This week has been a pretty busy week for us here at the Dallas Symphony. Let me rephrase that... It has been a pretty busy past 2 weeks getting Mahler 6 and Der Rosenkavalier ready for the European tour! I leave this Wednesday March 7 and I am going to be gone until April 1! Wow, what a trip! Too bad we can't bring some of that Texas weather over to Europe with us.
I got home last night from a recording patch session of Mahler 6 at close to 1 in the morning. It's kind of disheartening when your coworkers say see you later today after doing a full concert and a recording session of Mahler 6, which is about a 90 minute piece. David Heyde, the associate Principal horn, even had a bottle of community Advil on the horn table for the brass players lips!
On Tuesday we had our first rehearsal for Mahler 6 in the morning and afternoon, about 5 hours total. Then we learned that full orchestra would have overtime on Wednesday after a double rehearsal again on Mahler 6 with a meeting about the European tour over lunch. Thursday morning we had a full rehearsal with an overtime session for the Vivaldi recorder concerto musicians, thank God there weren't any horn parts on this as our lips already felt pretty beat up! Then we had our first concert Thursday night!
Thursday night was a pretty good concert for everyone considering the amount of playing that we had done in the 2 weeks leading up to it. We brought in special guest Principal horn Gail Williams formerly of the Chicago Symphony to play the First part on Mahler 6 and she NAILED IT!!! I feel like I am getting a masterclass every time I show up to work this week. Her soft playing is effortless and could match any woodwind player in the country and her loud playing has me trying to keep up, and she's 67!!! Unbelievable! The Third(slow) movement features a beautiful First horn solo and Gail has been rocking it all week! It's a real nice change of pace from the loud and taxing first and second movements that come before. I don't play for the first 5 minutes, I timed it, so It's really nice to sit back and just close my eyes and listen to that beautiful burnished, coppery sound that Gail gets when she is blending with the woodwinds and as she emerges from the texture!
Well, Friday was my 29th Birthday and It had a little bit of an unusual start as I had to play excerpts for the brass committee and Jaap before noon. I don't know how I was able to muster up the lip to play but I seemed to manage all right! I guess that Advil really helped! Thanks to David for sharing!!! In the afternoon I really wanted a change of pace but my body just couldn't keep up, I had a little nap and then I was ready to be out in the beautiful Spring weather. I went out to get some coffee and some guys were playing hacky sack, so I joined in, I haven't played hacky sack for at least 10 years lol! Then I went to the batting cages and tried not to embarrass myself in front of Katie, my girlfriend. I felt like I was doing pretty well until this 10 year old was hitting every pitch at the 85-90 MPH batting cages and I noticed I was in the 45 MPH cages! So I decided to try my hand at the driving range. My first hit with the 7 Iron was BEAUTIFUL! Nice ark, really straight, great thwak sound to it. I should have stopped right then and there because that was probably the nicest shot I would get all day! I don't know why I always seem to think I need the LARGE size bucket of balls, but I NEVER do. I always try to make myself hit them all and by the end, I am like barely able to lift my arms over my head! When will I learn... Oh and did I say I had to play another Mahler 6 concert that evening?
Friday evening's Mahler 6 was probably the the best performance of the Mahler yet for me. I gave my ALL! I mean left it all on the stage. I didn't have worry about saving chops for excerpts or practice and I was all in! I went for it and got almost all of it! The only part that really hurt was on page 21 when we have the bells up 16th notes and then like 10 bars of whole notes that keep getting higher and higher until the high B with no place to breathe in it. I tell you I am going to NAIL that today if it's the only thing that I get right! I felt bad for the violinists stuck sitting behind me. I wouldn't be surprised if they buy airport runway earmuffs for the next concert!
Well, after the concert I got to take all of my friends out for my Birthday and Katie made Beautiful GREEN cupcakes, which is a birthday tradition for me since as long as I can remember. They looked like little lily pads with green Haribo frogs about to jump off the top! We took them to Morton's Steak house off of McKinney and had drinks and appetizers and green cupcakes. I am really lucky to have such nice friends and a great girlfriend to celebrate my birthday with. It was a LONG day, but I don't think I would rather spend it any other way! Great friends, great music, great food! Green cupcakes!
I was going to tell you about our recording session but the main thing is that we ran the Marathon during the concert then still had to run about another half marathon afterwards until 1 am. If we aren't ready for Europe after that I don't know if we ever will be! I'm looking foward to playing these two great programs with a world class orchestra and Phenomenal Conductor in the best concert halls in the world!
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