G.P.

"This is one of the happiest days in my life..."

Two weeks ago I made a trip to Zürich to hear the famed Tonhalle orchestra. This summer I will study in Aspen with David Zinman, Tonhalle's music director, and I was really curious to see and hear what kind of an orchestra is it. An email to the orchestra office secured me a chance to see all the rehearsals and boy, what kind of rehearsals they were! The orchestra sounded great since the first rehearsal and Kurt Masur could make them sound even better.

Maestro Masur and the principal viola Gilad Karni (ex NY Phil!)

The program was Mendelssohn's Italian symphony (No. 4) and Bruckner's fourth symphony. This is the kind of repertoire nobody can do as well as Masur. I simply love his style of rehearsing because he is never formal or technical. For me seeing him rehearse was the best master class on these works.

Some things he said I will never forget - like "don't be a violinist - be a lover!". He expects everyone to be a great musician and put life in those notes. And which orchestra would not want to hear what Masur said after the dress rehearsal: "This is one of the happiest days of my life!" It goes without saying that the concerts were great. Never before I have heard such a wonderful palette of sounds from the string section.

The beautiful stage and organ of the Tonhalle

I also had some time to see Zürich and I visited the opera house too. They had Ariadne auf Naxos in the playbill, which is one of my favorite operas. BTW Daniele Gatti will be the next chief of the Zürich opera! Switzerland seems like a nice place to live - clean, orderly, public transport runs on time, mountains. lakes... I could enjoy it for a few days thanks to Timo who generously accommodated me in his Regensdorf studio!

I just set up a Twitter account which I intend to use while I am in Aspen this summer. I have heard the program at the American Academy of Conducting is so intense, that regular blogging might not be a valid option. So maybe "microblogging" would do the trick! Don't expect too many tweets before June 17th though. All that said, my Twitter account is sashamakila (or @sashamakila, however you like it better).