September 2008 Archives

Or rather, the marimba, plinking and plunking fantastically through much of the morning as Colin Currie rehearsed in the Whitaker Room, down in the lower regions of the hall.

Paul Newman took the stage with the SLSO at Carnegie Hall, serving as narrator for Lincoln Portrait in April 2005. I didn't make that trip, but former SLSO violinist Amy Oshiro called me after the concert.

I was passing through the lobby on Friday afternoon when I noticed that the sheer curtains over the windows in the doorways at the front of the hall were glowing a very warm red. Now, later in the fall we get some lovely tones and hues in the late afternoon from those curtains, but this was something else altogether.

My favorite David Robertson instruction to the orchestra so far this week:

"That sounds great. I'd like less of it."

Percussionist John Kasica arrived at rehearsal this morning with the "Key to the Frontier." As I mentioned previously, John and his wife Paula were celebrated in Fort Smith, Arkansas recently. On September 12 they were given the "Key to the Frontier" and that date was officially proclaimed "John Kasica Day." The proclamation reads:

Just before the first rehearsal for Opening Weekend began, violinist Becky Boyer Hall's big toe was in the wrong place at the wrong time. A door opened. Her open-toed shoe was in the way, and--here is the cringe-inducing moment we have all been living vicariously all day--the toenail was almost completely ripped away.

A couple weeks ago a large diagram appeared in the central Development office, which is known as the bullpen because... well, I'm not sure why. No one spits sunflower seed husks or warms up their arms toward the middle of the day in the Devo bullpen, but somehow the name was applied and stuck.

I just checked in on my friend Phil Barron's blog, and he wrote this rave review of The Lord of the Rings Dress Rehearsal. Click here. Thanks, Phil!

And by the way, to Phil and all, don't ever feel you have to get dressed up for an SLSO concert. Just come. And, we have tickets as low as 19 bucks: as much as a movie, a beer and popcorn these days.

This morning one of our security folks, Dominique Holmes, entered the darkened building and just about freaked when she came across this figure in the foyer:

I don't know about you, but when I hear the music to Carousel I am gone. I heard it this morning during Forest Park Concert rehearsal and it hasn't left my head since. Now, there is some music, say, "Cold as Ice," and that stuck-in-your-head melody is a curse. Carousel, it's a blessing. You can hear it and a lot more blessing-in-your-head music at Art Hill tonight, 7pm. Free!

After taking my mid-afternoon clear-the-cobwebs walk around the district, I returned to find that the Henchmen were adjusting the lights for tonight's Lord of the Rings Dress Rehearsal. Much of the stage area was bathed in red, producing an ooh-baby kind of mood. A little while later, it was green, which definitely brought the mood down. Gonna be quite a show.

And so it begins. A very full orchestra indeed, and with room made for chorus and children's choir and soloists, I'd say more than full--stuffed, packed, stacked--take your pick. I arrived to witness the putting together of the marimba by the Henchmen in a corner of the stage, and brass players such as Tom Drake, three different trumpets in his arms, had to find an alternative route to their chairs.

The gang's all here Tuesday morning, with the full orchestra on stage for the first Lord of the Rings Symphony rehearsal.

The Lord of the Rings Symphony calls for an unusual array of instruments, in part because Howard Shore composed a work that would touch on many different styles of music from many different places. Thus the large universe constructed by Tolkien and filmmaker Peter Jackson would have music as diverse as that universe. An Irish whistle, a Pan flute, Bodhrans, a Japanese Taiko drum, Tibetan gongs, a "high-strung guitar" (which has nothing to do with the guitarist's psyche)--a six-string with "Nashville tuning" (for the George Jones section of the symphony), an Irish fiddle and a Hardanger fiddle.

Here is how the musical narrative of The Lord of the Rings Symphony goes, from "The Prophecy" in The Fellowship of the Ring to "Into the West" in The Return of the King:

As I was leaving the Hall yesterday, I met bassist Carolyn White backstage, scissors in her blue Latex-gloved hands, cutting up pieces of thick, black, cushiony material.

The other day Peter Henderson, who frequently plays keyboards with the orchestra, was back visiting the Hall with a Colorado-inspired full beard. Somehow the topic turned to Yefim Bronfman, who opens the 0809 season with Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3. According to Peter, both he and Orli Shaham rank Bronfman as the loudest pianist currently working the orchestral concert halls. Not ear-bleeding loud, virtuosic-power loud. Full-power Rach: September 26 & 27.

I entered the hall to the sound of French horns warming in the basement in preparation for horn auditions today. Those horns should be red hot by now.

Since motherhood has been in the political news recently, I'll share this excerpt from a Playbill interview I did with cellist Cathie Lehr in University City the other day. Cathie is married to violinist Manuel Ramos. Cathie and Manuel have three grown children, but while those children were growing, Mom cellist and Dad violinist were sometimes touring around Missouri and around the world with the SLSO. "We took the kids all over the place with us," she told me. "What do you do when you go on tour to Europe for a month and you have a five-year old and a two-month old?" Cathie asked, and then answered, "By the time you pack up a baby with a bottle, diaper, stroller and all the rest and go to Schnucks [supermarket], you might as well go to Paris. It's all the same."

The sign-up table was prepared early this afternoon by the Symphony Volunteer Association for the Youth Orchestra auditions, which began at 4pm.

Last night Mrs. Silva and I narrowed our evening out at the movies to two films: Hamlet 2 (silly, perhaps not all that good, but with Steve Coogan, Catherine Keener and Elizabeth Shue, we knew it would have its moments) or The Edge of Heaven (serious, highly lauded, not sure what we would be getting into--a story that shifts between Hamburg and Istanbul--but a good bet).

Wandering the Hall, as is my wont, in search of adjectives and blogable material, I heard a violin being sweetly played on the stage by an unknown musician (unknown to me). The SLSO's Alison Harney (principal second violin) appeared at the backstage door, on hand to work with students for this weekend's Youth Orchestra auditions. Angie Smart (first violins) showed up as well to share in the coaching tasks ahead.