Yesterday I had the pleasure to attend the “Friends Private Rehearsal” at the San Francisco Symphony. If you have tickets for tonight or Thursday – boy, are you in for a treat! As a season ticket holder for the “Music for Families” series I got an invite. If you haven’t done any of these open rehearsals before, I highly recommend it – they are both entertaining and very educational.
The evening opened with a half hour lecture given by Scott Foglesong, Chair of Musicianship and Music Theory. He gave interesting insights how Brahms played on Bach-related melodies, how some of the themes in “A German Requiem” actually made it into Brahms’ earliest work which points to the long time it took Brahms to perfect this piece. And Mr. Foglesong – your German was very good, so no worries J of course this is coming from a German living here for 17 years now and who’s German friends start complaining about the American accent in his German, not to mention my Dad’s concerns about my loss of vocabulary. But I digress. Mr. Foglesong’s lecture was great, informative and most importantly passionately delivered, in short, a treat.
We then saw the orchestra rehearse. As both a fan of music in general, but also as somebody by day leading a product management team in Silicon Valley, I was totally taken by the leadership that Herbert Blomstedt exhibited. He was interacting with a group of 150+ artists – all with top capabilities in their respective musical fields – and he was always in control, a natural leader. As a German, I especially appreciated his commentary to the chorus on how to articulate some of the text, but it was also fascinating to see how he developed some of the musical aspects in the orchestra.
All in all, a real treat to be able to see how those wonderful concert experiences are practiced – how the sausage is made so to speak, German pun intended – combined with a lesson in leadership. I highly recommend to become a friend of the Symphony to get access. “A German Requiem”, combined with Selections from Chorale Preludes and Motet “Why Light is Given”, will be on tonight (Feb-19-15) as well as Friday and Saturday.
If you have or get tickets, I promise you that you are in for a treat!
StageAficionado 