While Sitting here in my dressing room at the Philharmonie in Luxembourg (gorgeous hall) and listening to the second half of the concert through the speakers, I am able to check e-mail, write a blog, follow the Yankees loosing to the Red Sox (well, the bases are loaded in the 7th inning, ARod is up next...) and pay two bills - thanks to the Wifi in this entire space here! Where would we be without it? It really makes my life so much easier; already to be able to not having to talk on the phone constantly but instead do all the necessary communication via e-mail. The older I get the less I like talking on the phone, I find it so impersonal and tiring, and on top of it my memory has become so poorly that I don't remember anything I am saying on the phone. Since I can type almost as fast as I speak (and I am a fast speaker!) it gives me much more time at hand to do important things, like checking the sports results for example (oops, ARod just grounded out, inning over) :)

Well, time passes far too quickly - I thought I had two long, beautiful weeks off after this recording session in London (that's when I wrote the last blog), and yes, it has been two weeks, but they weren't long at all, passed so quickly with all that celebrating, family gathering, playing games and putting order in the apartment. Being the member of a huge family also brings so much diversion that time is flying by; I have four siblings, two of them have their own family with two respectively three children and rather wonderful partners - it's a joy spending time with them, but sometimes I wished I would be bored more often in order for time to stand still and not rush forward constantly. But the days are just too full. Anyway, Happy New Year to everybody who stops by and reads this!

After trying to learn and memorize these two awfully difficult concerti by Benjamin Britten and Matthias Pintscher last week in Sweden while trying to spend some quality time with my parents, my sister and our children (well, her daughters and my son!), I am finally in action again, trying to prove that my brain is still as capable as I want it to be - well, dream on, the rehearsals for the Britten weren't exactly brilliant from my part...

It is 3 am, I just finished packing my suitcase and can't even think about sleeping since the performance a couple of hours ago of the Second Shostakovich Concerto was rather disturbing for me. My 8-year old son Janos said of the second movement, that it was scary - and so was more or less the whole concerto. I felt incredibly sad while playing - don't know if it was the music itself, my pitiful playing or the presence of my poor ailing mother in the first row (must have been the first time she ever sat so close).