Akiko

Last night was quite a rush! The CSO and Redmoon Theater collaborated to put on a show called Mercury Soul. This show has been performed elsewhere before (including Berlin and San Francisco), but this was the first time for Chicago, and my first time as a participant. You can check out my pictures from last night at the following link:

Mercury Soul gallery

I've written about Evgeny Kissin before here, specifically about his appearances with the CSO at Symphony Center. 3 years ago, these were some of the comments I heard after his performance:

"That's scary." "There's just no one like that." "Do you think he does anything else?" "That look in his eyes, that explains it." "This is the best I've heard." "I'll remember this one for years."

I went on to describe how he earned these comments:

Fleur and I are anxiously waiting for Akiko to return from LA tonight, where I'm happy to report that yesterday she won the violin audition in the Los Angeles Philharmonic! It's an unexpected return to the orchestra for her, since she was a member from 2000 to 2004 before winning her job in Chicago.

It's been quite a quarter since my last entry, from the almost-mystical date of Oct. 10, '10!  Just 4 days before, I had won a job in the Los Angeles Philharmonic.  It was a strange day, one that I spent mostly alone, and one that's had a major effect on all of our days since then.  And now finally, Akiko and I will be moving to LA once I join them as First Associate Concertmaster on the equally auspicious date of July 4.

not "Play it again, Sam" as the saying goes. When Ilsa asks Sam to play "As Time Goes By" in Casablanca, she's asking because he once played it for someone else, and now she wants him to play it for her.

When I play for people in advance of an audition, I usually don't need to do it in the strictest sense: I've played these excerpts for people before, I know in a general sense how I'm going to play them under pressure, etc. But I need to play for people I trust because I need their musical ears, which are different from mine.

at a recital.  Or a mini-recital.  This one is just 30 minutes of music, as requested by the Minnesota Orchestra as part of my audition.  So the question becomes:  how much can you, or should you, pack into 30 minutes?  I have accepted an invitation from a colleague to play through my 30 minutes at his house, in front of other colleagues and students.  There's something about a non-paying audience that ups the ante.  Somehow, if people are paying, you can gauge their commitment:  "I'm playing well enough to earn their $25!"  But this audience will be small and critical.  They won't pay anyt