"Far away places with strange sounding names…"
Posted By kerryturner on June 3, 2007
This past week I seemed to have been “on the air” quite a bit. The Luxembourg Philharmonic concert on Tuesday evening was broadcast live throughout Europe. On the program was the Grieg Piano Concerto and Rachmaninov‘s Second Symphony. During the intermission, I received a text message from Kristina informing me that our CD which we just recently released (Virtuoso Horn Duo, see blog) was being played on Boston Public Radio.
On Wednesday, May 30th, Kristina and I made our way- via Cologne-Bonn Airport to Warsaw and then by train- to Bialystok, which is in Poland, about 40 kilometers from the Belarus border. We were scheduled to perform as soloists with the orchestra there, and upon our arrival, one of the first things we discovered was that not only was the Virtuoso Horn CD being broadcast around Poland, but the AHQ recording of the Schumann Konzertstück with the Sinfonia Varsovia had been on the night before. The next morning right after breakfast, Kristina, Dariusz Wisniewski (the conductor) and I did an interview for the Polish National Radio. And apparently a recording of our concert the following evening is available on the orchestras website.
The Bialystok Symphony Orchestra- or the Orkiestra Filharmonii Podlaskiej, as it is called in Poland- played quite beautifully. We weren‘t the only guests on the program. Two famous Polish television stars participated as well: Malgorzata Lewinska and Michal Milowicz narrated the Britten “Young Persons Guide to the Orchestra” and Paul Pattersons “Little Red Riding Hood”. Following the concert, the horn section of the orchestra invited Kristina and me to partake of some special Polish beer and vodka, thus honoring an age old tradition of horn players traveling around the world. It will one day be the death of me!We enjoyed good beer and good company after our concert, courtesy of the Bialystok horn section.
Nevertheless, Kristina and I will not be held at home. We love to travel and perform around the world. And if I can play my own music, all the better! This was certainly one of the more remote places I have ever played. During our train trip to Bialystok, Kristina kept singing a haunting song from her childhood: “Far away places with strange sounding names, far away over the sea; calling, calling me.”On the train to Bialystok, Poland, puzzling out the names of the towns.
You can look at other photos from this trip on this site under “Photo Gallery”, Virtuoso Horn Duo, Page 2.
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