Philadelphia Orchestra Tour

Now, from Hong Kong

2005-05-31T14:14:00.000+09:00

May 31, 2005, Hong Kong - Technology is so amazing to some, but so essential to many. I am one of the amazed ones who is sitting in the lobby of the Hong Kong Shangi-La Hotel and wirelessly connected to the Internet to get my emails or to chat online with my wife. It's quite a scene seeing many of my colleagues sitting here, laptops open, writing or answering emails from home or wherever.

The past week was busy with successful concerts and long distance travel from Tokyo to Kuala Lumpur, to Singapore, then to Hong Kong. The concert hall in Singapore, at the Espanade, was, I think, a Russell Johnson creation similar to Verizon Hall in the Kimmel Center. Our sound easily reverberated throughout the interesting interior.

While the bus brought us from the airport on Lantau Island to Kowloon, I was stunned by the amount of cargo boxes and ships in the harbour. It seems obvious that this port is seeing a tremendous increase in exports from China. Reading the newpaper stories about the "New" China is one thing, but to actually see the evidence brings it to reality.

I was also very impressed with the amount of construction here. The One Financial Center building, which I believe is now the tallest building in the world, literally towers above every other skyscraper in the area. It is almost as tall as Victoria Peak, the famous lookout site which is reachable via cable car.

Kuala Lumpur, Petronis Towers

Alex Veltman and Udi Bar-David, Cellists with Hong Kong in the backround

Jason DePue joined a duo in Hong Kong.

Fishy Radio

2005-05-26T15:17:00.000+09:00

Jim Cotter from WRTI FM in Philly is travelling with us. He and I went to the biggest wholesale fish market in Toyko the other morning - Tsukiji Market. Since the jet lag wakes one early in the morning, we got there at 6am. By this time, their day was half over! Jim brought along his microphone and has shared some of the trip on the air and on the web at www.WRTI.org.

Last Tokyo Performance

2005-05-26T00:26:00.000+09:00

In the last Tokyo performance of the Mahler 9th, the hall wasn't as full as other nights, but the quilt of people seated around the hall were pros. This was a one piece/one composer program verses the more typical triplex thematic approach. I could see, feel, and taste this audience. They were serious. They were intent. They were on a mission. The Philadelphia Orchestra was in Japan: a monster band playing a monster of a piece. The people with tickets who signed on to that evening's journey were sophisticated concert-goers poised to ingest Mahler's last death-fixated symphony. In the final movement, the music winds down and softens into the air. The harmonies and pacing ignited my own visions: being on the other side witnessing an out of body presence drifting farther and farther away towards the beyond, and beyond reach. I felt powerless and as a bystander in loss, my eyes went moist with sadness. I thought of my Aunt who died recently. Where is she..how is she.. I somehow know she's OK, but what else... I'm thinking of you Aunt Marcia. When the music faded completely, the silence became an extension of the piece. No one stirred. No one coughed. We were in the void. The silence lasted about 20 seconds as Eschenbach's arms slowly descended to the finish. The audience, sitting behind us, followed the baton with all on stage and at precisely the right moment began to applaud. We were back in Suntory Hall, Tokyo, Japan, Earth. The best I could do was to flap my bow up and down musician style and applaud the audience with much appreciation and thanks.

Bravi and arigato gozaimasu.

Mahler and The Information Superhighway

2005-05-25T19:38:00.000+09:00

L to R: Blair Bollinger - Bass Trombone, Bob Cafaro - Cello, and Chris Deviney - Percussion, in Tokyo with laptops and VoIP.

by Bob Cafaro, Cello

Ordinarily one would not think of Philadelphia Orchestra musicians as techies because we are artists in a unique genre where high tech has no place. We make up an acoustic instrument that has remained essentially unchanged for several hundred years because of its perfection of form. In this electronic age where music is amplified, synthesized or digitally enhanced, we have remained pure. Yet classical musicians are all too human as we love speed and cutting edge technology as much anyone else. In fact, one of my favorite pastimes is exceeding posted speed limits on my carbon fiber racing bike.

People today have a front row seat to watch the third revolution of mankind unfold. The first revolution was agricultural, which began in the Middle East around 7000 BC. Second was the industrial revolution which started in England around 1760 and the third and current revolution began in 1844 with electric telegraph.

Communicating with those back home has always been a challenge to the Orchestra musicians while on tour. In the beginning our letters were sent home via running messenger, and then horses graciously agreed to haul them in wagons. At the dawn of the communications revolution we moved to the telegraph which became the way to transmit printed messages for the next 100 years. 1876 saw Alexander Graham Bell patent the telephone and in the 1970’s the Internet was born. I own the bragging rights of being the first Philadelphia Orchestra member to email home from tour. It was our 1988 South American tour, and connecting a computer to a phone line (dial-up of course) was indeed high tech then! My laptop (yes they were that heavy back then) was a black and white Dell 386 notebook with 2 MB of memory and a 9600 KB modem. This was a DOS (disk operating system) computer, before the days of Windows! Now the hotels in Asia now offer High-Speed Internet Access for a premium but the charge is for one computer only. Extra charges apply for each additional computer connected. To illustrate how expensive Internet access is in Tokyo, our hotel charges $3.00 for a local phone call! While burning some midnight oil before leaving home, it dawned on me to bring a wireless router so others would be able to join the Geek party in my room at no additional charge and hopefully split the cost. A wireless router connects multiple computers to a single Internet connection via radio signal.

Having solved the challenge of the Internet connection, the next task was talking to my sweetheart back home from the commuter lane of the Information Superhighway. Talking to loved ones back home has been a major expense, so time spent on international calls was kept to a minimum. Those who surf the Net have no doubt seen ads for VoIP or Voice over Internet Protocol. This newly available technology is voice traffic over IP-based networks, or talking over the Internet. One week before leaving for Asia, I abandoned the traditional phone line and plugged the phone into the VoIP setup at home. For a very inexpensive monthly fee the plan not only provides unlimited calling in the U.S, but also to Canada, Western Europe, and every Asian country on our tour. I have also taken advantage of the 3-way calling to regularly speak to family and friends as well. The wheels are already turning for upping the speed for next year’s tour. One year from now the rage will no doubt be talking on the Internet directly from your computer to any computer or phone in the world. Perhaps video will then be a normal part of a phone conversation.

Now it is time to get out the cello and practice scales – an area that technology has left untouched. Before getting down to work, maybe I’ll sharpen the point of my cello’s carbon fiber endpin and get an A from the Musician Tools tuner and metronome on my smart phone. Beam me up Gustav!

Feeling Proud

2005-05-22T21:57:00.000+09:00

Yo Yo Ma was very gracious to pose with me after the first rehearsal in Tokyo, Thursday, May 19, 2005.

Sunday, May 22, 2005, Tokyo
I am so proud of us. Tonight's TV broadcast from Suntory Hall was put together under difficult conditions. But, as I expected, we rose to the occasion and did ourselves proud. I thought Lang Lang played beautifully in the Beethoven Piano Concerto #4. It was a pleasant change to play Beethoven after the previous programs of Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, and Mahler.

From the opening trumpet solo, played by the fabulous Dave Bilger, to the exciting ending, played by everyone, the Mahler Symphony #5 bought the audience to "Bravos" and at least 4 ovations! Acting Principal Horn, Jeff Lang (no relation to Lang Lang) was "The Man" and hornist extradinaire tonight, too.

There was a time when a Mahler symphony would be performed sparingly because it required extra players and was not easy to put together, especially for a tour. Not anymore. We are touring with not one or two but THREE Mahler symphonies and not just performing them, but recording all three and having one televised!

The Danger of Lying in Bed

2005-05-22T12:32:00.000+09:00

by Bob Cafaro, Cello

Mark Twain wrote a short story about the danger of lying in bed because the lives of most will conclude there. We go to great lengths to avoid many statistically safe activities and situations because of fear the Grim Reaper will be waiting. Twain humorously illustrates the absurdity of this philosophy because chances are greatest of dying in a bed somewhere. The musicians of The Philadelphia Orchestra on tour in Japan endure a similar threat, but not from death. Our challenge is setting the clock ahead 13 hours and trying to stay on a normal schedule of rehearsals and concerts. Those familiar with the science fiction movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers, will understand our situation. In this film the earth is invaded by an alien life form which takes over and clones humans, but only when they sleep. Survival is a matter of staying awake despite an extreme state of sleep deprivation.

Years ago during the early afternoon of my very first Philadelphia Orchestra concert in Tokyo, I was feeling so tired that I decided to lie on the bed for a few minutes. I was woken from deep slumber by the phone and it was the Orchestra Personnel Manager. The clock said 7:02, it was dark outside and I was totally disoriented (no pun intended). She said in a rather urgent voice “Bob, I’m at the hall.” (A moment of silence...) I replied “Was I supposed to meet you there?” She shot back “Bob, there is a 7:00 pm concert and you’re supposed to be here playing.” In a panic I jumped up and ran the short distance from the hotel to the hall, but it was too late. The Orchestra was already in the second movement of the Beethoven Second Symphony. How embarrassed I was!

This past Wednesday, May 18 was our opening concert and sure enough, two Orchestra members had fallen asleep and missed the first half of the concert. I have had many nightmares about not being able to get to a concert, having no music, and not being able to find my cello or concert clothes. But oversleeping for an Orchestra concert is a nightmare which became reality for me, and it is an experience which will never be forgotten. That Wednesday at 3:00 in the afternoon I was once again understandably tired and felt the need to close my eyes for just a minute. But this time having wisdom from experience, I chose the hotel room floor over the bed to avoid getting too comfortable. At 6:20 I was rudely woken by an excruciating pain in my right shoulder. During sleep I had apparently rolled onto my right side but cannot sleep on that side because of a broken collarbone 7 years ago. The floor compounded the pain which luckily woke me 40 minutes prior to the start of the opening concert.

I must confess to finding humor in the fact that 2 of my colleagues suffered the same embarrassing fate of oversleeping for an opening concert, but it happens on every Asian tour. It is said that a smart person learns from their mistakes, but a brilliant person learns from the mistakes of others. Perhaps a more appropriate title of this story should have been The Safety of Lying on the Floor!

Jet Lag and Discovering Fuku

2005-05-22T01:21:00.000+09:00

I have been challenged by the jet-lag all week. I don't remember waking up at 3AM every morning on previous trips and being so sleep deprived for this long. I haven't ventured outside of performances because of this. I forced myself to go out 2 days ago, taking the subway to another part of town where there was a ceramic show on the 12th floor of the Daimaru Department Store. In the run-out to Kyoto, I managed to walk over to this edgy ceramic store that the bus passed on the way to the hall. The proprietor knew people I knew in the Japanese ceramic circles and we managed to communicate by identifying those people in photos from a magazine that she had on file.

Back in Tokyo, our hotel is conveniently next to Suntory Hall and in a very comfortable, modern, and peaceful neighborhood. After Thursday night's concert, I wandered near the hotel in search of a late dinner. Booker was with me. We passed a few traditional restaurants and wandered into a building, curious about one place that appeared opened from the street. However, another place caught our attention which wasn't visible from the street. I could hear jazz playing down below but was reluctant to go in because they didn't have an english menu outside. When I peaked in to get a glimpse of what it was like, a woman behind the counter saw me and waved us in. We braved down the steps and entered a tiny smokey space (many restaurants in Japan are smokey...uk..). We perched at the counter near the entrance. The place was small with a few tables in a very cool modern decor. We weren't successful communicating and she found someone to translate. He turned out to be married to the other owner and stayed with us for much of the evening. He wore a goatee and I told him he looked like a beatnik. "Oh, an American beatnik," he parroted in a jazzy style. We bypassed the menu and asked the woman to give us some vegetable dishes. She served tofu, roots, asparagus, salad, and an interesting flavored sake. The tofu was very soft, musky, cheesy, and coated delicately with some kind of seasoning served beautifully in a small bowl. I never tasted tofu that good. It was dreamy and my first eating highlight of the tour.

Yuki, the Japanese beatnik, was a music producer. He introduced us later to a recording engineer ( who provided the Vienna State Opera with devices that convert archival vinyl recordings to digital), a radio announcer and theatre producer, and after mentioning our involvement in the documentary Music From the Inside Out, he gestured to a filmmaker sitting in the corner. We were in an artist hub. I was in heaven. I had my laptop and shared images of my paintings with Yuki. He mentioned a curator he knows. Who doesn't he know! I felt like I was in today's equivalent of Paris in the early 20th Century, or NYC in the 40's-50's. Booker shared stories of his father who worked for RCA and who built a TV from scratch in the early 1940"s. Jonathan, the archival specialist, was familiar with RCA's roots in Camden and the early recordings of the Philadelphia Orchestra. There were so many connections in this little place, the food was great, and I'm going back tonight.

Shots from our runout to Kyoto

2005-05-21T23:24:00.000+09:00

Loren Lind gets some relief from Jim Sweeney while Peter Smith waits in line.

Julie Kim keeps the troops on schedule.

Lang Lang looking good!

Dreaming while on a walk

2005-05-20T11:34:00.000+09:00

I have an older BMW bike and someday would love to have one of these beauties.

Morning after 1st concert

2005-05-20T11:29:00.000+09:00

L to R: Michael Ludwig, Rossen Milanov, Martha DeFrancisco, and John Koen

settling into Toyko

2005-05-18T23:43:00.000+09:00

My first day has been spent relaxing and adjusting to the new time zone. I look outside and see daylight but my body feels like it's night time and ready to sleep. So I decided to rest and wait for another day to start sight seeing in earnest. My memories of this place from past visits are slowly starting to return. In between naps and reading, I went for a couple of walks and meals. I went to stores and resturants that I remembered from when I was last here in 1996. As one of the Orchestra's three librarians, I rotate going on tours and missed the last Asian trip. We only travel with one librarian on tour and my colleagues are busy at home working on preparing the many works of music for our summer season.

I'm staying separately from the Orchestra Hotel in a little Japanese style inn called a Ryokan. I've been here before and like the traditional old fashioned neighborhood of Ueno. It's full of small little streets and private houses. This provides a real experience and flavor of Japan. It's wonderful if you like sleeping on a futon on a tatami floor and enjoy using a Japanese style bath.

good night, Bob Grossman

Arrived in Tokyo

2005-05-18T10:52:00.000+09:00

We arrived safely in Tokyo and checked in to the ANA hotel. The standard line is "I slept like a baby - woke up every fours hours and cried"! We have today to begin adjusting and start work tomorrow...

Getting ready requires a lot of orchestration

2005-05-17T22:31:00.000+09:00

Getting ready for tour of Asia requires a lot of orchestration
Originally uploaded by mattmuro.

This article by The Inquirer's David Patrick Stearns sums up the Orchestra's tour of Asia - including its logistics. (Photo: Eric Mencher/Inquirer)

Asian tour map

2005-05-17T02:29:00.000+09:00

Asian tour map,
originally uploaded by mattmuro.

The tour runs from May 19th to June 7th. Click on the image to the left to see a map of destinations, and then mouse over each city for additional information.