Tonight's the night!
posted 02:09 PM Friday, September 25, 2009
After months of planning, weeks of rehearsal, and days of crazed last-minute preparations, our 85th anniversary season opens tonight with a concert that's going to blow you away.
I just got back from Lunch & Listening (check out that fabulous program here) and interviewing Kimbo and guest violist/conductor Joel Smirnoff for HPPR, and now I'm stoked to hear what they, along with guest violinst Joan Kwuon, do tonight and Saturday.
If you weren't at Lunch & Listening, you missed some great reminescences by Kimbo and Joel about their long history together. They met in 1988 when Kimbo began his studies at Juilliard; Joel, of course, was a professor there. In 1993, during Kimbo's first conducting gig at Tanglewood, Kimbo conducted Joel and the orchestra in Hindemith's violin concerto, with Joan sitting as concertmaster. The audience got to see a video clip of the concert that, unfortunately, is beyond my skills to post here. Hopefully soon, or perhaps on our Facebook page.
Joel, you'll remember, was a finalist for our Music Director position when we hired Kimbo, and today, he had nothing but praise for Kimbo and his leadership of the Symphony.
"I'm learning form Kimbo now. There are very few people on stage today with his commeand. I'm thrilled to be back here, and I'm thrilled to be working with the maestro," Joel told the L&L audience.
The L&L audience also got some inside knowledge about a mystery instrument in tonight's lineup. The Bartok Rhapsody for Violin calls for a cimbalom, a four-octave instrument that sounds much like a hammered dulcimer. Not surprisingly, there aren't many cimbaloms, much less cimbalom players, around here. So Kimbo had an idea that would convert one of our baby grands into a cimbalom.
He had Sue White and piano tuner Doug Rittenbury weave pieces of paper through the strings. They were then covered with a thick craft paper. The resulting sound is muffled and doesn't ring - sounding just like a dulcimer. You won't be able to miss it tonight.
