Postcards from Europe

Finale by the sea

2008-03-09T20:24:00.000-07:00

The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra wrapped up its whirlwind concert tour of Europe with a single performance in Rafael Moneo’s stunning hall situated in a spectacular setting where the Urumea River meets the ocean. Moneo, who also designed LA’s Cathedral of our Lady of the Angels downtown, here responded to the crashing of the waves with a slanted membrane of glass, slate shards and grey aluminum that seems to change colors according to the weather. Here pianist and composer Uri caine and Music Director Jeffrey Kahane jammed to Joni Mitchell’s Circle Game as an encore to Caine’s jazz-inflected, highly complex Mosaics for piano and orchestra. The hall was filled to the rafters, and again the response was tremendous: the orchestra also played an encore at the end of the program, Mozart's Overture to the Italian Girl in Algiers.

As I've previously mentioned, Jeffrey has been wowing (and in some cases, shocking) the European audiences by addressing them in their own language. If anything his Spanish seems more fluent than even his French. Is this fair? Anyway, his introduction of the Overture got a laugh; he suggested the audience imagine not an Italian Girl in Algiers, but Americans in Spain.
But at the beginning of the program he struck a somber note. Today's national election day, and the tension mounted a few days ago with the assasination of a former city councilman in northern Spain by a gunman suspected of belonging to the Basque militant group ETA

According to the New York Times, this attack and the ensuing disruption of the hotly fought presidential campaign were particularly disturbing for Spain because of their timing, just short of the fourth anniversary of the March 11, 2004, Islamist bombing of the Madrid commuter train system, which left 191 people dead three days before Spain’s last general election.

So Jeff began tonight with a prayer for peace, and dedicated the concert to the families who mourn the victims of all wars and violence (or something similar to that. My Spanish is a bit iffy.)
He got a very rousing round of applause.

The concert was terrific. The orchestra plays Stravinsky's Pulcinella Suite, the Haydn Symphony No. 99 and Prokofiev's Classical Symphony as if the works were written for them.
LACO officials Andrea Laguni and Ruth Eliel are already beginning to talk about another tour, perhaps in three (rather than 30!) years. Several of the presenters have already extended an invitation for the orchestra to return. Concertmaster Margaret Batjer says the orchestra has really grown on this trip....the ensemble is tighter, the playing is stronger, and maybe equally important, they've had a chance to relax and have meals together, and strengthen the bond between them. During the year, the players meet once a month. It's not a full-time orchestra. And they're so busy with teaching or studio work or other orchestra gigs, it's always hard to just hang out.

To honor the birthday of longtime principal horn Rick Todd, the orchestra played a somewhat dissonant Happy Birthday at the beginning of tonight's soundcheck rehearsal at the hall.
After the concert, back here at the Amara Plaza Hotel, a bunch of the players, the Kahanes, Executive Director Andrea Laguni and Dan Read, among others, sat around a long table and had a remarkably delicious dinner (for hotel food.) Jeff said his lamb was exceptional. My risotto with crab and porcini mushrooms was one of the best I've ever had. So we don't feel quite as ripped off now. Why were we feeling ripped off? Andrea had widely circulated the information that San Sebastian boasts Spain's greatest restaurant. If you've ever traveled in Spain, you know that's quite a claim. But the restaurant was closed; it's Sunday!

This tour has been a sensational succcess. More offbeat, behind the scenes stories tomorrow~

Tomorrow, most of the musicians are flying to Madrid for a big party on the way home. Some will continue to travel in Europe with their families. I'm looking forward to coming home after a brief foray in Bilbao and Barcelona.

Some good behind the scenes stories coming tomorrow..........

Ciao! (Don't know the Basque word)

Gail

Standing ovation in Paris!

2008-03-09T18:45:00.000-07:00

Tonight, the LA Chamber Orchestra, performing in the Theatre
des Champs-Élysées, was greeted with a standing ovation, something rarely bestowed by the highly discerning (some might say, snobbish) Parisian audiences. The gorgeous art nouveau-style theater seemed dry to the musicians onstage, but from the center of the orchestra section, the sound was ideal: crisp, clean, and burnished. The soloist once again was Vesselina Kasarova, and she was at her best: a stunning mezzo-soprano voice, focused like a laser. She sang Mozart and Rossini arias to a rapt audience.

LACO Music Director Jeffrey Kahane has been taking a moment to address the audience at every concert. In the audience's native language. It's not at all unusual for conductors to speak German, so his perfect German in the Berlin and Vienna halls didn't really surprise me. But before the Paris concert, he insisted that he was nervous about talking French publically. He was even coached by his wife, Martha. Well, Jeffrey once again nailed the greeting with an immaculate French accent.

I may be imagining a quiet collective gasp among audience members, but there's no doubt that he must have mightily impressed them. The cliche that Americans don't bother to learn other languages is mostly true. Happily, Jeffrey Kahane is giving us all a better name.

There were a pair of beautiful receptions framing the concert. First, on the Ile St. Louis, close friends of the Kahanes hosted a gathering at their beautiful apartment on the Seine. Following the concert, LACO board member Warner Henry and his wife Carol hosted a reception at their equally fabulous Paris apartment just down the street from the Theatre des Champs-Elysees, where Stravinsky's Rite of Spring caused such a ruckus at its world premiere in 1913.
Nearly a hundred years later, the Pulcinella Suite went over marvelously well; nary a fistfight!

Most of the orchestra players arrived the very day of the concert, which gave them a few hours at most to look around this miraculous city. For those toting their children on tour, the Eifel Tower was a must....every darned step. Helpfully, our hotel was only a few blocks away.
Some did a bit of shopping; Violist Roland Kato took a busman's holiday to a music store and came away with a stack of sheet music. Clarinetist Joshua Ranz bought a clarinet! It's the less frequently used "C" clarinet, which makes some passages easier to play. He actually purchased a "student" model by Leblanc that Paris Opera Orchestra players are also using. Inexpensive, relatively, yet absolutely warm enough in tone to play professionally. Violinist Jennifer Levin walked for hours.

Violist Victoria Miskolczy was visited by family who live in Europe. LACO Executive Director Andrea Laguni was reunited with his brother, Stefano, a theater director and actor who is married to a singer specializing in early music. They live in Paris. Associate Executive Director Ruth Eliel and her husband Bill Cooney saw the Vlaminck exhibit at the Musee de Luxembourg with Parisian friends. Danielle Harrell, who oversees Major Gifts and, along with Devin Thomas, handled many of the logistical aspects of the tour, met up with an old friend, and then received a visit from her mom and sister. I wandered around the Luxembourg Gardens and the Place de Vosges. It's been about 25 years since I'd been to Paris, and knowing one afternoon was not exactly enough time to see all the sights, I picked a few favorite places from my past.

Glittering reception in Paris

2008-03-08T07:47:00.000-08:00

Sacre coeur!

LACO officials, board members and music director Jeffrey Kahane and his wife Martha were greeted by the US Ambassador to Paris in the ambassador's own fabulous mansion on the rue de Faubourg Saint-Honore the same day we arrived in Paris, Friday Mar. 7. The palatial home was for a time owned by the Rothschilds, until it was taken over by the Nazi's. The American government eventually bought it from the Rothschilds after they returned following the second world war. We got a tour, had wonderful hors d'oeuvres, and met some interesting supporters of the arts in Paris. Tonight, the orchestra tests its mettle (and brass) in the historic Theatre des Champs Elysee. Today was a day to shop, sightsee, get over the flu, and for me, return to some beloved neighborhood haunts from Parisian visits of decades ago: the Luxembourg gardens, for one, and the Place de Vosges. I walked for hours. A full report on the concert in a few hours!

Au revoir,

Giselle (my name in French class at Horace Mann Elementary School)

Musical marathon in Berlin!

2008-03-08T07:12:00.001-08:00

The Berlin Konzerthaus, where LACO played Thurs. Mar. 6

The LA Chamber Orchestra would probably still be playing encores in Berlin's elegant Konzerthaus if music director Jeffrey Kahane hadn't pulled concertmaster Margaret Batjer offstage. This, after not only a vocal encore by soloist Vasselina Kasarova (the elusive Tancredi aria that had originally arrived in the wrong key. Thanks to some bionically fast copying of parts by librarian Bob Dolan, the orchestra's parts were in the correct key favored by the great Bulgarian mezzo. Kahane still had to conduct looking at a full score in the wrong key. Which wouldn't be a problem for most people. He has perfect pitch, and was pretty uncomfortable. But I digress.) The orchestra also played an encore; a quicksilver performance of the final movement of Prokofiev's Classical Symphony. The regular program was itself extremely long by LA standards, about two and a half hours. It opened with Haydn's Symphony No. 99, then came overtures and arias by Mozart and Rossini featuring Kasarova, and finally the Pulcinella Suite of Stravinsky. One thinks of a Berlin audience as not only discerning (the Berlin Phil is the hometown band) but reserved. Not at all. There was foot-stamping, roars of bravo, and, again, they wouldn't stop applauding.It was a thrilling night for LACO musicians.

Concertmaster Margararet Batjer says playing in these great music capitols, in these superb halls, has given the members of the orchestra atremendous lift. They will never think of themselves in the same way as before. They have earned the respect of audiences in the Mecca of classical music. There has long been a special LACO esprit de corps; if you haven't experienced it for yourself, get thee to a concert this season in LA. http://www.laco.org For one thing, the musicians have day jobs: playing in the studios, teaching, playing Pacific Symphony, and other local groups. LACO concerts (a double set at the Alex Theatre in Glendale and UCLA's Royce Hall) take place only about once a month. So this is a true labor of love, with rehearsals often falling after a long day in the studios. So they certainly don't get sick of each other. Coming together to play this stunning repertoire is like a holiday. The good vibes on this tour are palpable, despite illness among the ranks and a very demanding travel schedule. Kahane himself says he's never experienced anything like it.

Berlin Images

2008-03-06T09:07:00.000-08:00

That's Music Director Jeffrey Kahane and his wife, Martha, joined by top LA Chamber Orchestra officials and supporters, and in the back left, KUSC's Gail Eichenthal, growing pasty-faced and pale on the Johannes Brahms diet.

LA Chamber Orchestra Associate Exec. Dir. Ruth Eliel, Music Director Jeffrey Kahane, orchestra supporter Dan Read, and Martha Kahane arrive in Berlin.

*Images Courtesy of LACO

We are Berliners!

2008-03-05T19:10:00.000-08:00

It's been an emotional day for LA Chamber Orchestra music director Jeffrey Kahane, whose mother was born here in Germany and grew up in nearby Magdeburg. As Jews in Nazi Germany, several of his close family members, including a grandfather and great uncle, were sent to concentration camps. Later, another great uncle became the head of documentation at the Nuremberg trials.

Years later, Jeffrey performed here in Germany and had some amazingly cathartic and moving experiences with audience members who reached out to him. One elderly German handed him a rose and a candle, expressing the wish to personally atone for what happened to Kahane's family during the Third Reich.

So to arrive here in Berlin on a beautiful, sunny, crisp afternoon today with his own American orchestra based in Berlin's first sister city of Los Angeles.....it's quite extraordinary. On top of that, Jeff has been thinking about how LA provided safe harbor to so many European artists and musicians during that dark period: Stravinsky, the Feuchtwangers, Thomas Mann, Arnold Schoenberg, Ernst Toch, Eric Zeisl, and on and on..........

So in a sense Jeffrey himself feels like a bridge between the old era and the new.

And oh, how Berlin is new!

My own last trip occured 21 years ago, before the "wende", as Berliners call it, the "Turn"; that is, the tearing down of the Wall. Some friends and I gingerly ventured past the armed guards and barbed wire into East Berlin for an hour, only to be terribly sobered by the dreary streets and architecture and people, the lack of any spark, the greyness of it all. (Well, the sheet music was cheap; that was the only plus.)

Now, what used to be East Berlin is like a sprawling urban Tomorrowland....outlandish architecture, high-rises sparkling with rainbow-colored lights, neon-lit malls, hipper than hip housing projects, massive hotels, eateries, clubs everywhere. Tomorrow I'll visit Pottsdammerplatz...and possibly the Holocaust memorial and Jewish Museum.

And LACO plays its single Berlin concert tomorrow night. I can't wait to hear Mezzo-Soprano Vesselina Kasarova sing Mozart and Rossini. She's been breaking hearts throughout Italy and Germany on the first leg of the tour. Orchestra players say she's sensational and extremely engaging. This will be my chance to see what all the fuss is about!

By the way, the first reviews are in from Hannover. Highly positive of this "Hollywood" orchestra. And the critics are floored by the all-female first violin section. Remember the fuss made when the Berlin Philharmonic finally hired its first woman, the extraordinary principal clarinet, Sabine Meyer? She lasted, what, half a season?

According to Kissler, this is one area where Germany is still way behind the U.S. Women comprise only 10-20% of the country's great orchestras. Kissler says, sometimes here, there are those that have their thoughts back in the 19th century.

Meanwhile, tonight, Berlin dignitaries fussed over the Kahanes and LA Chamber Orchestra executives and patrons at the famous "red" Rathaus, or City Hall. Jeffrey read a proclamation from LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and was celebrated by the Berlin State Secretary Barbara Kissler. The culinary highlight hands down: Blood red oranges atop a creme brulee! We took a tour, and were shown an entire wall commemorating the names and dates and places of death of Jewish members of the German Parliament who perished under the Third Reich.

Berlin is coming to grips with its past and future. As Kissler says, after many, many problems with re-unification; financial, psychological and logistical problems that seemed for awhile insurmountable, Berlin has begun to accept itself as a single, unified, city.

Still, amid the majestic monuments, cranes are everywhere. There's an electricity in the air. It's a city exploding with joy.

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Viennese Images

2008-03-05T09:13:00.000-08:00

LACO, receiving ovations at the "Grand Hall" of the Konzerthaus

Post-Concert at the MAK Center

LACO Patrons Linda & Michael Rosen and Joyce Feinberg deep in conversation
presumably over the 'ringer' second flautist while outside the Vienna Parliament

Schubert manuscript from "Mignon." Some of the LACO patrons visited The Vienna Musikarchiv, run by the Vienna City Library. It houses 200 of Franz Schubert's original, signed, manuscripts, approximately 90% of the Strauss family's manuscripts, and many collections by other great and lesser known composers. All of Schubert's signed manuscripts have been digitally cataloged and can be seen online at www.schubertonline.at

*Images Courtesy of LACO

LACO's last night in Vienna... Tues. Mar. 4

2008-03-04T18:50:00.001-08:00

The LA Chamber Orchestra waltzed away with the audience tonight! Led by music director, Jeffrey Kahane, LACO sounded perfectly at home in the "Great Hall" of the nearly 100-old Konzerthaus, a five-minute walk from our hotel. The stunning hall was completely renovated in the late 1990's and is all gold and red.....gold-leaf inlaid ceilings, red velvet seats, pristine white walls. From a box on the balcony level, the sound was ideal: clear, crisp, yet brilliant. In the Stravinsky Pulcinella Suite, solo violinist (and concertmaster) Margaret Batjer and the solo winds and brass were particularly thrilling. So many of them have been with this orchestra for decades, and they sound like family.

The concert appeared to be just about a sell-out......and, again, an encore was the only way to appease them, even after a long program of the Stravinsky; Uri Caine's virtuosic and improvisational-flavored Piano Concerto entitled, "Mosaics", with the composer as the dazzling soloist; Haydn's Symphony No. 99 and Prokofiev's Classical Symphony. Music Director Jeffrey Kahane, in German, announced they'd play Rossini's Overture to "The Italian Girl in Algiers," borrowed from the other tour program.

For those of us who knew about some drama backstage, all eyes were on the second flute for the bulk of the concert. You see, she has never played with this orchestra before. She's a Viennese-based young musician, called in today to replace ailing Susan Greenberg, who came down with an ear infection in Hamburg and couldn't fly. I was told she got only about 15 minutes to rehearse the ultra-demanding Prokofiev, which barely allows the flute section to breathe under normal circumstances.

LACO's second trumpet, Darren Mulder, also had a white-knuckle night. He was thrust into the very much in the spotlight (especially in the Stravinsky) first chair, when David Washburn was diagnosed with pneumonia. Again, a Viennese musician was hired to take Darren's chair. It all went brilliantly. As LACO Executive Director Andrea Laguni said, if you have to find great players at the last minute to play without a rehearsal, Vienna's the ideal place for a topnotch game of musical chairs.

After this greatly successful and no doubt exhausting program, Kahane, his wife Martha, some LACO patrons traveling with the orchestra, and orchestra officials Andrea Laguni, Ruth Eliel and Danielle Harrell (who took the photos on this blog) strolled for ten minutes or so to the massive and endlessly alluring MAK Center of Applied Arts. You may know the relatively intimate, though fascinating LA offshoot at the Schindler House in West Hollywood. Well, this building is gargantuan, houses all manner of old and new design and decor, hosts avant garde readings, films, concerts and happenings, and just happens to boast one of Vienna's most wonderful restaurants right inside. Well, there I go bringing up food again. What do you want from me? The Johannes Brahms diet is strict. Music and food. Music and food.

Anyway, after a wonderful tour by of this mind-boggling museum by several of its top officials, we sat down for a full meal at around 11:30pm. Salad with potato chips (you had to be there), pasta with ham, and, yes, a typically creamy, sugary, cheesecake-like dessert served with a bowl of sweetened rhubarb.

Earlier today, before the orchestra arrived, I wandered into the Albertina, an art museum/palace filled with drawings, water-colors, and a world-class exhibit of the newly acquired Rita und Herbert Batliner collection. Had a pretty fair wiener schnitzel in the swank museum cafe. It's on the diet.

Tomorrow it's on to Berlin! 4:43am! Bedtime!

Arriving at Frankfurt on the way to Vienna

2008-03-03T18:28:00.000-08:00

Can you tell I slept less than an hour on the TransAtlantic flight? I'm second from left.

I'm pictured with LACO former and current board members.......More soon!

Gute Nacht,

Gail

Arriving in Vienna

2008-03-03T18:23:00.001-08:00

Greetings from Vienna!

Just arrived tonight (Monday Mar. 3) via Frankfurt. On the plane from Frankfurt, our small group, consisting of me, LA Chamber Orchestra board members, plus development executive and shepherd Danielle Harrell, stumbled onto members of the Vienna Philharmonic. They looked just as confused and bleary-eyed as we did. A violinist from the Vienna Phil said they had just played the third of three New York concerts Sunday afternoon. He added, "I don't know what day it is." Welcome to the club. The KUSC Kroup that felled Dennis Bartel Friday morning (he's better now) also kept me well-awake on the trans-continental flight from LA. Tried to avoid the spectacular coffee here (oh, just a sip) after arriving so I can sleep tonight.

Meanwhile, tonight, members of the LA Chamber Orchestra gave a concert in Germany. The concerts began Thursday evening, Feb. 28, and they've already played in Ferrara, Treviso, Hannover, and the Hamburg concert tonight. Executive Director Andrea Laguni sounded absolutely elated after the performance tonight when I spoke to him on the phone. Two encores! The audience still didn't want the orchestra to leave the stage. The soloist was Vesselina Kasarova, a fast-rising Bulgarian mezzo.
She sang Mozart and Rossini. Can't wait to hear her later in the tour. She's supposedly amazing.

If tomorrow's Tuesday (and it is) it must be Vienna for LACO, who will join us here for a 7:30pm concert at the Konzerthaus Big Hall, which promises glorious acoustics. The soloist will be composer and pianist Uri Caine, who has a very close association with this orchestra and its music director, the indefatigable Jeffrey Kahane. Caine's piece is called Mosaics for Piano and Orchestra.

At a dinner tonight celebrating the tour at historic Cafe Demel, Caine talked a little bit about the piece. It's never played the same way twice. He's a brilliant improviser and jazz artist, and those skills come into play here. He described how sometimes conductor Jeffrey Kahane will raise his eyebrows in surprise during a performance when Uri detours from the expected course. But Uri tries to reassure, him, there's no wrong note! It's just different tonight.

LACO hasn't toured Europe for 30 years. I look forward to telling you all about the tour. Watch this space!

Warmest regards,

Your Bleary-eyed Blogger