I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to hear the chorus to “Hallelujah! I’m a Bum” played by the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra. It’s part of the score to Chaplin’s Modern Times, which a number of SLSO staff and family are watching now in the final rehearsal before the two big shows Saturday and Sunday night.
For the third year in a row, Des and Mary Ann Lee threw us a very swank lunch, served in the foyer of Powell Hall. The Lees are a couple of the best friends a symphony orchestra could ever have. They’ve given the orchestra lots of money, but they have also given it their time, their love, and their care – which all go way beyond the swank lunch.
To experience all the light and sparkle and warmth of the holiday season musically, Classical Christmas is highly recommended. The selections from The Nutcracker streaming through our speakers made some of us feel balletic in our offices, which is no small achievement.
I’ll be away from blogging until Thursday, December 27. Happy Holidays to all.
A tall, thin, long-limbed young woman stood patiently backstage in a red sweater, a red and white skirt, and long, red, argyle socks.
Two things you can do to prepare for the upcoming United States premiere of the Doctor Atomic Symphony by John Adams at Powell Symphony Hall in February:
Karlheinz Stockhausen. Ike Turner. Dan Fogelberg. R.I.P.
We are calculating the odds as to when the next guest conductor will refer to Brian Boitano, as Jeff Tyzik did during the Holiday Songbook program.
I unlocked the door to the vacant office on the 8th floor this afternoon, the sounds of the matinee Holiday Songbook concert, Doug LaBrecque singing “Silent Night,” coming through the speaker, and discovered a forest of microphones, 10 of them, waiting for their evening job, working with the Blind Boys of Alabama in A Gospel Christmas on Friday night.
I can reasonably state that during the MLB Steroid Era, no Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra musicians were bulking up via controlled substances. However, when I chatted with trombonist Steve Lange after he accomplished a pretty big blow during Holiday Songbook rehearsal – you’ll hear a creative insertion of Bolero into “The Little Drummer Boy” – he said he could use some HLH, Human Lip Hormone.
Karlheinz Stockhausen died last Wednesday. Ike Turner today....
At the Sunday concert I ran into an old friend who was taking advantage of the Encore! program. That is the one in which you can go to a concert a second time for free. She told me that she “didn’t have the ears” for the Stravinsky Symphony in C, but she came back to be captivated again by Christian Tetzlaff and the orchestra performing Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto No. 1 – one of the most exciting performances of the season (at least according to me and a few other people I know), and by the Mozart “Jupiter” Symphony, which another friend called a “revelation.”
From Woody Allen’s Manhattan:
The selections for the Classical Detours: Polish Dances program tonight are, of course, a state secret, but we have been sending out some hints -- Chopin, maybe a polonaise, maybe a polka – but I hope I’m not giving anything away by saying if David Robertson can only say “Panufnik” in the spirited manner that Henchman Josh Riggs did today when announcing the piece for rehearsal this morning, this will be one knockout event.
A colleague asked me this morning, “So how are things in the blogosphere?” I shook my head, feeling that Wordsworthian twinge: “the world is too much with us.”
With the foyer receiving its holiday decorations today – many red ribbons – the end of the day received its “Jupiter” Symphony finale outside the east windows: a pink sky and a rainbow!
