Monday, heading home

The giant travel case for Calum's doublebass waits sadly to be stowed under the bus as we leave Flörsheim early Monday morning, and Nurhan takes a last photo with Herr Rolf. Herr Rolf's professionalism was an important part of the tour. He made extra trips several times to change buses, to ensure safety when snowtires were needed and enough space when Calum had to use the travel case in addition to his regular soft case.

Phoebe gets ready to board, while Ani and Mig and Julian wheel on over.
Mary-Beth left long before dawn to catch a flight to Rome instead of Toronto -- her next gig is a performance of the Mozart Requiem in the Vatican, before returning to Toronto for our December concerts. But the rest of us are heading out at 9 am.
Waiting in the airport: Chris, Albina, sweetly-sleeping Christine, Andras, Liza.

Little did we know just how long we'd have to wait... When our plane had been towed away from the terminal and started on towards the takeoff runway on its own, we came to a quick halt. A small flock of trucks with technicians and equipment clustered around, but after a series of updates from the pilot during a long delay, all the baggage and passengers were offloaded back to the terminal to wait for a new plane. Taking off several hours and some sandwich-vouchers later, we arrived back in Toronto about 5 hours after the originally scheduled time. Not a problem for most of us, but a little hard on Xiaohan, who was worried about arriving in time to get a new connection to Montreal.

Now we'll wait to receive the rest of the reviews... The one we have already from Kassel is excellent. But we already know that every concert was a big success. Everyone in the orchestra gave 500% to every note, and all the audiences responded so warmly to each piece! We were really happy that each audience clearly enjoyed our "Can-con" a lot. We're proud to have represented Canadian culture in Europe, and greatly appreciate the support we received from the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council for the tour.

Sunday, Flörsheim-am-Main

Vineyards seen through the bus window on the way to Florsheim-am-Main, and solar panels on the roof of a house. We saw solar panels on many buildings, still more evidence of Germany's commitment to developing environmentally benign sources of energy.

Our four star hotel's automated tv greeting system welcomed us in each room as Mrs. or Mr. Sinfonia Toronto!







The concert venue, St. Gallus-Kirche, is named for a devoted monk who tended city residents during the Black Death in the 15th Century and finally died of the Plague himself.

The church is close to the Main River, a short two-block stroll through a historic residential neighbourhood.

The interior of the church is an elaborate testament to faith.

The many marble surfaces reflect sound so vibrantly that carpet must be laid down to cover the altar floor for most concerts, to allow soft passages to be heard as composers intended. The carpet for our concert was put in during the rehearsal break, and it made a big difference. With the carpet in place the acoustics were superb.

No one minded taking a longer break than usual during the rehearsal while the carpet was put down, because the manager of the series, Ms. Haidi Schilling, had organized an amazing buffet of tea, coffee, juices, fruit and traditional German Christmas sweets for us.
Ms. Schilling kept every smallest detail meticulously on track all afternoon and evening in the most graceful yet apparently-effortless way imaginable.

With the checkerboard marble floor exposed during the first half of the rehearsal, then covered with grey carpet during the concert. The program: Janacek Suite, Schubert Rondo, MacMillan "Two Canadian Sketches," Dvorak Serenade.

In each city before, the orchestra received prolonged applause and had to play two encores. After the second encore here, the entire audience gave the orchestra a standing ovation, not a common event in Germany!

This year the church is celebrating the 300th anniversary of its beautiful organ with a whole season of special concerts, in addition to the regular Gallus-Konzerte series that featured our performance. The organ keyboard sits within an unusual double gallery at the rear of the nave, framed by musical bas-reliefs on the walls nearby.


When we went out to cross the courtyard to the parrish house for the reception after the concert, we found ourselves in a picturesque Christmas-card scene.








The concert took place from 5:30 to 7:30, so there was ample time afterwards to chat with concert sponsors and enjoy some wonderful hors d'oeuvres during the reception.
Nurhan with, from left, Herr Gunter Engelke of the Deutsch-Kanadische Gesellschaft, one of the Flörsheim sponsors, Diocesan Music Director and Gallus Konzerte programmer Martin Falk, District Magistrate Herr Berthold Gall, Prof. Michael Schneider, Sinfonia Toronto President Mig Migirdicyan.

Martin and Ani; Mary-Beth and Raffi

Agapi and Attila,
a friend of Raffi's and Nurhan's
who drove over from Coblenz
for the concert.

Back at the hotel, everyone had to pack one last time and get some sleep before boarding the bus at 9 am Monday morning to go to the airport, but no one wanted to finish the tour. We've been having such a great time together, everyone wanted it to keep going. We took over the garden room of the hotel bar, pushed all the tables together, and kept a circulation of people trading seats and floating in and out from upstairs long into the night...

Saturday, Bensheim

It's a three-and-a-half hour trip from Kassel to Bensheim, so we left soon after breakfast, starting out with a lot of retaliatory photo-snapping on the bus. Here's Martin aiming past Mig and Ani, and a nice shot of Susanne in the guide's seat up front. She rode there much of the time, and often went on the sound system to provide gracious commentary about the places we passed, as well as giving an overview of each day's schedule.


We passed lines of wind turbines many times, like the one out the window behind Mary-Beth. Germany is a world leader in using this technology. The turbines really aren't an eyesore in the landscape, they don't look bad at all. Canada should get going with lots of them soon!



The Ramada hotel in Bensheim was quite a contrast from the traditional-style hotels in the other cities so far -- lots of structural elements exposed outside as well as in the lobby, and vivid Miro-inspired, primary-colour decor in the hallways and guest rooms.

After a quick check-in, arrival at the Parktheater for rehearsal.

From left: Liza, Phoebe, Xiaohan, Albina, Tony, Nurhan, Mary-Beth,
Martin, Praise, Sarah, Emily, Calum, Julian, Andras.

The interior of the theatre was also the most contemporary
of all the halls on the tour.


Members of the orchestra tap their bows to applaud
Mary-Beth's performance of the Schubert Rondo.
The program in Bensheim: Janacek Suite, Schubert Rondo,
Sarasate Zigeunerweisen, MacMillan "Two Canadian Sketches,"
Tchaikowsky Serenade.

After the concert, the Kunstfreunde Bensheim generously hosted drinks and supper at the nearby Bakus Wine Cellar. The local wines were terrific!
From left: Dr. Helmut Schroth, Chairman of the Kunstfreunde Bensheim, Calum, Sarah, Mary-Beth, Julian; Raffi, Nurhan, Dr. Schroth.

Friday, Warburg

Before departing for Warburg on Friday morning, we enjoyed a sightseeing tour around Kassel on our bus. The Fredericianum Museum was the first museum in Europe to be established for the benefit of the general population, a radical step away from the norm of private collections open only to the most privileged members of society.



















On several streets we saw the continued legacy of a huge installation-project by Joseph Beuys for Kassel's international Documenta art festival -- some of the 5,000 paired plantings of trees together with large rectangular stones, a living, city-wide sculpture.




When our bus climbed up to the famous statue of Hercules that towers over the amazing waterfall-allée in the 5-kilometre-long mountainside park that leads down to the Wilhelmshöhe Palace, we arrived in the midst of a snowstorm and fierce wind, so we didn't stay out of the bus for long.

But of course when we drove back down the mountain the sun was out and there wasn't a speck of snow ... leading Susanne and Raffi to declare that of course the snow had occurred just for the benefit of all us Canadians!

Here's the non-snowy view up towards Hercules from the

city, near the Palace at the other end of the park, which
gives an idea of the huge size of the statue itself and
the building that forms its base.

Arriving in Warburg, Emily, Phoebe, Martin and Tony
head for the hall in the Gymnasium Marianum

as do Liza and Praise.

The concert couldn't have taken place in a more spectacular

and romantic location. The hall is in two of the higher levels of
a 6-level school building built down the mountainside, with its
entrance at the top level from a road running along the wall
remaining from a medieval fortified monastery. The 16th-Century
building on the other side of the road is still in use for businesses
and apartments, and the city's historic cathedral looms behind
the school, also perched on the very edge of the upper city.

Between the rehearsal and concert we had dinner in a nearby
Greek restaurant. Raffi had taken pre-orders from everyone and
the staff there were wonderful about serving quickly so we
could fit the meal in without getting too close to the concert.
Everything was excellent, but Nurhan was a bit disappointed
to find it's not the custom in Germany to bring in the saganaki
still flaming and yell "opa!" while dousing it at the table...

From top and left: Phoebe, Andras, Emily, Praise, Xiaohan, Liza, Albina, Sarah; Susanne, Peter Ernst and Olaf Krane from the Warburger Meisterkonzerte series, Nurhan; Julian, our very kind and helpful driver Herr Rolf, Raffi, Julian, Susanne, Peter, Olaf.

On stage in the striking hall, with a restored traditional stained glass window framed by a dramatic arch. Nurhan and the rest of the orchestra join the audience in applauding Mary-Beth's solo performance of Schubert's Rondo in A Major and Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen. The program also included the Janacek Suite for String Orchestra, MacMillan "Two Canadian Sketches" and Dvorak Serenade.

The concert series was already looking forward to Christmas, with almost-lifesized bentwood reindeer and topiary holly trees in the lobby and pointsettias on stage. At the end of the concert every member of the orchestra was given a beautiful Christmas spray and Mary-Beth and Nurhan received seasonal bouquets of roses, pine, holly and cinnamon.

Thursday, Kassel

At a rest stop en route from Fulda to Kassel, Tony looks over the beautiful countryside, Nurhan has some water before getting back on the bus, and Susanne takes a call on her "handy" -- German slang for a cellphone.

Xiaohan in front of our hotel on arrival in Kassel. The schedule here is tight, with only an hour or so to get organized in the hotel before heading off to the Friedenskirche for rehearsal and the concert. We have to take concert clothes along, because there isn't much time between the rehearsal and concert either, just enough for some snacks provided in the parrish hall and a quick change of dress before tuning and the downbeat.
















The acoustics in the Friedenskirche were really excellent, making it a bit easier to interact comfortably after such a jam-packed schedule all day. The Kassel program consisted of the Elgar Serenade, Dvorak Serenade, MacMillan "Two Canadian Sketches" and Tchaikowsky Serenade.

The concert was supported by a very major sponsorship from the KasselerBank, whose chairman gave an eloquent welcome to the orchestra and many invited guests at the opening of an elegantly catered reception.










Canada's Cultural Attaché Astrid Holzamer travelled to Kassel from the Canadian Embassy in Berlin, and after the concert a lovely reception was sponsored by the Embassy.
From top: Nurhan and Mig with Ms. Holzamer; Mary-Beth chats about the orchestra with Mig, Ms. Holzhamer and impresario Andrea Hampl; Liza and Albina share a small-world moment with a Canadian musician who is now a member of the Orchestra of the Kassel State Theatre, the oldest orchestra in Europe.



Portrait of two happy and tired violinists after a great concert... Mary-Beth and Martin at the reception.