How far have you travelled to see a violinist perform?
I just purchased tickets for April 4th - Lara St. John will be performing Bartok and I really wanted to attend!
It's a 3 hour drive one-way, and we're not spending the night, we're coming home right after the concert, so it will be a long evening for us!
We made the same trip to see the Rolling Stones 2 years ago...but we spent the night in that instance.
I know this isn't a huge trip by any means, but it got me wondering how far people are willing to go...
Replies (25)
I flew from Birmingham AL to San Francisco last year to hear Ehnes play Bruch's Scottish Fantasy with the SFS. That was also a vacation/visit to friends, but I timed the visit to hear him play.
And it was worth it!!!
I don't get to do this all the time...
Back in the days of high school, oh so long ago...I saved every nickel, dime and quarter to get to Tanglewood and see the Stern, Rose, Istomin Trio. True, not that far from Connecticut to Lenox, Massachusetts but a bus trip and hitch hiking to get there lengthened the journey considerably and I do believe in an odd way made it much more enjoyable and satisfying too. What did they perform? the Beethoven Triple
I went to see Lara at the United church in Kingston Ontario a few years back, 5 hour drive one way. Well worth it. It was on her birthday (April 15th) so we got to sit and eat cake with her after
Hilary Hahn concert in Ottawa, Ontario. another 5 hour drive one way. I got her to autograph a violin top for me, which accidentally gave her a sliver.
I don't usually stay to talk to musicians/performers unless I know them. But I would love to talk to Lara.
I should prepare myself - should the opportunity arise! That would be cool! Thanks for giving me the idea!
I live in Albany NY. Last November my wife and I boarded an airplane and traveled to Cincinnatti to hear Julia Fischer play Dvorak. That was a 700 mile trip that cost us 2 nights in a hotel.
Was it worth it - Oh Yes!
We are planning to vacation in Europe this coming summer and expect to take in two performances by Julia of the Mendelssohn in Weilburg DE. We wouldn't have planned that trip (which will include other things - hiking in Saas Fee CH for example) but for the concert.
I have tickets for her performance in Disney Hall of the Shostakovitch in May. (Better get my airline tickets soon!) - that one is connected with a visit to my son in San Diego
Do we adore Julia? Oh yes! Yes indeed!
One night at the Hôtel with my mom to go see Vadim Repin. It was maybe ok for a long one day drive but the performance finished late... Don't usually do this but we turned this in a kind of a vacation weekend! We even were lucky that he did autographs on his new cd for the public!
Anne-Marie
so far attended about 40 concerts of Julia Fischer, some ca. 650 kilometers away in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (a German federal state between Berlin and Baltic Sea). I know of a friend from Switzerland who attended more than 100 concerts of this violinist, some of them in the US, but he also regularly attends concerts in Vienna and Lucerne (in the past when Karl Böhm and Leonard Bernstein conducted, now Mariss Jansons and Andriss Nelsons et al.) Thats freaky.
Haj
I will regularly travel to Houston, which is 2 hours away, for a good performance. I will most likely make the 3 hour trip to Dallas next year to see Hilary Hahn.
N.A.
Lara is very approachable.
We taked about bows and Bach for a bit. She was using a bow made by a fellow in Western Canada at the time, so that may also be a good opener seeing as you live out that way.
Her brother Scott is also a great violinist.
That Guad she plays has power!
Strathmore- Midori, Johnathan Carney. It's about 45 mins to an hour from me
The farthest I've traveled is from San Francisco to NYC to hear Joshua Bell play the Brahms (my favorite violinist and favorite concerto, in Carnegie Hall!). I know people who have crossed oceans to attend concerts, though.
I've been to the other side of the world to hear the violist Franck Chevalier play - . Paris, France to Wellington, New Zealand, although the circumstances were a little exceptional - it was to hear him play my own Viola Concerto. 22 hours in the air (plus short stopover) and a 12 hour time-zone difference. I don't think I would have done that for another composer though haha....
Now that is worth flying around the world for! Very cool.
Lara is playing the Bartók Violin Concerto No. 2. I haven't listened to it yet...but Bartok is one of my favourite composers too...so it should be good!
San Antonio TX to Jacksonville FL (about 1060 mi. each way) to hear my then-girlfriend solo with JSO;
Dallas TX to Iowa City IA (~860 mi.) for my brother's senior recital;
Houston TX to Dallas (~240 mi.) to hear Margaret Batjer play with DSO;
San Antonio TX to Houston (~200 mi.) to hear my ex-student play recitals at college: have done this twice and will be going a third time next month.
Flew to Chicago (in driving mileage, that's approx. 900 miles from where I live in CT) to see Hilary Hahn and Josh Ritter at the Ravinia Festival believing that that show was an exclusive engagement, but found out that they were also doing it in NY after the fact. It was worth it for me, though, because the show was better at Ravinia.
Also drove to Troy, NY (119 mi.) to see Hilary play a recital in 2007.
Well - concert was last night! It was worth every mile!
Lara St. John was fantastic! I bought all 3 CDs she had with her (can't find them locally - go figure - lack of support for Canadian artists) - had her sign one for me...
So glad we went!
Turns out though, that Lara was the replacement soloist for the Bartok. Erika Raum was originally supposed to play, but had triplets 3-4 weeks ago.
Glad to hear that your concert was a good investment. I'm seeing Hilary Hahn june sixth at Strathmore giving the east coast premeire of the Higdon Concerto.
I made quite a few 3-to-4 hour trips to hear live performances when I was younger. It would take a very special event for me to do that now--it seems if I wait long enough pretty much everyone comes to my town eventually since the population has boomed the last few decades. So now I wait for the mountain to come to me.
I have not attended this concert yet, but I am flying to Barcelona from Vancouver, Canada to see Sarah Chang perform this fall! I'll also do some backpacking while I'm there though!!
I live in NYC so this doesn't really apply since all the great artists come to me. But, I remember I once had to go out of my way to find tickets to a sold out concert of Guiliano Carmignola and the Venice Baroque Orchestra. I had to work so I couldn't wait in line for hours before box office was opened at Alice Tully Hall. Turns out the tickets sold out within one hour of opening anyway. My friend and I were heartbroken. But we put our heads together and called a friend of ours that used to be the director of the Lincoln Center chmbr Mus Society. He pulled a couple of strings for us. We got great seats and went back stage to meet Carmignola. Unbelieveable concert, worth all the stress and anxiety of acquiring tickets.
Once I planned to go to Amsterdam (from Groningen -- a two hours' drive) to hear the Amsterdam Sinfonietta and Julian Rachlin, but one of my teeth broke off and so I had a root canal instead.
I had won the tickets to the concert in a radio quiz: they asked to name the text that Ervin Schulhof wrote his cantata Manifesto to.
I've travelled on a transatlantic flight plus connecting US domestic flight to watch a particular concert, but I'm not going to reveal any more details than that! <blush>
In April me and my string quartet traveled to Atlanta, GA (869 miles) to go to MTNA collegiate chamber music national finals. Once we were there we found out that Leonidas Kavakos was playing the Sibelius concerto with the Atlanta Symphony!!!
That trip was so much fun. Another crazy and fortunate thing that happened was that I forgot my mute at home and so I found a violin shop in the yellow pages and all four of us went there. It was Williams Gengakki (sp?) violins and that afternoon I had a chance to play on a very, very pricey Guarneri (not a del Gesu, though).
Drove from Clarion, PA to Cleveland, Ohio to hear a Josef Gingold recital.
Flew from Rochester, NY to Washington DC to hear a Nathan Milstein recital.
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March 23, 2009 at 04:15 AM ·
I've flown and driven from Sacramento to LA for a performance or to watch a master class.
I flew from Sacramento to Santa Fe NM for a concert.
I planned a trip to the Netherlands primarily for a concert (although I would have done a lot more added value stuff while I was there), but I didn't execute that one.