev.
It has been 20 years since the LSO was last in San Francisco. I hope we don’t leave it so long next time.
More soon…
Backstage in Davies Hall, San Francisco
The hills of San Francisco are short and sharp, but the views after a lung busting climb are spectacular. As we had a free day after arriving, I decided to explore the city on foot rather than resorting to catching one of the famous cable cars. I came out of the hotel and walked up Hyde street which undulates wildly, so much in fact, that every time I thought I had reached the summit, the road dropped away beneath me only to climb even further. At last I climbed the last peak and the road dropped sharply away in front of me; I got my first glimpse of the glittering bay, dotted with tiny boats with brightly coloured sails and dominated by craggy fortress of Alcatraz. Its always funny to see something so famous in the flesh as it were. As a kid, Alcatraz was up there with Colditz as the two worst places you could ever find yourself in should you break the law in some way. When I saw it there in the bay, it looked strangely peaceful with its sandy coloured buildings and quaint looking water tower. If it had been in London someone would have turned it into a boutique hotel by now. I’m told that the name derives from the Spanish for pelican island, but I guess Al Capone and its other famous inmates wouldn’t have sounded so hard if they had gone there,
“So where is Al being held then?”
‘Oh he’s gone to Pelican Island’
“What, the one is San Francisco Bay?”
‘Yeah, and its all inclusive, meals provided…’
“Oooh fancy”
So Alcatraz it is.
It wasn’t very busy, so I walked down the hill towards fisherman’s wharf which is where all the boats go from, and everything else seems to be a restaurant or a gift shop. They are all of course stacked full of comedy aprons in black and white stripes that say hilarious things about being the most dangerous cook in Alcatraz. I saved my money.
Near the wharf itself there were more people around, all of them standing around the stalls that were cooking and selling shellfish. Gradually the air changed and was full of the noise of chefs chopping and the cracking sound of crab shells being smashed open and legs being torn off to reveal pinky white flesh. Steam billowed from dozens of open pots and the sticky sweet smell of clam and crab chowder filled my lungs. Men shouted in all directions trying to get people into their restaurant and the giant metal saucepans clattered more loudly than Prokofiev 2. I found a table in one of the crowded booths and sat warming up with a cup of clam chowder steaming gently in my hand and some spitting,sizzling crab cakes, the chilli stinging my lips, in the other. As I warmed up I could feel my eyelids drooping, so I set off again into the blustery, cold afternoon air to explore more of this wonderful city.
That evening, many of us had been invited round to former LSO principal conductor Michael Tilson Thomas’s house. He very kindly gave a party for us and it was very nice to see him. He lives in a beautiful house and fed us all with dim sum and some lovely wine. It always appeals to the nosy part of me looking round, and it was amazing to see notes and pictures to MTT signed by some of the great figures of 20th century music. He had a little quote written to him by Stravinsky and something else from Diaghilev, and to be honest there were so many I can’t remember them all. But best of all were two rather snazzy tailcoats in black and blue sequins. I thought that they may have been some of MTT’s old stage outfits from some kind of last night of the San Fran proms or something, but no, it turns out that they were some of James Brown’s old stage clothes. The hardest working man in showbiz! I can’t tell you how much I wanted to try them on.
I didn’t though.
We had a lovely time and it is typical of Michaels generosity to open up his house to us the day before he was leaving town himself when I’m sure he had plenty of other things to do.
Anyway, that was all yesterday, today we had the first concert, an all Prokofiev night you’ll be surprised to know! It was a bit tight as we rehearsed, then there was only half an hours break before the public came in ,and then the show started half an hour later. This meant that after the rehearsal finished, we were ushered off as quickly as possible as the poor old piano tuner only had 10 minutes to tune the piano. Fortunately we were doing the concerto for left hand, so it doesn’t take so long to tune up as normal.
We started the show with the classical symphony and the audience called Valery on 3 times afterwards which was nice. The piano soloist, Volodin did an encore as well, they enjoyed it so much. He used both hands.
I am happy to report that despite the left handed tuning, it sounded pretty good too.
Next concert tomorrow…
Hello everyone,
We are off on a coast to coast tour of the USA. There will be blogs every couple of days and you can even catch up on Twitter, just follow the link on the left.
Don’t forget to keep coming back to the site for the latest in backstage gossip and intrigue.
California, here we come…
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