Eddie Silva: September 2007 Archives

The Friday morning Coffee Concert reminded me of a description of the great base stealer Rickey Henderson: “delicate, delicate, delicate—Go!” It’s a program filled with delicacies and nuance, each adding to the other until the Brahms’ 2 is unleashed in the finale.

Sign on the Green Room door for the SLSO musicians playing the solo parts to Martin’s Concerto for Seven Winds this weekend:

WARM UP ROOM FOR THE MOTLEY MARTIN-ERS!

I didn’t attend the Forest Park concert Tuesday night, but I heard the fireworks outside my living-room window. Holy moly!

While we are watching the sky and watching the radar to see if we’re going to be able to get the Forest Park concert in tonight, here are a few observations I’ve stored up since the tumult that is Opening Weekend. By the way, the orchestra is all ready for the concert in the park, rehearsing this morning with Assistant Conductor Scott Parkman, filling in for David Robertson who is invested in new-father duties this week.

And I said that I was tired at the end of last week, imagine Orli Shaham, who gave birth to these boys, Nathan and Alex, on Saturday, September 15. My colleague Jake has designated this pic as their first official headshot.

I’m tired. It’s been quite a week. I look forward to the concert tomorrow night. I’ve heard great things about the Sound Check concert last night – a David Robertson innovation, a pre-Opening Night concert for high-school and college students only. $10 bucks for the big show. A colleague told me Petrushka sounds just awesome. I bet it does. There are tickets available for both Saturday and Sunday. Go!

At the break this morning, violist Chris Woehr reached into his backpack and pulled out some gum. “This is going to be a two Juicy Fruit kind of day,” he sighed.

David Robertson in his first rehearsal with the orchestra in the new season: “I was thinking this morning how [composer Christopher Rouse's] Rapture starts slowly and builds and builds, really very much like labor.”

And so it begins. A morning of “so good to see you how was your summer” and words of welcome to the new musicians: Andrea Kaplan (assistant principal flute), Jonathan Vinocour (principal viola), Michael Walk (trumpet). Words of celebration for Orli Shaham and David Robertson with the birth of twins: Nathan and Alex. David’s spending another day at home and will be here tomorrow for rehearsals and for the Opening Weekend concerts. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to see David looking tired. For some reason I don’t think I’ll see that this week. I expect a new level of elation, as if that were ever possible.

Conductor Bradley Thachuk is covering for David in today’s rehearsals, which began with the wonderfully magical opening of Stravinsky’s Petrushka. We’re off!

I saw violinist Amy Oshiro in the hall this afternoon. “You been practicing?” I asked, with first rehearsal scheduled for Tuesday. “You want to see my calluses?” she said.

And there was the proof of her artistic diligence. You could retread your tires with those calluses.

This morning I walked into the hall with Music Librarian John Tafoya. We shared the usual exclamations of how impossibly busy we find ourselves the week before Opening Weekend. Musicians have been making their way to the downstairs library to pick up their parts. Practice, practice, practice. John said it was especially busy last week. “We had so many people down there,” John told me, “suddenly it was just like a big party.”

Now that’s the spirit with which to open the season!

They just can’t stay away: Pete Bowman (principal oboe) looking like a Beat poet; Tina Ward (clarinet) talking about dog training; Alvin McCall (cello) in a bright floral shirt – Alvin sometimes shows off by bounding up the steps eight floors and beating the elevator; Ling Ling Guan (violin) sashaying down the hall; Frances Tietov (harp) dealing with harp-extra issues; Cally Banham (English horn and oboe) looking very rested from a trip to the Pacific Northwest and with reports from the big open spaces of Oklahoma where she played a music fest this summer; Carolyn White (associate principal double bass) backstage with the Henchmen learning from them how everything is going to be better this season. Or as Henchman Joe Clapper often says: “Fantastic!”

I have had my head deep into the program Enlightened Seduction today, which sounds like something quite marvelous, but some days you find God in the details and sometimes you find the Devil.

It’s a good thing the season is starting soon because with the Cubs whipping the Cards in Wrigley and Michelle and Heath breaking up we need some good news.

I saw the SLSO percussion section meeting in Maggie Bailey’s office this morning. Maggie is operations manager. The SLSO percussion section consists of Richard Holmes, John Kasica and Tom Stubbs. They have been together as the SLSO percussion section for over thirty-five years. Maggie has been here two years. But she’s wily.

I went to the doctor the other day to get some attention to my aching back. The doctor is new to me. He looked over my vital statistics, and looked up: “Saint Louis Symphony! This is like treating royalty!”

A few days ago when I was talking with Tom Drake, SLSO assistant principal trumpet, we were discussing the little miracles that happen in the classroom. He mentioned a student he had at Interlochen, who, as Tom put it, a summer ago didn’t know which end of the horn to blow. But then this summer, this same kid, a local youth from around here, was doing amazing things. Tom shook his head at the ways students manage to put the information together, whether it be from interactions with teachers, with peers, with the wind in the trees: X happens.