Royal Festival Hall at Southbacnk Center, London 05.12.2010 . Philharmonia Orchestra Conductor: Christoph von Dohnányi Piano: Angela Hewitt . Mozart - Concerto #41 Schubert - Unfinished Symphony Beethoven - Symphony #5 . It has been a while since I haven't attended a good symphonic concert. So I bought a ticket for this one. 8 pounds, a seat behind the orchestra. I love it there because I can follow both the conductor and the players. The conductor's face can say millions of things, things that you can't possibly see from behind him. I closely followed his eyes, his gestures.. it's great. Like this, the concert is much more intense. I have the same experience in Los Angeles when I attended a concert conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. He's too a fury of nature.
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Several things happened right at the beginning of the concert. But somebody told the story before me, so I took the liberty of inserting here the quotation. That person is the pianist, Angela Hewitt. And this story is posted on her official site. Some photos follow. Not too many. Just wanted to show you how Royal Festival Hall looks like. I enjoyed the concert very, very much.
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With the Philharmonia at the Royal Festival Hall (2010-12-06)
Getting back to London from Italy was a nightmare. I was awake on Friday for 22 hours. My flight to Gatwick was indeed cancelled, although I didn't find out until I got to Verona airport after 3 hours in a car driving down from the mountains. So I hopped on trains for several more hours and ended up in Sacile where the Fazioli factory makes its home. Mr. Fazioli himself picked me up at the station, and I practised for 2 hours as I was desperate to get some work done. Then I went on to Treviso for the flight back to London Stansted. It was also delayed until well after midnight, so I didn't arrive back home in London until 3 am (which was 4 am on the continent). Exhausted. After five hours sleep, I was at the Festival Hall to rehearse my fourth Mozart Concerto of the week with the Philharmonia and Maestro Dohnanyi. And then you won't believe what happened tonight. After the dress rehearsal this morning (an open one which many of the UK Friends of my festival attended as a special privilege, followed by a lunch reception), I was back at the hall in the evening for the 7:30 concert. At 7:29 there was a knock at my dressing room door. I wasn't yet dressed because I had all of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony to wait through, and I thought that gave me ample time to get ready. It was a member of the Philharmonia staff telling me their clarinettist had left half of his clarinet at home (just half??) and that he had to go back for it, by which time I had already guessed what she would say next. They wanted me to begin the concert with the Mozart. So what could I do but say fine, and jump out of my clothes and into my gown. The one thing i regret is that I had no time to eat my banana which I needed and which made me feel hungry half way through the first movement. But that wasn't all. When I walked on stage with the Maestro, bowed, and sat down, he turned around to find no score on his music stand! So we all waited several more minutes while somebody went to fetch it. And all this in front of a packed out Royal Festival Hall. You never know in life what's ahead of you. In any case, I enjoyed the performance and it was a pleasure to work with the orchestra (the last time was something like 23 years ago when I played a Beethoven "Emperor" with them in a tent at Leeds Castle). I very much hope it's not another 23 years until the next time. .
... Le Nozze di Figaro - Mozart ... Almaviva - Florin Simionca Countess - Simonida Luţescu (replaced after the interval by Tina Munteanu) Suzanna - Crina Zancu Figaro - Ionuţ Pascu Cherubino - Maria Jinga Marcellina - Mihaela Işpan Don Basilio - Lucian Corchiş Don Bartolo - Marius Boloş Antonio - Vasile Chişiu Barbarina - VALENTINA TUDOSE ... Orchestra and chorus of the Bucharest National Opera Conductor - Ciprian Teodoraşcu ...
Belcea Quartet returned to Bucharest for a concert at the Athenaeum. ... Corina Belcea-Fisher – violin Laura Samuel – violin Krzysztof Chorzelski – viola Antoine Lederlin – cello Kevin Kenner - piano - special guest ... Program Anton Webern – Langsamer Satz Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Quartet in C Major, k 465 César Franck – Quintet with piano in F minor ...
......The Belcea Quartet has gained an enviable reputation as one of the leading quartets of the new generation. They continue to take the British and international chamber music circuit by storm, consistently receiving critical acclaim for their performances.
......The Quartet was established at the Royal College of Music in 1994 and has since been coached by the Chilingirian, Amadeus and Alban Berg Quartets. They are the Associate Ensemble at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London and are Quartet in Residence at the Atheneum Concert Hall in Bucharest.
......The Belcea Quartet has an exclusive recording contract with EMI Classics and won the Gramophone Award for best debut recording in 2001. Subsequent recordings for EMI include Schubert quartets, Brahms’ String Quartet Op. 51 No. 1 and second String Quintet with Thomas Kakuska, Fauré’s La Bonne Chanson with Ian Bostridge, Schubert’s Trout Quintet with Thomas Adès and Corin Long, a double disc of Britten’s string quartets, Mozart’s “Dissonance” and “Hoffmeister” quartets, and, most recently, the complete Bartók quartets, for which the Quartet was awarded the title Chamber Music Ensemble of the Year by Germany's prestigious Echo Klassik Awards and nominated for a 2008 Gramophone Award.
......The Belcea Quartet’s international engagements regularly take them to the Vienna Konzerthaus and Musikverein, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Brussels’ Palais des Beaux Arts, Lisbon’s Gulbenkian, Zurich’s Tonhalle, Stockholm’s Konzerthuset, Paris’ Chatelet and Opera Bastille, Milan’s Sala Verdi, New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center and San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, and to festivals including Luberon, Istanbul, Trondheim, Lausanne, Salzburg, Mecklenburg, and the Schwarzenberg Schubertiade.
......In the UK they regularly appear at the Edinburgh, Aldeburgh, Perth, Bath and Cheltenham festivals, and at the Wigmore Hall where they were resident Quartet from 2001 to 2006. (belceaquartet.com)
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......Kevin Kenner - "He is a mystic. … He comes to us with a message which he reads as a verse from the Bible … Kenner achieves the highest level of transcendence" ......So the words of one amongst a veritable army of critics whose praise pitches Kenner as one of the giants of the pianistic world. Kevin Kenner was the winner in 1990 of the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw and of the Bronze Medal at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. He records regularly for the BBC in England, where he now lives.
......At the age of 17, American pianist Kevin Kenner participated in the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw and was awarded the 10th prize and a special prize from the jury for his promising talent. Ten years later, in 1990 he returned to Warsaw to win the top prize, the People's Prize and the Polonaise Prize. Earlier that year he won the bronze medal at the International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow, together with a special prize for his interpretation of Russian music. Other awards include the International Terence Judd Award (London, 1990), the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition (Fort Worth, 1989) and the Gina Bachauer International Competition (Salt Lake City, 1988). ......Kevin Kenner has since performed as soloist with world-class orchestras including the Hallé Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic, the Belgian Radio and Television Philharmonic Brussels, the NHK Symphony of Japan, and in the US with the principal orchestras of San Francisco, San Diego, Salt Lake City, Kansas City, New Jersey, Rochester, Baltimore, St. Paul and many others. He has been invited to work with many renowned conductors, including the late Sir Charles Groves, Andrew Davis, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Jiri Belohlavek and Kazimierz Kord to name but a few. ...
