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Sunday 25 April 2010

The MIAGI youth orchestra camp has started.

I have now spent four lovely days in South Africa. The weather has been colder than I expected, though! But otherwise, everything has been great. The surroundings are beautiful, the people friendly and hospitable. And yesterday I came to the Heron Bridge retreat together with a bunch of instructors and 115 orchestra kids, to start working on our coming concert on the 1st of May.

The main pieces in our program will be Stravinsky's Firebird Suite and Steve Dyer's new composition Rebirth which amplifies the symphony orchestra with a saxophone section and a mass of African percussion. It will be a very interesting project, not the least because I see some similarity in the pieces - Stravinsky used Russian folk melodies in his piece, while Steve Dyer is looking for a genuinely African groove in his!

We have had two days of sectionals now, and tomorrow we will have the first tutti reading of the repertoire. The players come from various backgrounds and their experience and skills vary quite a lot, but I hope by the end of the week they will perform as one voice!

Wednesday 21 April 2010

There's something in the air...

It is quite unbelievable, but I am writing this at the Istanbul Atatürk airport, waiting for my connecting flight to Johannesburg for some concerts there. The volcano eruption in Iceland has managed to mess up a lot of things, and one of them is orchestra concerts. Suddenly guest soloists and conductors are stranded on the other side of the world and cannot come to Europe, or vice versa!

I myself was asked already twice to substitute for concerts back in Finland because someone else had been delayed, but I had my own worries. The Finnish airspace has been mostly closed entirely, and my original flight to Johannesburg via Frankfurt (which was scheduled for tomorrow actually) seemed very unlikely to succeed.

So, today I wrote to my contacts in SA that the Finnish airspace will be opened for five hours, and there are only a couple of departing flights to random destinations. I immediately received a phone call asking whether I think I could catch the flight to Istanbul departing in less than two hours, since the Turkish Airlines flies directly to Johannesburg from there.

It was some of the fastest decisions in my life. I caught my dad on the phone and he was free to give me a ride to the airport, and then I went home with my scores and just stuffed my suitcase with random clothes, and off we went to the airport! It was really a surreal feeling to come to almost empty airport and be one of the few people getting out of the country. And when I landed in Turkey, it was business as usual with huge lines to passport control and transfer desks (and the usual business of extremely rude people passing ahead of the line to save twenty minutes of their life!).

Now I just have to fly overnight to Johannesburg and then it will be work, work and work for two big concert programs... It still feels unreal that I beat the volcano which is holding back so many of my colleagues. But the trip isn't over yet. I will write more when I actually get in Africa.

Thursday 1 April 2010

The Big News

Conductor's stand
Orchestra conductor's workstation (photo by Mirette)

I have not been writing for a while and I apologize for that! Now it is time to catch up with all my projects, so I promise more writings in the coming days and weeks. But first The Big News:

Music Director Franz Welser-Möst has appointed me as the next Assistant Conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra!

I have known this since the end of January, but since the orchestra did not want me to publish it before they are ready, I had to wait all this time! But now you can read the official press release on their site. I am so happy and honored to join one of the greatest orchestras in the world!

After my trip to Cleveland I did projects in Manchester, Zurich and Joensuu, and I will write about those very soon. In the meantime join my fan site on Facebook!

Monday 1 February 2010

How to find me on the Internet

If you want to stay on top what I am currently doing, there are couple of other things besides this blog that you can follow.

My personal website at www.sashamakila.com is where you will find the most current information of my coming concerts. If you want to book me for a concert better check the calendar page first!

You can now become my fan on Facebook! Fans get updates of my coming concerts and I try to post some video clips of my work there as well.

Follow me on Twitter to get real-time tweets from me. I cannot tweet while I'm conducting though!

I have a YouTube account as well. I think I should change the name though...

You can also find me on MySpace, LinkedIn, Xing, Hi5 and about every other social networking website, although I warn you that I check those pages maybe once a month, maximum. The four websites I listed first are my main information outlets besides this blog.

See you out there, somewhere!

Friday 1 January 2010

New Year, New Challenges

First I would like to wish Happy New Year 2010 to all my readers! Some of you have sent me email which is very nice - I will always try to find time to answer them. I would also like to see more comments on my blog postings, so I will make it my personal challenge this year to try to write in a way which would encourage more interaction between me and you!

My year 2009 was in many fronts more rewarding than I could have imagined. Here I will just list some of the musical highlights of the year: assisting Kurt Masur in both great Mendelssohn oratorios in Paris, premiering a new modern opera in Finland, making my debuts in UK and South Africa and taking part in the Aspen Music Festival in the US. That's a plenty!

Next spring I will make my debuts with the MIAGI youth orchestra and the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra in South Africa, and orchestras of Joensuu and Turku in Finland, as well as continue my cooperation with some old friends. Looking at the repertoire list for those concerts already sends shivers down my spine - Eroica, Pastoral Symphony, Firebird, Fountains of Rome... Great stuff, absolutely! During our conducting studies we all the time study those great pieces, but it might take a while for a young conductor to actually get to perform them with a professional group!

Next Sunday I will make a small concert with a non-professional string ensemble in my birth town Kerava in Finland - yet another kind of debut for me this year. If you are passing by drop in to listen - entry is free!

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