"Ides of October"

So Mother Nature decided to poke fun at us last Saturday (and didn't even have to use Facebook’s poke button for it). Just a couple of weeks after relishing in how the aforementioned "Mother" was right on the dot in sending flocks of Canada Geese due North, I was flying due South on I-83 early one Saturday morning to start my teaching day at Peabody, when she sent a full-fledged winter storm into the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast before October even had a chance to have a last word. People were sent scrambling to find car brushes and shovels; cities had to re-equip their trucks in order to push snow off of highways; all this just a few days after our sand boxes got delivered to hilly street corners (ours was still empty)! Also, I must say that hibiscus trees, butterfly bush flowers and marigolds look oh so wrong with a snowy white background behind them.

The BSO's trip to Strathmore was, fortunately, accident-free as we traveled to play an energy-filled concert with Barry Douglas as a soloist and Vasily Petrenko as guest conductor, featuring Rachmaninov's Symphony #3. Mr. Douglas used to play with us fairly often when David Zinman was our Music Director, and we recorded the #3 , together with #2, many years ago in my first few years in the orchestra.

It's funny how a brain plays games and tricks with musicians. Many times in my career, while playing a rehearsal or a concert, a very quick image of something or somebody from the past would appear in, and just as quickly disappear from, my mind (you'd be surprised how, despite the hundreds of bytes of information we are required to keep track of while performing, our brains sometimes venture off to mundane things like what we need to get at the grocery store!). After this happened one too many times, apparently at random, I started to come to a conclusion that I must have been playing that very same music when the given event happened. Now I don’t really have time to keep a diary of all our weekly programs and events from that week, but it would be interesting.

Speaking of interesting (and new), this Friday evening will be the very first time I’ve played a performance of a genuine opera in a pit, as the BSO brings the opera back to Baltimore in concerts in two performances of Verdi’s dramatic La Traviata. It’s been an amazing experience, with a great cast of singers, beautiful sets, and an extremely capable conductor who holds it all together. It has also been great listening to my colleagues that have been in the BSO just slightly (and a few, a lot) longer than me (coming up to my 21st year!) tell the many stories and memories from their days at the Lyric (before the Meyerhoff was built).

This will be a truly memorable weekend for the city and its music lovers. If there are any tickets left, it’ll be the place to see and be seen this weekend, so hurry and get some! We promise at least a few tears and many laughs, accompanied by some of the most beautiful music ever written. I also suggest a visit to Little Italy before and after-you’ll surely be craving some great Italian food after this!

(Little Italy, Baltimore)

-Ivan Stefanovic

Four Seasons

Last week, during the snow, I saw enormous flocks of Canada (aren't you so proud of me not incorrectly calling them "Canadian"?) Geese, flying mostly South. It made me wonder if the little creature, that would otherwise never see even a second of fame judging from its looks, came out of the ground last week and didn't see its shadow because of the many TV cameras and people blocking the sun's rays from reaching him. Now I am thinking (and so is one of the long-term meteorologists that I follow-yes, I am a weather enthusiast!) that he was right, the back of the winter will be broken before we know it!

I absolutely love all four seasons for what they are (and not just Vivaldi's or Piazzola's which we are playing later in the year :) and really love a good snowstorm, so I am a bit upset that we may not get any more, though the last one, despite its measly foot or so, was rather impressive. As you can imagine, I was extremely happy with last year's prolific winter, so I guess I shouldn't complain. The saving grace may be that I am lucky enough to get a week off next month and head north, to Vermont, for a family ski trip, where they have been buried for weeks. However, when I return after five days of hardcore skiing (I've been skiing as long as I've been playing violin, it's a big passion of mine), if it has to be spring, let it be. That means the bike and the electric scooter come out of the garage (I use them for commuting), and a return of jogging outside without having to dodge black ice. That's my newly discovered passion, ever since BSO decided to do a fundraiser called BOLT for BSO and I ran in the Baltimore Half-Marathon as a result. And it won't be long before we runners start complaining about the humidity. As I said, I love all seasons!

Long Live the Spring!

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-Ivan Stefanovic