June 12, 2005 at 6:40 AM

Right now, I am in Tartu, in the southeast of Estonia. I have been working with the Collegium Consonante, a young orchestra from Tallinn. On Friday we had a regular concert, although not so regular for me. First of all, normally I am either the soloist, or I play in the orchestra. In this particular concert I was tutti player, concert master and soloist.
The most unusual was the performance of the Vivaldi. Vivaldi inspired the 4 Seasons on poems, and it describes very well that somewhere there are wasps and flies or dogs barking, other places he describes different kind of birds and other places for instance thunder. We used some electronic sound effects, so you could actuall hear the wasps flying right before the second movement in the summer. And the thunder was very real, not only did they put the sound on it, but also light effects. This we had not rehearsed, so I was consistently surprised during the concert about the light effects. I was very glad the conductor insisted on me using the music, otherwise it might have been a mess...

Today I have a day off, we drive back to Tallinn and tomorrow morning very early I will fly back to Amsterdam. A friend of mine is having her final examination and she organised an entire orchestra, to accompany her. On friday my travels will bring me to Switzerland, for a solo recital in the church in Saanen. Menuhin played here often, he always stayed in Saanen in the summer. Whenever you walk through the town, there are little remembrances about his time there. Very impressive to be able to play here. A couple years ago, during a vacation, I sneaked into the church to play a little bit. Now I get to do it officially. I am looking forward to it!

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June 12, 2005 at 6:40 AM

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