Monthly Archives: November 2006

Nov 29 2006

Return to Kingston

It was back on the buses Saturday afternoon as the orchestra traveled to Kingston for a concert. These one day down-and-back trips are called “runouts”, and we typically do a couple of them each season. 
The orchestra performed at Grant Hall, which brings back a lot of memories for me. I remember cramming in there on the first day of school (just 15 short years ago) with hundreds of other rowdy, mostly drunk, frosh. Ed and I did our grad recitals there, and I attended and performed dozens of concerts in the hall over the years. It was slightly surreal roaming the backstage area with the musicians and realizing that nothing much has changed since I’ve been gone.

 

I was really looking forward to having dinner at Wok In, one of my favourite little places in Kingston. I haven’t eaten there in years – the boys aren’t really ready for red curry chicken. As luck would have it, they were closed until Tuesday, so I settled on another old favourite, Curry Village.

 

Just for old time’s sake, I drove by 308 Collingwood. The little white house was eerily quiet – not a sign of the notorious 308 boys, a radical nudist cell that was based in Kingston for a short time in the 1990′s. I wonder where they are now…
Nov 25 2006

The Wiz

Thought I’d post a picture the boys in Production sent around yesterday. This was in response to a post-tour e-mail that went around refering to me as “The Wiz”. I can only hope the nickname doesn’t stick…

Nov 25 2006

Kieran’s Dirty Mouth

At 18 months, Kieran’s vocabulary is growing daily. He’s starting to put words together, and Bronwen and I get a kick out of him saying “No thank you” in his cute little voice.Sometimes, though, he has some problems with pronunciation. For example, “Pick me up” kinda sounds like “Peanut bup”. No big deal – we can understand most of what he says.Kieran’s favourite toy is a backhoe that he calls a dumptruck. However, “dumptruck” comes out as “dumb f*ck”. This leads to some great conversations in the car – “Daddy? Dumb f*ck. Mommy? Dumb f*ck”.So, if we’re visiting you at Christmas and he says “[insert name]? Dumb f*ck”, don’t take it personally, and don’t blame the parents.

Nov 20 2006

Quebec Tour: Days 5 to 9

Things got a little busy on tour, so I couldn’t keep up with the daily entries. I’m home now, and it’s hard to believe it’s all over. Overall, the tour went really well – as good as I could have expected. A few highlights:

  • Domaine Forget has a great concert hall. It’s in a small village called Saint-Irénée on the north shore of the St. Lawrence. The orchestra did two student matinee concerts, and the acoustics were amazing- why can’t all halls be this good?

  • The concert in Montreal was a huge success. Pinchas and the orchestra played their best concert of the tour, and were rewarded with a standing ovation and a rave review in The Montreal Gazette. There’s been a lot of discussion about the orchestra’s artistic identity, and this tour really affirmed that we’re headed in the right direction.
  • Bronwen met me in Montreal for the last two nights of the tour. It’s the first time we’ve been on tour together since Vancouver in 1999, which seems like a lifetime ago. I can’t remember the last time we both got to laze around in bed in the morning.

There’s lots more – if you want to see more photos or videos, check out www.nacotour.ca or this blog by one of the musicians.

Nov 15 2006

Quebec Tour: Day Four

I have a love / hate relationship with touring. It’s probably the most stressful part of my job – I worry for weeks in advance of a tour about whether buses will show up when they’re supposed to, whether the hotel rooms will be ready when we arrive, what musicians will get sick and who we’ll get to replace them, etc. I have recurring tour dreams about things going wrong. In one of them, I’m leading the orchestra on foot through the dark wet streets of New York City looking for a hotel that I haven’t booked. Oops.On the other hand, there are some nice perks to touring. I get to hear the orchestra in different halls, meet colleagues from other orchestras, and attend some pretty good receptions. Since I started I’ve seen Canada from coast to coast, and gone to some interesting places abroad.One of the best perks is hotel room upgrades. As tour manager, I’m spending anywhere between $10,000 and $40,000 on rooms at a given hotel. So, the sales manager will often give me a nicer room as a thank-you. I’ve had amazing rooms in Chicago, Vancouver, Victoria, Guanajuato, and Hannover. Sometimes the manager will leave something in your room – chocolates, wine, a fruit and cheese platter. Of course, there was also the free adult film channel in Edmonton back in ’99.So, I was quite happy to walk into a Jr. Suite at the Hilton in Québec after the bus ride from Chicoutimi yesterday. King-size bed, tub big enough for two, and a great view of the old city from the 15th floor. Plus, a little assortment of maple syrup products that I’ll toss in the suitcase beside the jar of blueberry jam I got from the Holiday Inn Saguenay.