September 2009 Archives

One of the best times I had last season was meeting with The Rest Is Noise Reading Group at the Taproom over five weeks last fall. I see many of the people who made up that convivial gathering at concerts and events at Powell Hall on a regular basis. Absolutely wonderful people. I'm thinking of a possible reading group in the spring, maybe with John Adams' autobiography as a preview to Doctor Atomic Symphony, but I'm open to possibilities. If you have some ideas, let me know.

A colleague sent me an e-mail at the start of the concert Saturday night. She and her husband had to cancel their Powell Hall date night because of a feverish infant, but, she told me, she was able to tune in to the live broadcast on KFUO: "I've got the Cards on mute and the SLSO up loud!"

And in case you hadn't heard: The Cards clinched and the SLSO knocked it out of the ballpark.

Thursday night during the Town Hall Meeting on the Powell stage, Fred Bronstein brought up the retirement of Principal Trumpet Susan Slaughter, who will be performing her 40th and final season with the SLSO in 0910. He turned to David Robertson to comment on the meaning of Susan's achievement. Although it's always difficult to paraphrase David and come anywhere close to attaining his level of eloquence, here is something of the tone and feel of what he said.  

After the Mahler 5 rehearsal concluded in the afternoon, I passed by the Green Room and heard some accordion and percussion happening, making, for a moment, the place sound like a South City Czech Beer Hall. Then the Henchmen started wheeling Keita Ogawa's percussion battery out on a cart. Some instruments were easily recognizable, small cymbals, assorted mallets, and then there was stuff that looked like an assortment of sex toys.

Violist Katy Mattis approached me at a break in the action during Mahler 5. She apologized for not sending me her Musician Picks for the 0910 season, especially since she considers the Mahler 5 to be "my favorite symphony in the universe." But then she entirely made up for it with this anecdote:

I hardly had to leave my home to hear raves about the orchestra last week. I stepped outside the door and my neighbors were returning from the Sunday Blue Planet Live! concert. They sang the orchestra's praises without my even asking. They went to the Forest Park concert too. "The music sounds so great out in the open air," they said. It's nice to hear the SLSO buzz in the street, especially on my street.

After a week that has included two Education Concerts, the Forest Park concert, and two performances of Blue Planet Live! to come this weekend--plus the rehearsal time and traveling hither and yon to help promote all the stuff the orchestra is doing--Ward Stare was still standing, taking a break on the Delmar side of the hall prior to the first rehearsal of Blue Planet Live!

It's a beautiful evening in St. Louis. I invite you to head to Forest Park for tonight's SLSO concert full of bold, brash music that will keep the clouds away. The music starts at 7. Fireworks after the music stops. Boom!

The first thing schoolchildren do when they enter the foyer of Powell Hall is look up. And after they look up and see the glittering chandeliers dangling from above, they break out in wide smiles.

Nobody needs to get up in the morning to catch morning TV anymore, of course. People have TiVo and all sorts of other ways to not miss anything on TV ever, including the world wide wonderful web. So all you have to do is click and see the "80 percent shark feeding frenzy" segment from Tuesday morning's Fox2 News in the Morning.

First of all, let me say that I know early-morning people, and I respect them for their noble, early-morning energy. They awake. They greet the day. They walk the dog. They eat their shredded wheat and they're off.

Early Tuesday morning I'm making my way to the City Museum's World Aquarium to meet oboist Barbara Orland, who is going to swim with sharks and Tim Ezell for Fox2 News in the Morning. Tune in around 7:15 and they'll be getting into the Amazon tank (i.e. the Amazon river, not a tankful of warrior women). They'll work their way up to the shark tank by 7:45.

This is the last weekend for everyone with the SLSO to take a big breath before the season begins. And then, as Max, King of the Wild Things, would say, "Let the wild rumpus start!"

Now that the Henchmen are done pounding and shaking my office walls, one of the chores they've moved on to is replacing the lights in the auditorium. Many, many lights. I took a look this afternoon and found the old hall glowing like a new thing, and the Henchmen aren't even done yet. They had to go get more bulbs.

Mike Lynch and the Henchmen took some time away from getting the stage and auditorium in shape for the imminent 130th season blast off to do some maintenance around the staff quarters, which meant a fair amount of pounding and shaking in my vicinity. I'm looking forward to the pounding and shaking of Mahler 5 in a couple weeks.

I just realized that this is the start of my sixth season with the SLSO. I began the day after Labor Day, 2003.

We're in the midst of Youth Orchestra auditions, the annual late-summer rite of anxiety at Powell Hall. When I left Wednesday evening the place was abuzz with hopeful young musicians, fretting parents, calm and welcoming members of the Symphony Volunteer Association, who were there to help the process run smoothly.

For the taping of a Show Me St. Louis segment on the Powell Hall stage to promote The Blue Planet Live!, Ward Stare, who will be conducting the George Fenton score, arrived dressed in a blue sport coat and blue shirt.

True to the "SLSO Goes Blue" promotion of The Blue Planet Live! the blue lights are on Powell Hall from around 7:30 in the evening until around 7:30 in the morning.