The orchestra has now all safely arrived in Graz, Austria after spending the previous 24 hours on a series of flights from Sydney through Singapore and Frankfurt. Miraculously not a single bag missed the connection in Frankfurt from our Qantas flight to our Lufthansa connection. This could be attributed to the fact that our Austrian travel agent looked after every detail of our connection in Frankfurt to the extent that they had cordoned off a check-in counter for the exclusive use of the ACO, or perhaps it could just be that the God of Luggage Handling (Heathrow does not fall under his/her jurisdiction) was in a good mood and smiled upon us.
Whatever the reason we are all here and reunited with our suitcases.
Our tour manager for the next few weeks is Reinhold Göggel who has already managed to gain the orchestra’s respect and admiration by ensuring that all the rooms at our hotel in Graz were ready for us at 1030 this morning. No small feat for a group of 26 people.
The orchestra now has the next 36 hours to acclimatise to the time zone and climate of our new environment before they start rehearsals with our soloists for the tour, Mark Padmore and Sol Gabetta. Now doubt this period of acclimatisation will also involve some time for the musicians to reacquaint themselves with the shopping, food and alcoholic beverages that this part of the world has to offer, test their newly purchased cameras, and of course polish up on the repertoire we will be performing in Europe over the course of the next few weeks. I think I can already hear a violin being tuned in the room next to mine.
Graz is a beautiful European town that is dotted by hundreds of historical old buildings that were seemingly untouched by the hands of war all those years ago. Like so many other European towns, Graz is divided into two main areas – the old and the new town. Dividing these two main sections is the rapidly flowing Mur River that is presumably carrying with it the freezing waters from the nearby melting snow capped mountains.
What a great place to start our 2008 European Tour.
Damien Low
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