G.P.

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.

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!