Finale by the sea

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!

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

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!

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

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