As many of you know, my husband Chris plays viola with the St Louis Symphony. You may or may not know that the St Louis Symphony is about to embark on their first European Tour in decades.
They are playing concerts in London, Berlin, Luzerne, and Paris. I will be flying out to meet him in Paris. I will see the final tour concert there and then we are sightseeing in Paris for a week. Needless to say, we are excited.
(Pounds, Euros, and Swiss Francs. Chris’s per diem money.)
In addition to the tour-related stress and anticipation in the Frantillo household, the internet is abuzz as well. Several symphony musicians will be live-tweeting the tour, including my friend Jon. You can (and should!) follow them on Twitter:
Jon Reycraft, trombone (@reycraftian), Jennifer Nitchman, flute (@jennynitch), Celeste Boyer, violin (@celesteboyer), and Diana Haskell, clarinet (@dihaskell). They’ll be using the hashtag #slsotour so you can follow that as well if you are twitter saavy. I also recommend you follow @slso, @adamcrane, and @eebsworthgoold for more tour and symphony information. And of course I’ll be tweeting as usual—if you like my blog, you’ll enjoy my twitter account. (@hannahviolin).
What if you aren’t on twitter, you ask? You can also follow the Symphony on their facebook page instead, follow their Tour Blog, or perhaps read about it on other news sites. This is an interesting article about the tour that you can start with, and here’s a link to "Cityscape", a local NPR show, on which a couple of the SLSO musicians talk about the tour and especially the Proms. (Being invited to play at the Proms is a HUGE honor.)
Here’s the tour concert schedule:
September 4, 2012 (London, Royal Albert Hall)
David Robertson, conductor
Christian Tetzlaff, violin
BRAHMS: Tragic Overture
BEETHOVEN: Violin Concerto
SCHOENBERG: Five Pieces for Orchestra
GERSHWIN: An American in Paris
http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms (I made this into a direct link to the concert info rather than the main proms site)
I believe that this concert will be broadcast on the internet—it’s at 7:30 pm London time, so you should be able to figure that out for your own time zone. (Unlike the Olympic coverage, you may need to listen to it live though someone on the facebook page suggested it would be archived for a week.)
September 5, 2012—Berlin (Musikfest Berlin 2012 at Berliner Philharmonie)
David Robertson, conductor
Christian Tetzlaff, violin
ELLIOTT CARTER: Holiday Overture
BEETHOVEN: Violin Concerto
SCHOENBERG: Five Pieces for Orchestra
GERSHWIN: An American in Paris
September 6, 2012—Lucerne (The Lucerne Festival, Kultur- und Kongresszentrum Luzern)
David Robertson, conductor
Christian Tetzlaff, violin
IVES: The Unanswered Question
BEETHOVEN: Violin Concerto
SIBELIUS: Symphony No. 1
September 7, 2012—Paris (Salle Pleyel)
David Robertson, conductor
Christian Tetzlaff, violin
BRAHMS: Tragic Overture
BEETHOVEN: Violin Concerto
ELLIOTT CARTER: Holiday Overture
GERSHWIN: An American in Paris
This one at Salle Pleyel is the one I will be attending. I can’t wait!
Oh, and tonight is the "Rally Concert" at Powell Hall. Let’s all join together and wish the Symphony a "Happy Flight!"
(Disclaimer, will not be attending because I will be teaching children to play the violin instead.)
(Gift from Chris’s mom—neither of us speaks French, so I guess we’d better learn quickly! Luckily Chris already speaks English so he’ll be okay for the first tour stop.)