Hello everyone from a cold snowy St.Petersburg (less than inch of snow and melting due to +4 today!) At least, no rains everyday )))
Enjoying peace and tranquillity for a couple of days in my home town, and more precisely in a country-house, is a rare time in my life. Re-reading Chekhov, Dostoevsky and, of course, music scores, walking on the silent streets of this village... next time I’ll be able to do it by the end of July.
It’s been quite intensive and exciting couple of months from beginning of season, we’ve got a few awards with RLPO, and you’ve attended a few decent concerts! Last weeks in London (and Cheltenham, Basingstoke, Cambridge), Liverpool (and Blackburn) and Oslo (and...Oslo one more time) were very interesting for me and quite tough because of flu around, which cost a lot of replacements in orchestras, sometime in a very last moment!
Briefly, Philharmonia went very well and I have a huge respect for musicians, who work all around the year and all around the World (we rehearsed with them in East Croydon, week after mine they’ve travelled in Europe with Mahler 9 every night in a different town!) in such a difficult schedule and still give a huge energy in a concerts. We will play together again quite soon. Brahms/Tchaikovsky concert was really exciting because of Arcadi’s great playing and because of clear sign of progress, which RLPO made since 2006, when we’ve performed 4th Symphony first time. Oslo Philharmonic did amazing concerts with Prokofiev 5 and Elgar Violin Concerto and it’s been very easy to understand each other (perhaps because of Mariss) and I felt very comfortable instead of extreme prices in the shops and restaurants. Actually it’s a great way of savings – look, don’t buy and think how much you saved! ;)
Answering question about upcoming concerts: 22nd December Salamanca, 23rd December Valladolid with Julia Lezhneva; 6th January Stoke-on-Trent, 7th January Liverpool with NYO; 10th January St.Petersburg Mahler 3, 16th January Liverpool Mahler 1. And so on till late summer!
