ON TOUR: RT IN AUSTRIA

First concert was last night. Handel Concerto Grosso, Bach Brandenburg No. 3, Haydn 64, Rameau Dardanus, Ravel Quartet.

A good ACO-only program. We had spent two days in Graz rehearsing hard and it paid off for our first concert in Austria’s 2nd largest city. Pop. 350 000. Only a bit bigger than Wollongong, but oh what it has! Their Musikverein compares with Vienna’s for beauty and quality of tone.

This beautiful, intact Styrian city is now famous for its compact and distinctive wines.

Styria sits to the south-west of the more famous Burgenland (home of Kracher sweet wines – Kracher passed away last year). Kracher was instrumental in getting Austrian wines on the map again after some fools put anti-freeze in their wine and froze the reputation of Austrian winemaking.

The audience appeared reserved (and quite stiff in appearance as the Austrians can be) but were obvious listeners of great intensity. They let loose at the end with and even got to their feet. Mark Padmore the wonderful English tenor who is appearing in other concerts came up to sing 'Mondnacht' from Schumann’s Liederkreis as an encore. “Is there a tenor in the house?”

Next concert is in beloved Maribor, Slovenia, which is only 50kms from Graz. Such is Europe that we are now in a Slavic country, only a hop from Austria. Doing a lot of media promoting our concerts and also the Festival in September here in Maribor. They are very proud to be the cultural capital of Europe in 2012 and we are planning on featuring the ACO in this year.

Ljubjana is building a new concert complex and only one hour away in Maribor they’re planning on the same – to be ready for 20121.

Working hard on The Red Tree with Michael Yezerski. The process involves much passing of scores and thrashing of opinions. We have 20 minutes of music out of 40 almost ready so we’re going well to schedule.

RT