Glad to read, that last few concerts has been appreciated a lot, as well as few awards, received by the Phil. As always excited by the amount of attendees which keeps growing!
Thanks a lot as well for your response on the question of new hall – at least now discussion is open and taken quite seriously. Main question apart from a budget will be location, and this is really tough! I think new building should be somewhere in central Liverpool, I know that it’s a lot of pressure to stay on Hope Street, but in my point of view best option then might be “a new spectacular 21-century building” next to the Phil!
In a last few weeks being as usual extremely busy (it’s been a big pleasure to see some of Liverpoodlians in Moscow!) I’ve seen a lot of examples how the new buildings improved classical music life in other cities – many years ago in Boston, in a middle of 20th Century in Moscow and more recently in Granada (where current hall under renovation now) and Monte-Carlo. After all I still believe that whatever will happen in my and RLPO life’s, new building will benefit Liverpool forever!
Regarding Orchestra layout last week – idea is to bring more of contrabasses into general balance and have them more involved in performance. I think it’s been quite exciting experiment and we will repeat it in a future. But it’ll be possible in case of small percussion section (as last week), otherwise there is no space, and this is again about needs of new hall...
P.S. I would recommend to everyone attend Saturday’s concert, all music there is absolutely fantastic and not too often performed, so, grab your chance!
P.P.S. If you kept reading till this point, you probably guessing about the title on the top – this is a little test for you, do you know which fest is in Russia today?
