London and Dallas

This has been a wonderful month for collaborations. After Hannu Lintu's Beethoven, I had the pleasure to work again with Alban Gerhardt. Playing with him is like putting on a pair of comfortable slippers - it feels completely easy and natural. It's a measure of the trust I have in him that when his D string broke 2 minutes into our Wigmore Hall lunchtime concert (live radio!), I had no concern that it would be difficult for him to get back into the flow of things, and so it turned out. Poor guy, though - I'd asked for the dressing room to be locked because I had all my stuff for this long trip there, so he couldn't get in at first. He came running back on stage to enter the dressing room the back way and that was locked too! So in all there was probably 2 or 3 minutes of dead air for the presenter to fill. The irony is, he was playing on a broken bow that he'd had to superglue that morning, and had a 2nd bow on stage with him in case it broke again.

I had to leave pretty much immediately after the concert to get a flight to New York, en route to Dallas for Rachmaninov 2 with Stéphane Deneve, and I had the greatest travel luck of my life. Since there was no longer a direct flight to Dallas by the time I was leaving London, I had to stay overnight in New York and also change airport. So I landed at 9.35pm in JFK, got straight through immigration where there was no queue, hopped in a taxi (I only have hand luggage with me) and was at my hotel in LaGuardia by 10.10! Then on the flight the next morning, I had a row to myself so I lay down for 3 hours to help kick the jetlag. I can't tell you how happy I was; such bits of luck in the middle of a gruelling schedule are godsends.

I'm in the middle of things in Dallas now. We've played 2 out of 4 concerts so far, the first a little sketchy but the 2nd great. It's so nice having friends like Stéphane and his wife Åsa to spend time with; their 20 month old daughter Alma has been hilarious too. We went to an obscenely good steak restaurant yesterday. 2 more concerts and then I'm back home, which I have to say I'm very much looking forward to; it feels like a long time since I've been able to spend proper time with my wife.

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Comments

My husband and I took our vacation of the year and traveled from Oklahoma City in order to be at Meyerson in Dallas on your 2nd night there; we immensely enjoyed your performance. We selected the front row center in the terrace which enabled us to intimately feel the energy from the stage. It was so much fun! We thank you and your friend, Maestro Denève, for the wonderful evening and hope you have a safe and swift journey home to your beloved wife.

Posted by Aya & Troy on 31 October 2009