On Tour with my son János
For the first time ever I had to take my son János to concerts with me, because his mother has some on her own somewhere near Miami.
At least he is an experienced world traveller: his first trip came at the tender age of 10 weeks from New York to Puerto Rico, where his grandfather had some serious heart problems. For him the 16-hour travel (door to door) from Berlin to Vancouver was a piece of cake. Loaded with homework from school we started this exciting father-son adventure. First thing upon our arrival was a visit to the gym and the pool, after which we fell into our bed like stones. I love this feeling of complete emptiness after having travelled into a completely different timezone (9 hours difference), and then sleeping for 12 hours is the most refreshing and cleansing experience.
He only agreed to the trip because I promised him to take him skiing on the day between the two concerts, which will be tomorrow. Yes, some playing to do before, dress rehearsal in 2 and a half hours, concert in the evening, but then - off to Whistler, place of the Olympic Games 2010. Skiing all day Sunday, and probably until 2 pm on Monday in order to get back in time with our little rent-a-car for the second performance of the Shostakovich No.1 with the exellent Vancouver Symphony with my friend Hannu Lintu, crazy, highly musical and expressive Finnish conductor - so much fun working with him. We recorded my next "Romantic Concerto" disc on Hyperion together (Schumann, Gernsheim, Volkmann, Dietrich concerti), one of the most intense collaborations. Lots of yelling and pounding, a real fight for the right interpretation. The result? Don't know, can't really judge my own playing, but the producer loves it :)
I actually wanted to go running in the gym while Janos was still sleeping, but he got up before, so I decided to check mails first, write a little blog while witnessing with him on my lap the destruction of our soccer team Hertha, guests at league-leading Werder Bremen. 3:1 already until Halftime, and the chief of the defense is out with injury (so are the two goalgetters and the creative midfielder Yıldıray Baştürk) - no chance for the poor Berliner... :(
You see, being on tour can be more entertaining than one would think from the outside, even though I will squeeze some hours of serious practicing in today!