I’m sure I’m not the only one to take a look at the rehearsal schedule for next week and fall into a momentary state of shock to see that Opera Theatre rehearsals are already starting with Barber of Seville, Dean Williamson conducting, Friday morning.
Some time ago I had the pleasure of sitting down with SLSO Assistant Principal Timpani Tom Stubbs to talk about percussion for an article that is running in the current Playbill. It was my discussion with Tom that actually gave me the theme of how the percussion section of the orchestra is coming full circle with the upcoming Percussion Festival at the Touhill, May 10. The SLSO percussionists – Tom, John Kasica and Richard Holmes – are all Juilliard grads, and will perform with Juilliard students at the May 10 concert. Tom, John and Richard will also be performing works they previously performed when Leonard Slatkin was music director, which marked the previous high-water mark for percussion in the orchestra. The three SLSO percussionists have been together as a section since 1971, which means they’ve worked under five music directors (Walter Susskind, Jerzy Semkow, Leonard Slatkin, Hans Vonk and David Robertson). They have history.
The final Young People’s Concerts of the season were given this morning – hatching chicks, the gates of Kiev, learning to pronounce “tuileries” – all part of the Pictures at an Exhibition lesson.
This morning in back-to-back Young People’s Concerts, Scott Parkman and the orchestra used Musorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition to show how a composer transforms visual concepts into musical ones: an image of chicks hatching becomes a cheep, cheep, cheep in the music, and such.
What I heard: the SLSO had a sold-out auditorium Sunday afternoon; Diana Haskell wore a blue sequined top for the Mozart Clarinet Concerto and traveled I-44 with her husband and their dogs; the penne pasta at Applebee’s was pronounced oddly by the waitress; hail struck somewhere outside of Rolla on the way home; you aren’t supposed to have beer on campus.
A few things to pass on as the week comes to a close.
Before Haydn rehearsal with Bernard Labadie, I spied these ducks and hula girls on a shelf backstage.
Among the responses I received about yesterday’s post, in which I talked about the photo session with violinist Nicolae Bica and his unique modeling abilities, was this one:
You have seen on T-shirts, concert programs, mugs and posters the slogan “It's Different With David Robertson,” which proclaims the arrival of our new music director.
I pulled this quote from New Yorker writer Alex Ross' site therestisnoise.com, which he pulled from a recent New York Times op-ed piece by Robert Hurwitz, who is president of Nonesuch, the label that records a wonderfully eclectic array of artists: from Wilco to Audra McDonald to Richard Goode. I have placed an asterix by those composers and performers to be featured with the SLSO next season:
Just so you know I’m not the only one who was excited by last Friday’s Coffee Concert, here is the response of SLSO fan Ann Corrigan:
Tommy Ruether of Washington, Missouri, writes:
The orchestra is off on spring break this week, so this is a good time to post a few comments from the Saint Louis Symphony Chorus, both pre- and post-Carnegie.
During the Coffee Concert on Friday morning, I was reminded of something David Robertson said about the Stravinsky Symphonies of Wind Instruments, but is an idea that fit the program as a whole: [it] "is like a mobile -- the different parts keep cming back to you as if they are floating, yet the overall form makes sense."
Is it the storm or is it just me? When I hear the Reich Triple Quartet in rehearsal, I feel kind of a dance rhythm, a tango or cha-cha-cha. And when I hear the Stravinsky Symphonies for Wind Instruments, I hear faint harbingers of Copland’s chordal harmonies. I mentioned this to Artistic VP Jeremy Geffen, and he gave me one of his “Don’t you have any work to do?” looks.
At the 6 North coffee chat yesterday morning, David Robertson mentioned a piece he’s performing at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts Thursday and Friday evening (7:30pm, doors open at 7, 20 bucks, crazy, fun music). The work is by contemporary composer Charles Amirkanian, Two Talking Pieces for Speaker and Tape, and its two parts consist of one piece called Dutiful Ducks, which David performs solo, and the other, Ka himena hehena, with David and Erik Harris (SLSO principal bass, who also plays bass guitar in this program) in a duet. As David described it, he and Erik speak Hawaiian to each other – and he projected deep, monosyllabic gutturals to the delight of the 6 North audience – for a number of minutes. David admitted to being absolutely giddy about doing the work. Seeing David giddy is worth the price of admission alone.
David Robertson and Jeremy Geffen took a coffee break with a few SLSO fans at 6 North this morning to answer questions about the new season and other assorted subjects. “My name’s David,” is how the discussion began.
The review of the Carnegie weekend ran in the New York Times today. Here it is:
After the plane touched down at Lambert this afternoon, the head steward got on the intercom and asked the members of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra to raise their hands. He then informed the other passengers that this orchestra had performed at Carnegie Hall the night before and received a standing ovation, and in so doing had done the city proud. And so, on American Airlines flight 1757, one more round of applause for the SLSO .
One last thing about wine glasses. SLSO artistic vp Jeremy Geffen told me backstage at Carnegie Hall this afternoon that he went out and auditioned the wine glasses at Crate and Barrel for Cassandre. It was an arduous process, but one that proved worthy of the task. And C & B wine glasses had a Zankel Hall debut.
I was in the lobby as another bus load of musicians arrived. Maggie Bailey was there to greet them with a high degree of friendliness. When violist Mo Jacob got off the bus, he grinned and opened his arms wide and shouted, "We're here!"
