2009 Tour of Europe and the Canary Islands

valencia

2009-02-14T07:38:00.017-05:00

bullfighting ring next to the train station where we arrived

upon arriving in valencia, the weather was absolutely beautiful. so a group of us set out to the old part of town. first on the agenda though was to find some food. since it was around 3, many places were closed but we soon found a turkish kebab restaurant (much to efe's delight). it was delicious.

efe was saving some of his dessert for later

unfortunately, the paella place leonidas wanted to take us to was closed after the concert so we ended up going elsewhere. but since he had been talking about this place since our concerts in philadelphia, i had to try it the next day. che-hung came w/ me and we enjoyed our final paella of the tour at la pepica, by the sea. as usual, we ate until we could barely move.

che-hung watched and quickly learned their secret recipe

since we were so close to the water, i had to go in. the beach was so beautiful and enormous. it took me about 5 minutes to walk to the water but i only lasted about 5 seconds in it. the water temperature here made las palmas feel like the caribbean.

after getting back to the hotel, efe (who i have been rooming w/) and i decided to check out more of the city. we walked to the original gate of the city and along the oldest street.

can you tell efe enjoys his desserts?

does this hall look familiar? same designer as the one in tenerife. we played in the hall next door.

flamenco in valencia

2009-02-08T19:36:00.003-05:00

For our first night in Valencia, we went out to see some authentic flamenco. John Koen (cello) found this place that was so not touristy that most taxis didn't even know how to get there. So we left our hotel around 10:30pm for dinner and a show. And yes, I do mean 10:30PM for dinner. No one in Spain ever eats dinner before 9pm, hence our 10:30pm concert in Madrid the other night--that must have been our only post-dinner show in Spain. Here's the club: El Toro y La Luna

I know the following photo is pretty blurry, but it's the only one I got of all of us, with a dancer in there as a bonus. From the left it's Hirono, John, me, Marc, Hirono's friend Akiko, and the dancer.

Lee Gravagno and Carole Haas Gravagno got there after we did, and somehow had a better table. They must have known a guy. But they left pretty early and we got to take over their good seats after they left.

So the show started around 12:30 (midnight, Spain time). The term flamenco refers to not only the loud, vivacious dance, but also the particular kind of song and guitar that accompany it. The tradition grew out of a mesh of cultures, as gypsies mingled with other minorities of the time, so the style is very unique. The song is considered the heart of flamenco, while the guitar and dance are ornamental. But the dancers are pretty amazing to watch!

The dancers also sang and played castanets.

Dancer taking a smoke break.

And here's our main singer guy:

He put on a sombrero and started singing some Mexican tunes. A lot of people knew the words to some of the songs and sang along.

John had a little conversation with our tango singer, who I think is also a proprieter of El Toro y La Luna. He was impressed that we played with the orchestra, and showed us all the photos on the wall of him with Frank Sinatra, the Rolling Stones, and numerous other famous people.

Members of the audience were participating more and more throughout the night--they'd hop on stage and dance for a tune, and some of them were really good! By the time we left it was practically a dance party in there.

We left the club around 3:45 and they were still going strong. Spaniards really know how to party!

tenerife - las palmas - barcelona - lisbon - madrid - valencia

2009-02-08T07:25:00.021-05:00

lost in madrid

hello again and sorry for the long silence. it's been quite busy here w/ traveling and concerts. on top of that, there are just so many places to see and so much food to eat!

paella w/ chicken and rabbit

seafood paella

valencian paella in madrid

paella broth w/ lobster (not sure of the name but it was DELICIOUS!)

things have been going quite well here. all the concerts have been very well attended and received. our violin soloist, leonidas kavakos, has been INCREDIBLE as always. each night after the bartok #2 or sibelius, he has delighted all of us w/ an encore of bach, paganini or tarrega (the orchestra's favorite).

here is an old clip of the tarrega:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A_CCOsNn_w

i've had the privilege of getting to know leonidas over the past few years. not only is he an unbelievable violinist, but he's also an extremely nice, down to earth guy. during the 06-07 season, he played the berg violin concerto w/ us and after the first concert, a group of us went out to eat. we had such a good time, we ended up having dinner 2 more times that week and also got together when he came to philadelphia for a recital about a year later. it has almost become a "tradition". so during our week of concerts together before leaving on tour, we made plans to hang out and get some paella.

in las palmas, a group of us went out for some good food and hilarious stories

tonight, we're actually going to a very famous place here in valencia where the queen even goes. can't wait.

the halls have been quite interesting as well. the first one in tenerife was very cool on the outside and the one in las palmas was incredible on the inside. the back wall of the stage was actually a huge window overlooking the ocean.

in tenerife

in las palmas

the most beautiful and ornate hall has definitely been the one in barcelona. i've never seen anything like it. even the lobby is incredible.

one thing i really wanted to do during my free time in the canary islands was go to the beach. everyone said it would be too cold but the water was just too inviting. the wind was also quite strong which made for great waves.

couldn't believe i was doing this in the middle of winter!

madrid was also very nice. several of us took the metro into the old part of town to take in the many sights.

outside the royal palace in madrid

statue of don quixote and sancho panza (truly appreciated by this group of violists and cellist)

barcelona has been my favorite stop so far. unfortunately, we only had a few hours to spend there before our concert so we didn't get to see very much. i wish my wife pauline could be here to enjoy these amazing places. i hope to come back and spend more time exploring this fantastic city w/ her.

i think everyone is looking forward to our free day tomorrow in valencia. after that, we head for the final stretch in luxembourg, budapest and vienna. will update you tomorrow (hopefully)......

from Jeff Kirschen

2009-02-07T16:03:00.003-05:00

We have arrived in Valencia. This is our last stop in Spain. (and just when I started to get some of the language, too) Sunday, we have a concert here. Then a well deserved day free on Monday!

Our fast and smooth train left from Madrid precisely at 11:20 AM and lasted 3.25 hours. I was able to enjoy watching a DVD and a nice lunch while we traveled through Spanish plains dusted with snow, rolling hills with working wind turbines, and old vineyards. I saw a few castles high up on the rugged low peaks that overlooked the small villages that were scattered along. Eventually, we came upon the orchards where those little boxes of clementines we see in the grocery stores come from.

We've had a tough run of travel/concert days. I loved Madrid but it was cold. Had to use my gloves alot. I really enjoyed The Prado museum and getting around using the Metro. I think it is one of the best systems in the world. Well marked and only 1 Euro. The concerts were well attended. Even the Friday night concert that started at 10:35 PM. Violin soloist Kavakos was as superb as usual.

Photos: Arriving in Barcelona, concert hall in Lisbon, train from Madrid to Valencia, and Madrid.

Philadelphia Orchestra in Espania...

2009-02-06T13:14:00.008-05:00

I am very happy to finally have the opportunity to write this blog entry. As one can imagine, it is great for us to travel all around Europe and make music (especially with our amazing violin soloist, Leonidas Kavakos) and eat great food. So far my most memorable moments in this tour were in Tenerife, Canary Island where I was able to Wind Surf in El Medano, which was a really great experience. The wind was blowing over 24 knots and it took me almost a week to get over my sore muscles. Violinist Noah Geller joined me to El Medano to learn how to Windsurf but strong winds prevented his lesson unfortunately. I also had great hike on our next stop in Las Palmas thanks to Albert Filosa. We were lucky to be guided by Ivan who who is a clarinetist and librarian in the Las Palmas Orchestra. He took us to Racque Nueblo and many other great peaks of Las Palmas. Then in Barcelona, I had a few free hours in the early morning to see many wonderful cathedrals and explore the old city. Barcelona has such a great atmosphere, especially early in the morning . Then we arrived in Lisbon and it was a great city to walk around and eat fantastic food. So much history and great sightseeing. And now we are back in Spain (Madrid). This city has a royal feeling of grandeur on every corner.

I am very much looking forward to our next leg of the tour in Luxembourg, Vienna and Budapest. All the best wishes from old world.

palau de la música catalana, barcelona

2009-02-04T09:09:00.003-05:00

The hall where we played in Barcelona last night was ridiculously ornate. After the Pintscher, I went out into the audience to listen to the Schubert and stare at the ceiling. Here are a couple shots I was able to get before the usher told me to stop taking pictures. You can't see them from this far away, but around the perimeter of the stage, there were heads of statues sticking out of the wall, each playing a different musical instrument. Enjoy!

barcelona quickie

2009-02-03T13:20:00.003-05:00

We have very little time here in Barcelona--less than 18 hours between check-in and check-out--so we tried to make the most of our afternoon here. Marc Rovetti (violin) and I decided to check out the Picasso Museum. Picasso divided his time between Barcelona and Paris in the early 20th century, so quite a few of his works have ended up here.

Getting out of the cab, you start to think your cabbie took you for a ride and dropped you off in a random place, but tucked away in this tiny alley is the Museu Picasso.

From the Museu Picasso website:

"The Picasso Museum occupies five large town houses or palaces on the street carrer de Montcada. The original palaces date from the 13th-15th centuries, undergoing major refurbishments over time, the most important in the 18th century. The palaces are a good example of Catalan civic gothic style. They have a common structure surrounding a courtyard with access to the main floor via an outdoor open stairway."

The buildings housing the museum were fascinating on their own.

We weren't allowed to take pictures in the gallery, but I did get some postcards in the gift shop of some of my favorites we saw upstairs.

We had a few minutes to walk around after the museum. It's a shame we're not here longer, because this city is amazing! We couldn't resist a little churro shop we passed by. Here's an action shot of the churro man frying the delectable dough fresh just for us:

So tasty!!!!

I'd better finish up here, since we have a concert in less than an hour! We play another Beethoven/Pintscher/Schubert concert tonight, then it's off to Lisbon for another one-nighter tomorrow. Whew!

Tenerife to Las Palmas, Jan. 31

2009-01-31T14:12:00.004-05:00

Last night was an interesting concert. Leonid Kovakos performed a stunning Bartok Violin Concerto #2. (What a great talent he is). Then, after intermission, we headed into the Bruckner Symphony #6. Suddenly, a musician took ill during the second movement. He is fine now but we were all breathless after he fell to the stage floor. After about 20 minutes of care from tour doctor Glenn Newell, we got the word that he was OK and we continued the symphony from where we stopped. Unfortunately, his bass was broken.

Today, we left the hotel and boarded a fast ferry to Las Palmas on the Island of Gran Canaria. The one hour cruise was delightful with sea air and lots of sunshine. Our new hotel, Hotel Santa Catalina is lovely with lots of palm trees and marble. The only problem of the day is that our luggage missed the 10:45 AM ferry and will be arriving around 7:30 PM. So, we will have to go without some of our things until after the concert.

Our First Little Hitch

2009-01-29T19:42:00.001-05:00

Nearly three days after departing from Philadelphia, the orchestra has performed its first concert here in Santa Cruz, Tenerife. While the orchestra’s travel here went very smoothly, one key member of our tour was not so lucky. After months of meticulous planning, no one can anticipate every possible contingency of touring.

Upon the orchestra’s arrival in Tenerife on Tuesday afternoon, we learned that our soloist, violinist Leonidas Kavakos, was going to be delayed and would not arrive in time for his rehearsal here on Thursday morning. His flight was cancelled as a result of a 24-hour airport strike in his home country of Greece. The air traffic controllers were walking out in solidarity for farm workers. Anyone see that one coming?

So, after months of careful planning, we had to act quickly to restructure the tight rehearsal schedule on tour. This required numerous phone calls to Maestro Eschenbach (who was still in the States at the time), to Leonidas Kavakos (who was stuck in Greece) and to managers and presenters between London, New York and the Canaries. And after conferring closely with the musicians, we came up with a solution to have the programs fully rehearsed and prepared.

Kavakos has now safely arrived in Tenerife and will perform his first scheduled concert Friday evening. We all feel better knowing he’s finally here. Of course, in the back of my mind was the lingering worry about the possibility of that airport strike lasting more than 24 hours and having to find a last-minute replacement for his concert on Friday. Luckily that wasn’t the case.

Now the orchestra has given its first performance to an extremely attentive and appreciative audience here in Tenerife. The orchestra is in fabulous form. Hopefully we’ve cleared our biggest bump in the road.

more photos

2009-01-29T13:50:00.007-05:00

from Jeff Kirschen

2009-01-29T12:00:00.001-05:00

This is my 20th tour with the POA. I am excited that we will be in 3 places that I have never been before: Canary Islands, Luxembourg, and Hungary.

Here are a some photos I have taken so far. I hope you like them.

One thing that is fascinating to me is that the hotel lobby is almost always busy with the musicians using their PCs for video chatting. We are not so "out of touch" this way. Especially those with small children can "visit" with the missing parent even when thousands of miles apart. It's about 70 F and sunny. (Sorry, Philadelphia with your "Wintry Mix.") We all know that we will be back to Winter soon in Luxembourg, Hungary, and Austria.

El Teide

2009-01-29T08:50:00.006-05:00

The island of Tenerife was built by the accretion of three large sheild volcanoes. The result is the third-largest volcanic ocean island on Earth by volume, with its dormant El Teide the third highest volcano on a volcanic ocean island, at 3,718m/12,198ft above sea level.

Thanks to Wikipedia for the trivia.

Yesterday, I joined Rob Kesselman (bass), Don Liuzzi (principal timpani), and Paul Roby (assoc. principal 2nd violin) on a hike up Mt. Teide. We disregarded our jetlag and left the hotel at 6am, arriving to the trailhead just before 8.

The fearsome four hitting the trail just after sunrise

Don and Paul starting out

Rob, way above the clouds

Paul (self-nicknamed 'Towel Head') checking out the rest of the island, including the Las Cañadas caldera and part of the trail we've covered

Once we got high up, we could pretty much see the rest of the island. See the towns way down there? We also encountered some snow.

The peak... to which we didn't get to climb. :(

The peak was unfortunately closed for the season. And when the Teide National Park rangers say closed, they mean closed. A German couple ahead of us went for it and got whistled at quite harshly. Knowing we could have made the summit if we had wanted to, we considered it done. Then we took the cable car back down.

Super-Happy Fun Team on the cable car

The problem was, the cable car didn't let us off where we parked the car, so we had about a 3km walk on the road. As if the 1,150m/3,773ft vertical climb hadn't been enough.

But we did eventually make it back to the car, and a friendly fellow hiker took our picture.

I was pretty impressed with myself to get such a great photo from an open window of a moving vehicle--here's Teide from the drive home. What a great day!

canary islands - santa cruz 2

2009-01-28T19:48:00.000-05:00

our hotel in santa cruz

today was a free day and many people took full advantage of it. several colleagues rented cars to explore the island. some went to a volcano named pico del teide and brought back some great pictures (here is a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pico_del_Teide). a few went windsurfing and many others just stayed in to practice and take it easy. i was part of the last group mentioned that didn't do very much.

che-hung chen (violist) and i walked around town a bit and then proceeded to look for the beach.

beautiful park across the street from our hotel

i actually studied spanish in high school but let me tell you, not much has stayed w/ me. i was pretty much repeating the same question, "donde esta la playa?" to several people we walked by. a lady at the front desk of the hotel said it was only 5 or 10 minutes by bus and pointed it out on the map. we had to walk a bit to catch the particular bus and since the weather was nice, we decided to just go by foot. as we walked along the ocean, all we could see were oil refineries. we kept thinking we would see something around the next bend but after 1 hour of walking, figured we should turn back.

after all this walking, we had worked up quite an appetite so we went to a place next to the grocery store that had this picture inside.

how could i resist?

unfortunately, it was closed as many other restaurants are during the mid-afternoon siesta period. so we found another place where i totally butchered the spanish language again while trying to order a sandwich. as we walked back to the hotel, we passed by the 1st place again and it was now open. so che-hung kindly volunteered to eat the sandwich i just bought so i could order this heart-attack in a bun.

it actually wasn't as good as it looks in the picture

for dinner, several of us went to a recommended tapas place for some incredible food (we ended up going to 2 that were side by side). no matter how badly i sound when i order from the menu, everyone has been so patient and nice. they even advise us on what to order and so far, haven't been wrong.

tomorrow is our first rehearsal in the morning so i better go to sleep. buenas noches!

canary islands - santa cruz 1

2009-01-27T18:07:00.000-05:00

hello everyone. we finally arrived in the canary islands this afternoon after a long day of travel. we actually left the night before and first stopped in madrid, where we had a long layover. fortunately, our staff reserved an entire business lounge w/ refreshments at the airport for us to wait and rest in. thank you all for that!

the weather in santa cruz was beautiful. i wouldn't say it was warm but it's certainly a welcome change to all the cold weather we've been having back home. on the bus ride from the airport to the hotel, the views of the ocean were breathtaking. hope we can play a concert here during the summer.....

dinner was provided for all of us at the hotel and it was incredible. there was so much food but the highlight had to be the huge pans of paella, one of Spain's national dishes. i think we all ate to our heart's content. it was a wonderful first meal to kick off this tour.

afterwards, some people just went to bed while many of us congregated in the lobby where we could get wireless internet to email back home. quite a few of us (myself included) could also be seen talking to our computer screens as we spoke w/ loved ones via skype. i have to say i am constantly amazed by technology.

tomorrow is a free day and i should probably practice, but would also like to walk along the beach. i hope to do both.