​On the Road – Satu Mare, Romania
One must always expect surprises when traveling to Europe. Linda and I bought a new carry-on bag specifically to European measurements to avoid having our carry-on luggage taken in Amsterdam to be put with checked luggage. So it came as a big of a shock this time when the KLM folks told me mine had to go in the checked luggage! I believe it due to my having a CPAP machine and a small briefcase for my scores combined with a very full flight which led to their demand. I was to meet my soloist in Budapest airport so loathe to part with it as there was a two hour wait for his plane to arrive from Paris. However, when time came to get on the plane, my bag was overlooked and I happily took it onboard with me. Wisely I placed my other two small bags under the seat so no one complained.

When I arrived in Budapest, there was no way to determine what gate Rocco would arrive at. So I settled in for a nap at the exit expecting to catch him. At the appointed time, no sign of Rocco! Growing rather anxious, I finally exited into the arrivals hall and located our driver. The arrivals were listed there and I discovered Rocco’s plane was an hour late. My driver spoke little English but I conveyed to him that we must wait. Finally (two cigarette breaks later – he was growing anxious and about to go for #3) Rocco appeared. Our four hour car ride to Satu Mare, located in the NW corner of Romania near borders of both Hungary and Ukraine) was one of fitful napping for me as my own snoring would wake me up to hear the abysmal rock music on the radio. Upon arriving at Satu Mare, our driver asked which hotel we were staying at? This small detail had not been conveyed to me by the orchestra staff and we actually stopped at a hotel only to discover it was not the right one. A phone call finally produced the correct answer and we arrived to also discover the time zone was an hour later. Not having eaten dinner we found Gemelli’s fast food literally next door. As Rocco is a vegetarian, they ended up making him his own pizza.

Monday morning the rehearsal was at 10:00 and again no one had mentioned where it was to be held! I had expected someone from the orchestra to meet us at the hotel but fortunately my inquisitive wife, Linda, had researched the city a bit discovering the orchestra performed in a concert hall which was part of another hotel. It was literally a block down the street as we were in the center of the city.

I met the Concertmaster, Dan Racéau, and also the librarian Katalin. To my surprise their harpist was there to play the Monti-Czardas, Rocco’s showpiece where he displays his amazing talents. Although the orchestration included harp, I had never had an actual part for my set. I told her we didn’t need her only to discover on her stand (after rehearsal of course) a part Katalin had produced! So the next day I requested they bring her back for the final general rehearsal. The first rehearsal revealed what I had expected – the jazz-rock rhythms of my Concertino were going to require some work from the strings. Also expected – missing players (a trombone, tuba, and bass clarinet) – the string section was small at 29 players but they read the Parry Overture well and naturally knew the Brahms. The hall was quite pretty, seated 320 and had an excellent acoustic.

Katalin recommended a nearby restaurant for lunch called Daemi which was across the central square park. We managed to wander into the “Festival Salon” which only does group events but were kindly directed to the nearby stairs to descend into the actual restaurant. Amusingly the booths had an inscription “Irish Pub” possibly inspired because they had Guinness on tap. Food was excellent; “background” music was so loud and annoyingly repetitive that we never returned. That night we discovered the City Bistro which was to be our lunch/inner sport of the week. Good food at cheap prices (and less annoying music as well). I usually ate plenty for about $7 a meal!

Tuesday morning I finally met the Director, Rudolf Fatyol. He asked if I spoke Italian (which I do in a limited fashion) and proceeded to say about three sentences to me and walked off to his office! I never saw him again! It was the Secretary and the Librarian who took care of our business and any other needs.

Rocco hit it off well with the clarinet players of the orchestra, understandably. At dinner he got a call from the principal, Robert, who had brought us a particular Romanian beer that he likes called Ciuc. We discovered the orchestra leaves the hall open in its lobby for the players to enjoy a Ping-Pong table. So we sampled the beer and chatted with several musicians while watching the game. 

Satu Mare is a small city without much of interest. I did visit an 18th c. Catholic Church whose claim to fame is two sets of relics of saints I’d never heard of. So my days were primarily a morning rehearsal 10-1, lunch at 1:30, some reading or score study, a two hour nap, and dinner at 7:30. Rocco can be a rather quiet person so I fear the burden of making conversation fell largely to me. Apart from a discussion about possibly recording my Concertino with the Oregon Sinfonietta, I was sometimes hard pressed to come up with subjects. Amusingly I found reminiscing about some of my different experiences guest conducting was the most fruitful in maintaining a conversation. Linda made photos of the family for me to take but Rocco is not very talkative about his own wife and two grown children.

Thursday was the final General Rehearsal in the morning, shorter due to the nature of primarily being a run-through without much real rehearsal. Surprisingly there were places in the Brahms that required attention. I chose to forgo my nap as the concert began at 6:30 and I didn’t want to be groggy. As is often the case, I had some last minute issues – first with a button on my Romanian vest that popped off when I made the mistake of sitting down with it buttoned (no way to fix it by sewing as it had broken the loop on the button) and then the harpist felt compelled to complain about having to play the Monti because she “lost money” to do so! I was able to shrug that off but the vest issue made me a bit self-conscious of my appearance. Happily I was able to focus on the music making instead. The audience seemed small at maybe half the hall at best but they were generally enthusiastic. The Parry Overture was new to them as was my work, of course. Rocco assured me that they like my Concertino (he calls it a “masterpiece” – and is having all his students learn it, so I’ll revise the piano accompaniment to make sure it’s playable) but none of the orchestra commented on it except the clarinetists! 

The concertmaster did say congratulations after the concert and that he hoped I would return to work with the orchestra again. Given the Director’s apparent lack of interest (I didn’t see him at the concert) there is little chance of that. My feeling is that this may be my final concert abroad. Having three orchestras and a music department to run along with the rather minimal monetary compensation, it has become increasingly difficult to schedule guest conducting in Europe. Now that our daughter Laura and her family are living in France, our travels will be to see them.

It was a great pleasure to perform my Concertino again with Rocco, our third collaboration since its composition in 2010. Two of the melodies were used in compositions for each of my daughters’ wedding pieces – Vignettes for string quartet (Becca) and Chanson for violin and horn (Laura). The middle section begins with what could be an ode to Schubert as my first meeting with Rocco he played his music in a recital with piano. I composed that particular melody on the plane ride home from Italy.naturally the audience loved Rocco’s rendition of Monti’s Czardas, originally a violin piece. They would have loved an encore but that was it.

I was generally pleased to have the orchestra give me my interpretation of Brahms – Symphony No. 2. Surprisingly the first oboe inadvertently repeated a measure of her solo in the third movement but disaster was averted quickly. Also the celli rushed a place in the last movement that I was able to prevent from becoming a problem.

Rocco needed to make a plane at noon on Friday so we left Satu Mare at 6:00 A.M. though given we would gain an hour could have safely left at 7:00 and still arrived at 10:00 at the airport. So I arrived at my horel at 9:30 A.M., a bit early for check-in. fortunately they checked me in and I even managed to get a free buffet breakfast before it closed at 10:00. Sadly there was little to offer on the tv in English other than the business channels. In my effort to be streamlined I brought no extra scores to study or books to read. The magazine and book I brought were both finished so I explored the souvenir shop in hopes of a possible diversion for what would prove a long day. I was to leave at 4:00 A.M. the next morning to catch the 6:10 flight to Amsterdam. (Memo to self, always have an extra book!?)

A long nap of 6 hours was the way I spent Friday afternoon. It had been a tiring week of very strange sleep patterns due to the jet lag. Generally I woke up at 3 or 4 A.M. after going to bed at midnight and then sort of dozed until getting up at 8:00. The hotel dinner was expensive as expected but most disappointing in quality. The red wine was surprisingly only passable and the steak rather bland. The highlight of the meal was the Tokaj wine with dessert – that at least was enjoyable!

After watching some exciting business news, I went to be at 10:00 to get up at 3:00 to catch the 4:00 transport for the 5 minute ride to the airport. Plane was delayed about 20 minutes so a long wait of 2.5 hours. Too early to eat (after a week of plenty of food – no need!). connection in Amsterdam always takes a bit of time given how busy the airport is but they have a fast lane if the flight time is close.

All went well in Amsterdam so ten tiring hours and 4 movies later I was back in the great Northwest ready to do the wash and prepare for the next concert coming Sunday, April 9 (see poster on the website).

Sleepless in Romania - December 5-12, 2015

The prominent feature of our week in Oradea was the difficulty we had in sleeping! The first night was not a problem but thereafter we would wake up at 3:00, 3:30, 4:00, or 5:00 and not be able to get back to sleep. Due to our schedule we were unable to get an afternoon nap until the day of the concert! Naturally we had a good night sleep after the concert and then had to actually get up at 3:00 A.M. the next night in Budapest to catch the 6:30 flight to Amsterdam and home ! The joys of jet-lag.

This was our third time in Oradea working with the State Filharmonica there. It had been 5 years since I last guest conducted the orchestra and there were a number of changes. Most notable was the passing away of their concertmaster due to illness at the relatively young age of 62 (possibly a bit older). So they had a fine new concertmaster who was young and quite good. As always, there were missing players until the 3rd rehearsal including the 3rd horn, harp, and tuba. Given only four rehearsals total for the concert, this was a bit concerning but not surprising. I am happy to report they were not a problem in their performance of the music. The orchestra is quite responsive and able to make great nuances happen in the music. The concert was an unusual one as it contained all unheard music in Romania except for the Mozart - my own Northwest Triptych began the program followed by Mozart's Exsultate, jubilate and then the premiere of Lacul, a song composed by my host Romeo Rimbu; the Stanford Symphony No. 4 in F closed the concert.

Musically the concert was a great success (in spite of the sleep problems). Although there were some small trouble spots in my Northwest Triptych and not quite enough ability to swing the jazz waltz at the end, the orchestra performed it extremely well with great attention to the details we had rehearsed. Linda sang the Mozart wonderfully as always. It's a work she has performed a number of times over the years in many parts of the world - Turkey, El Salvador, Romania, and of course in the US. The audiences are always warm and enthusiastic about the beautiful phrasing, clean runs, and color she brings to the piece. She performed the premiere of Romeo Rimbu's Lacul afterward. The orchestration was a bit heavy and the first part of the song was low in its range, so she used a microphone for better balance. Normally she doesn't use a microphone unless the hall is too large as it was in El Salvador and also in Spain in previous concerts. Romeo is the Music Director of the Filharmonica (now for 20 years) and was guest conductor of the Clark College Orchestra during the first week of December. Linda also performed Lacul on that concert in Vancouver. The poetry is by a famous Romanian poet of the 20th century and she worked very hard on the correct pronunciation of the language. The audience responded with the unison rhythmic clapping common in Eastern Europe when they are especially pleased with a performance. (They also gave me this at the conclusion of the concert as well.) Stanford's Symphony No. 4 is a work I have performed with the Oregon Sinfonietta in Portland that is a good work very much in the style (and modelling as well) of Brahms Symphony No. 3 (also in F major). Romeo told me afterward that the concert was longer than what they usually did. So I gave them their money's worth! It's a nice hall of about 600 with a good acoustic though the stage is a bit small making it necessary for the conductor and soloists to actually walk around it and enter from the front.

Perhaps the most satisfying aspect of my work with this orchestra was Romeo's very complimentary words about my conducting - calling my gestures "elegant" and "most effective with the orchestra in getting results". He went so far as to say he should probably emulate them himself! In a business that is generally very short on compliments or praise that is at best terse in nature, it was encouraging to receive such feedback on my skills as a conductor from a colleague. Romeo also suggested that I extend the ending on the last movement of the NW Triptych (Riffs - a jazz rock fun movement that I have also transcribed for band) in order to use it as an opening work on a concert. Generally I do not revise works after I finish composing them but I was pleased that he liked it enough to suggest that. 

The Clark College Orchestra enjoyed having Romeo as a guest conductor along with his son Remus as violin soloist. They are interested in having another exchange in two years so I hope to return to Oradea, Romania to work with the Filharmonica again. It's always fun to plan ahead and I hope to see if we can perform my Concertino for Bass Clarinet with Rocco Parisi if he is available - stay tuned!

On the Road Again – Massa, Italy 
Wednesday, July 29
We arrived in Florence yesterday at noon. The flight to Amsterdam was a bit rough for the first two hours but then smoothed out. At first we wondered why we were in the very back of the plane, but it turned out we had a bit more leg room and since no one was in the seats behind us, we could spread out over the two seats each by my moving back one row.
Our first meal with our host (after a four hour nap) was spritzers (a mix with prosecco and mineral water) with some appetizers (prosciutto, cheese, bread) – then we moved next door for a pizza and some vino to finish things off. We took a brief stroll around the center of town – quite a few folks out on a Tuesday night at 9:30 to eat. Then to bed with our constant companion – the fan! (no air conditioning)
Both of us awoke about 4:30 but lay in bed dozing until about 7:30. Breakfast on the first floor (no elevator either, so two flights for our exercise) then out to walk again. We met with Paolo at 3:00 to go see the Marble Quarry (local attraction). Tomorrow I rehearse with the orchestra for three hours then a brief sound check at 7:30, concert at 9:30 P.M.
Thursday, July 30
We drove about an hour to rehearse with the orchestra at 10:00. The three hour rehearsal became two and a half due to a need for the room. No air conditioning or lighting other than natural. Orchestra was 20 strings and top quality. Surprisingly I rehearsed in English as they understood that and not Italian. So we rehearsed Foote and my piece mostly with a bit of Tchaikovsky. As expected they didn’t watch as closely on the piece they know best (Tchaikovsky Serenade).
Linda and I found a nice cafe for lunch (most important on the road!). Our room has only a small fan so is rather warm, even at night. A bit of a nap and then a sound check at 7:30.
The sound check began late at 7:45 but I had to stop so the orchestra could eat before the concert. It was a reasonably cool night and a respectable crowd of about 200 or so. Unfortunately the concert was moved from the normal location of the Ducal Palace to a smaller piazza that bordered a street with apartments and had a playground at the end.
The suite by Arthur Foote went well without any problems. Disappointingly the orchestra needed another rehearsal for my Nara Variations. Despite their high skill level, the numerous tempi changes and chamber music-like passages made for a rather ragged performance overall. Many of the details I had worked on with them were forgotten and there were several near train wrecks in transition places. Even the ending nearly fell apart due to inattention in the celli. I never would have imagined such a fine orchestra performing it so poorly overall. I think they liked the piece but the attention was not uniform. Also there was some background noise issues like the children playing, the passing by of cars, and even some competing music from the neighbors! The Tchaikovsky Serenade on the other hand was well-known and a pleasure to conduct. It was a real showpiece that they wanted to dazzle the audience with their speed, though the slow third movement proved they could play slowly and sustained. One of my major complaints with the Nara Variations is they were always pushing the tempo even in the slow sections.  The audience was most receptive and I was a bit surprised at how long they applauded for each work. In retrospect I should have savored it a bit more and not felt compelled to move on to the next piece quite so fast. As a conductor I find this reading of an audience the hardest factor to gauge in a concert. Music is such a temporal thing that it must be savored – an important insight for future concerts! As always, one spends hours to prepare for the all too brief culmination of the final performance.
We celebrated the success of the concert with dinner afterwards; since the concert began at 9:30 P.M. this meant a late night meal. It’s always amazing to see so many families out still after midnight. Our Danish steak came on a sizzling hot platter which we deduced was to finish cooking it to the degree of doneness.
Friday, July 31
Given that I took a nap before yesterday’s concert, I awoke at about 5:30 then gave up sleeping (dozing) around 7:00. We have most of the day open until 3:00 when Paolo will take us to Torre del Lagos (Puccini’s summer home) and also to Pisa for the famous tower.
It was great to see the place where Puccini wrote so many of his operas. Not only was there his piano, furniture and memorabilia but he, his wife, son, and daughter-in-law are all buried there. Our time in Pisa was rather short really only looking at the buildings and walking a bit through the town. Our time in Massa was completed with a final meal with my colleague Paolo and his wife Francesca.
Saturday, August 1
Paolo drove us to Florence where we said our goodbyes. In celebration of our 40th wedding anniversary we will spend two very short (and hot – temperatures almost 100) attempting to see some of this beautiful city. The heat and long lines will limit what we are able to take in but it will be worth the effort. Then on Monday we’ll fly to Toulouse, France to visit my daughter, son-in-law and grandson for two weeks.
In December Linda and I will perform again with the Oradea Philharmonic in Romania on the border with Hungary – more of my On the Road blog then!

As always, surprises happen when I go to Italy! After managing to get my baton on in my carry-on (fiurst time since 9-11 of 2001), and making a very close connection in Amsterdam with only an hour to make the plane to Rome, surviving a two hour bumpy ride to Grosseto by RV (!) with a non-English speaking driver, I took a short nap. At about 5:00 I got up to shower for my 6:00 rehearsal. To my chagrin the door was locked and no one was there! As my colleague who was the Artistic Director of the orchestra was performing in China there was no way to contact him for clarification. So I walked around town for an hour and finally gave up and went for dinner. Possibly I have only the one concert here in Grosseto on Sunday (I saw the poster for it).

  Friday night’s rehearsal was a good one though at the final segment the orchestra was losing focus and dragging mentally. Two breaks – 30 minutes and 15 minutes make it a very long rehearsal. However, with only two to prepare the program, it’s barely enough even with professionals. We didn’t rehears the Britten Simple Symphony as they’ve performed it before. No soloist either – he will come for the second rehearsal. Having just performed it last week in Valcea, Romania he should be in good shape. I will perform my piano concerto again in Vancouver in June with Ron Fabbro.

Saturday night’s rehearsal was quite productive. I discovered an interesting spot in the first movement that had been puzzling me – on the recording we made in Alessandro at the premiere it sounded like a mistake in the piano. Actually it is a rather striking dissonance created between the descending 5th line in the celli and bass vs. the upward line of the piano. Strange to discover new things in one’s own composition!

The opening movement tempo is better as it’s brighter this time. Last movement seems on the slow side but perhaps rhythmically demands that. It will be something to see with Ron in June. I will also discuss modifications Mauri asked for with him as well.

Amusingly we ran overtime at the Concertmaster and Principal 2nd’s request. Nice to have an orchestra willing to work but 5 hours is such a long period; concertration becomes an issue as it gets closer to the end.

One of the cellists is originally from Vancouver, BC. Nice to have someone to talk to in English. She’s lived in Italy since 2002. She met her Italian husband while playing in a quartet on a cruise ship. Lasted 11years and now is divorced.

Sunday- I discovered my left ankle was swollen – most likely a combination of the plane ride and two nights of standing through 5 hour rehearsals. Fortunately the last time this happened my Dr. prescribed regular asprin which I have been taking.

  Sound check was rather shaky and I was not feeling great (perhaps the octopus didn’t agree with me from last night’s late dinner with Mauri?). Vaughan Williams – Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis I put the second small orchestra in back which created some ensemble problems largely due to watching poorly by the musicians.

  Concert was very poorly attended which was very disheartening for all after so much hard work. Foote – Suite in E went pretty well. Mauri told the audience a bit about my Piano Concerto. Except for  a few slips in the viola section it was a fine performance. Claudio, their Concertmaster, was most complimentary about my music and his parting words were he hoped he would be able to play more of my work again soon. Amusingly they started the concert with two young pianists playing several short pieces – rather odd and annoying.

  Second half – in the Vaughan Williams I got a bit too involved emotionally with the music and pleased with things too soon! I made a poor change to 6/8 – my mistake was to be first of several in the orchestra to follow. The second orchestra especially had a bad counting error and got out of sync with the first orchestra. soloists did well for the most part. A fantastic piece that I hope I can get the Oregon Sinfonietta to play well in January. Even the Britten which they know, had several problem spots.

  So as always the things you remember first are all the things that go wrong! Claudio reminded me that it was a “strong program” – so at least the musicians enjoyed it – hard to tell if the audience did or not due to small turn-out.  A piu tardi!

My stepmother Alice used to suggest that Linda and I should write a book about our international travels. Sadly we never took that advice mainly because we've always been too busy teaching and performing. As I near another birthday of note (#60 in January) I seem to need some accounting of our travels.

We flew into Nice, France on Saturday, November 10. Jet lagged as always, we managed to find the bus into the center of the city. It was raining as we wandered a bit from the bus strop but were able to figure out the location of our hotel. The room was tiny and my side of the be slanted a bit towards the floor making for somewhat precarious sleeping. Sunday we took in the Marc Chagall Museum and after a longer walk north that of Matisee (not quite worth the effort as it was mostly his work with cutting out pieces of paper). Taking a wrong turn on the way back to the hotel, we got a good deal of exercise. Monday was bright and sunny so we enjoyed walking about the city and the excellent cuissine!
Tuesday we took the train to San Remo. The station was a 10 minute walk from our hotel. Taking the train to the end of the line in Ventimiglia, Italy we then switched trains and had another 15 minutes to San Remo. This hotel was much nicer (provided by the orchestra) and next to the casino which had a small concert hall of maybe 300 seats. The first rehearsal from 8:00 to midnight had some of the usual problems - only 2 horns instead of the 3 I expected and the 2nd was not there. A string section of 21 total with several missing as well. We began rehearsal with Gliere so Linda could go back to the hotel to sleep. It was a little rugged to begin as the orchestra was somewhat sluggish in responding and tempos were dragging. things improved as the night went on. They requested to change the double rehearsal of the next day (6 hours total) to one 4 hour rehearsal in the afternoon. I agreed as my experience has shown musicians of this level work better when you are a bit flexible. Schedule can change quite rapidly.
Wednesday we had to go to a government office to get a Codice Fiscale in order to work in Italy. They discovered I already had one from previous guest conducting but no one had ever told me! However, given the name on my passport had change the last time I renewed it (they dropped my middle name), they decided to issue me a new one. We requested copies of the documents in the event we need them in the future. The rehearsal went well so I ended it about 30 minutes early (always a good way to incur favorable rating as a guest conductor :) . The orchestra plays very expressively well in tune. Their one fault is that they tend to slow down a bit too much in ritards if you let them. 
Thursday morning we had the general rehearsal which is basically a run-through of the concert. It went well but Linda sang very little in order to save her voice for the concert. The Gliere is very high and taxing demanding a great deal of stamina. I finally got the orchestra to give me the correct tempos and not drag. The concert went almost flawlessly. The orchestra played with great expression and precision. My Nara Variations had its best performance to date - it was a great pleasure to conduct this orchestra! Linda was most pleased with her performance of the Gliere. Though not a large audience, they received us warmly (Linda got 4 curtain calls). As always, after so much preparation the concert was over in what seemed no time at all.Only the programs and posters remain. The scores and parts will go back on the shelf. Periodically I remind my students that music is only ink on the page until actual musicians perform it. This rings true after every concert we perform.
Going abroad to conduct is an opportunity to leave everything (teaching, administration, dealing with everyday concerns) and focus on a single concert. It's a luxury that is becoming harder to afford now that I have three orchestra at home! (So much music, so little time!)
Friday morning we returned to Nice by train and took the bus to the airport. Given an early flight to Amsterdam (6:30 AM means 4:30 at the airport - a rather short night's sleep), we booked a hotel across the street. We did go back into the city and had dinner at the Bistro d'Opera, near the Opera House. As always, excellent food and wine! Saturday came very early with a 3:30 AM wake-up call and off to the airport to spend the day on the plane. As often happens, I began composing in my mind having been just commissioned by my good friend Rocco Parisi to write a work for 4 bass clarinets. (Just what I need - another project as I am still composing a work for solo contrabass and strings for the teacher at the University of Georgia). Returning the same day and arriving at 11:30 AM left time to catch up on the exciting part of life - doing the wash and paying the bills! -DA