BSO goes to NYC

This weekend, the BSO is embarking on a mini two-concert tour of New York City.

On Saturday evening, we'll be playing a program of classics, and on Sunday afternoon, a soul version of Handel's Messiah, cleverly named Too Hot to Handel.

The first program includes Beethoven's familiar Eroica Symphony, but with a twist: it's Gustav Mahler's version. He does leave a lot of it intact, but every once in a while one can hear some unexpected dynamics, comas in the middle of phrases, and the like. An interesting experiment, definitely worth hearing once, as a curiosity. However, that may have left me yearning for some genuine Beethoven, hence the quartet during my run (look at previous entry).
The rest of the program features Barber's emotional and powerful Second Essay for orchestra, and my (former, now that the country has separated) countryman, a brilliant Macedonian pianist Simon Tryčeski (I give discounts on private tutoring on the pronunciation of the last name (: ), with Prokofiev's exciting, fast-paced Third Piano Concerto. Concerts in Baltimore are on Thursday and Friday nights, then off to NYC we go!

-Ivan Stefanovic

There's Beethoven, and then there's... Beethoven

Consider this the tale of two Beethovens.

On Wednesday afternoon, on a glorious Fall day, with the afternoon sun accentuating the brightest leaf colors of the season yet, I went for a short run in Roland Park, before picking up my three boys from school. Into my ears the headphones were transporting the sounds of the "real" Beethoven, his Op. 132 String Quartet, which I had just started rehearsing with my colleagues, and which we will be playing on November 21st at the Chamber Music by Candlelight series in Guilford (more on that as the date approaches). It is one of his late quartets, at times simple, almost childish, at times complex and deep, and of considerable length. The choice of music, any music, you might be surprised, was an unusual one for me (and some of my fellow professional musicians) : we are often so saturated in music that to not listen to it can be rather relaxing. I am much more likely to listen to some of my favorite radio podcasts (isn't that one of the best inventions of late?), then to job to a music beat. However, other than the obvious reason that I needed to learn from this piece, and listening to it helps that process quite a bit, I realized there was another reason: I was in need of some real, pure Beethoven. More on that in my next entry.

See You at Forte!

Before I get to this week's programs, I want to say how proud we all are of our colleagues that played solos in our Frederick concert at the beautiful Weinberg Center for the Arts last Saturday. Jonathan (in a triple role as a soloist, concertmaster and conductor), Shea, Fei, Gabe, Bill Jenken, Igor and Daruisz played beautifully and masterfully in a program filled with masterpieces by Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms. They all reminded us why this is one of the greatest orchestras around. One doesn't usually find that high level of solo playing in orchestra members that are, with the exception of Jonathan, not First Chair players. Bravo to all, and looking forward to another "in-house" concert.

Marin is back on stage this week, and we started on a couple of programs on Tuesday for this weekend. Thursday nights program was only at the Meyerhoff and featured Mahler's and Beethoven's Unfinished Symphonies.

Friday at Strathmore (8:15) and Saturday at the Meyerhoff (7:00), the program Analyze This: Mahler and Freud is sure to be one of the most unique ones we have presented in years. And don't forget, Saturday there's also a Forte Party in the Meyerhoff Lounge...I'll be there, so stop and say hi!

I hope to see you at our concerts!

P.S. Check out this cool webumentary with Marin Alsop:

Greener Fall Colors?

I hope you've been enjoying this beautiful autumn weather. It's such a pretty time of the year in Baltimore, with crisp mornings, bright rays of sunshine cutting through the many colors of the leaves, and the squirrels hurriedly stocking up for the winder. Except for when the crisp morning enters your house because your furnace quit working. Wednesday morning I was actually a bit late for a BSO rehearsal (which happens very rarely), because I had to wait for a service person to show up and fix what turned out to be a relatively minor problem.

I have taken advantage of the dry weather to ride my all-electric scooter (yes, with my violin on my back!) that I bought almost a year ago this month. I live by Belvedere Square, in a location that's about 5 miles or less from just about everything, so I sometimes make several short trips a day.

Last year, as I spotted this beauty in Fell's Point shop, I came to a realization that these trips, in addition to wasting gas, do a great job in keeping food on my auto mechanic's table. The scooter I bought is all electric, and it recharges in my garage in a few hours on minimal amount of electricity. I have since logged over a thousand miles without spending a cent on gas (plus it's almost noiseless, and, of course, doesn't pollute). So, if you ever see an unusual looking yellow/black scooter in town ridden by a black-helmeted guy with a violin case on his back, give me a honk!

This Week's Events

As promised, here's a (mostly) musical continuation of the last blog.

As most of you know already, our BSO/Peabody conducting fellow, 17-year-old Ilyich Rivas, made his subscription debut last week with a wonderful program of Brahms (Academic Festival Overture), Beethoven (Second Piano Concerto with a very elegant pianist Marcus Groh), Mahler's devine Blumine movement from his First Symphony, and Shostakovich's powerful First Symphony. I'm not planning to turn this blog into a place for concert reviews (I'll leave that to professionals), but my impression is that Mr. Rivas has great potential to become a wonderful conductor. His score memory is obviously strong, and he has great, deep feelings for music that he is not afraid to share with the musicians in front of him. Any other possible shortcomings can be easily corrected with the right guidance and invaluable experience that will come with many more hours on the podium. On the trivial side of things, we have all seen many a baton fly out of hands of conductors (both forward, into the orchestra, and back, into the audience). However, Mr. Riva's cufflink that flew a few audience rows back last Thursday night in a dramatic arc during one of his particularly demonstrative gestures in the opening Brahms piece was a first! It was cordially given back to him so that he could start the Beethoven Piano Concerto in full gear (and he is an elegant dresser). As my violinist colleague Greg Mulligan joked, that was a true Off the Cuff performance!

This Tuesday morning we were treated to a masterfully run rehearsal by Gilbert Varga, a conductor new to us. We rehearsed the Stravinsky Petrouchka, and a complex and exciting piece that is full of traps (mostly rhythmical) out of which it's hard to climb. Mr. Varga showed us, from the first few seconds of the rehearsal, that he is so in control of things, we have little to worry. He is a very organized, energetic conductor that knows exactly what needs to be rehearsed and how, and orchestras always appreciate that. Wednesday, we are rehearsing the rest of the program which includes Glinka's Overture to Ruslan and Ludmilla and Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1. It's sure to be an energy-filled week!

Concerts are Thursday at Strathmore, Friday and Saturday at Meyerhoff, all at 8pm. Get your tickets now, and don't forget to contribute to BOLT for the BSO (see last blog), so you can get your tickets free and join us for a lobby party after Friday's concert. I'll be there with some of my family, and would love to meet some of you, so you can tell me in person what you'd like to read about in this space.

Talk to you next time.

Running like a BOLT of Lightning

Dear blog readers,

No, the reason I haven't written in a while isn't that I needed a long break after my first blog. I did, however, need some prep time and the rest after my first ever running race.

After grasping the whole concept of recreational running this summer (up until then I only ran after buses, and, when I was younger, girls (: ), I ended up running the Baltimore Half-Marathon on Saturday. It was an amazing experience, and I achieved my two goals: to finish and feel good about it. For those that care, I ended up with a time of 1:57:39, which is a lot better than the time I decided I'd have been happy with, somewhere between 2:00 and 2:15. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and the wind only started getting really crazy after the finish. The city looked amazing, especially from some vantage points along the course that I haven't been to. And the people along the race were simply amazing: from all walks of life, ages, races, in suits and pajamas, holding cats and dogs, sitting on steps and looking through their windows. Many dancing, some in silly costumes, playing pots and pans or some serious music, holding personal and general signs (my favorite: "no one made you do this!"), handing Natty Boh beer to racers (not too many takers, most preferred water or Gatorade), and generally helping us keep pushing.

What made the whole experience even more special was the face that one of the BSO's biggest supporters, Governing Member Cynthia Renn, organized a fundraiser named BOLT for the BSO, which, as of this afternoon raised $13,500 toward your favorite orchestra. My fellow violinist Ellen Troyer, her husband John Troyer and I, plus several of our Administration and Board members, participated in both the race and the fundraising effort, adorned with very visible lime-green (it's the new black!) BOLT t-shirts. Here's what Ellen, John, and I looked like right after we finished:


I loved when one of the race organizers, standing along the race course somewhere around Lake Montebello, who was reading shirts and signs and encouraging such individual efforts, yelled "Go Marathoner for Music!" as I rounded the bend by her!

If you're a runner, or just inspired like so many of your fellow BSO fans to contribute, the BOLT website is still open for just a few more days, and it is a very simple, fast, and easy way to show your support. Please click here for the site where you can contribute (I suggest my name (: ), and then join us for a BOLT party this Friday after the Meyerhoff concert for a celebration. After you contribute, you'll receive an invitation to the party, and we might even be able to swing some tickets for you for the concert!

My great friend and colleague, BSO Concertmaster Jonathan Carney, was nice enough to replace me for some coaching I had missed that morning at Peabody (where I spend most of my Saturdays teaching at the Preparatory Department), but after the race was over and I had caught my breath, it was time to head on foot (cars were useless in the traffic jams of that day) to Mt. Vernon for more teaching. My race support team (my wife Jennifer had brought our three boys Sebastian, Luka, and Tristan for some coaching and rehearsals of their own) adorned in the BOLT t-shirts, were happy to see me in good spirits and with a medal around my neck. After an afternoon of some great music, it was time to be whisked away in my family van (logistics of parking two cars that day took a few days to figure out!) to the bus awaiting to take the BSO to Strathmore for a concert. What a day!

That should do for today, I promise to continue tomorrow with a review of Ilyich Rivas' concerts and a preview of this week's with Gilbert Varga.

Changing of the Blog Guard

Hello everyone, this is Ivan Stefanovic, BSO's Assistant Principal Second Violin (don't you just love our titles?). I'll be happy to share some of my thoughts on things musical and otherwise in this space, so please visit often and tell everyone you think might be interested in a bit of an insider view into a life of a BSO musician. I've always enjoyed writing (as little as I have done so) and I like to think I may have gotten the bug from my Dad, who was a journalist (an Associated Press Chief of Bureau in Belgrade, Yugoslavia for many decades, now retired). So, here she goes. I hope it'll be a fun ride for you (and I am already enjoying it).

A note to self: do not take a rabbit stew on the Strathmore (or any, for that matter) bus again. The bones are way to small, and the whole ordeal, even if tasty, is just too messy. Oh, and my apologies to any non-meat eaters out there; you have my utmost respect! But, that is now history, as is Gotta Dance, our first Pops concert of this season, the week of which we just finished this Sunday afternoon. It was a fun affair, as it always is with Jack (Everly, our Principal Pops Conductor): many different styles of music, and many different types of dance, one of which was most (if not all) of us in the hall had seen before. These twins from Argentina danced to their country's counterpart's music (the ever popular Piazzola) with so much energy that it was difficult for us not to take our eyes off the music we were playing. And their dancing style bridged tap, disco, modern, and even some of the late Michael Jackson's moves. Quite a treat! It was also a great week for the fans of our Associate Concertmaster, Madeline Adkins, who, in spite of a nasty cat bite that had her in a hospital emergency room after Friday night's concert, handled her many solos with her usual elegance, style, and virtuosity.

Now I am looking forward to, first of all, another week of incredible weather (hasn't it been just brilliant?). I'm especially hoping it will hold until this Saturday, when I am running in the Baltimore Running Festival (a long name for a Marathon, don't you think), where I'll be running the Half-Marathon (a fancy name for "those who can't make it"). Cut me some slack though, I just started running this summer and I absolutely love it! That should make the third of this week's concerts rather interesting for me--my plan is to concentrate REALLY hard that evening at Strathmore (previous two nights are at the Meyerhoff).

The program this week features a 17-year-old conducting a first Symphony written by a 19-year-old! Namely, Ilyich Rivas, a 17-year-old BSO-Peabody Bruno Walter Assistant Conductor and Dmitri Shostakovich, the famous Russian composer, who made his feelings against the oppressive regime at the time known through his art (all the while fooling the officials into thinking that he was just writing patriotic music). Rivas, under whose baton we've only had rehearsals so far, is a brilliant and very amicable young man, and he makes his subscription concert debut with an American orchestra (that would be us) this week. I can't help but wonder how intimidating it must be for someone of his young age to conduct and demand things of a big group of people, most of which are all much older than him! He will be joined by a rising young German pianist Markus Groh, in Beethoven's Second Piano Concerto. Don't miss this one, it's a such winner!

So much for now, more as the week unrolls. Have a good one!