There seems to be some kind of curse on my travelling to the US this year. Already the trip to San Diego was in both direction hindered by missed or cancelled planes. To Utah the same thing, and now I had to fly to Nashville....It started already on the day of my departure. My original flight from Berlin via Frankfurt and Washington was supposed to leave at 2:35 pm on Feb 13. That gave me enough time to practice in the morning, go to my weekly tennis lesson (which I missed already 4 times in a row this year...), shower, pack, lunch with wifee and travel - well, when I got home after tennis at 11:50 am there was a message on my cellphone informing me, that my flight Frankfurt-Washington had been cancelled, the only chance would be to fly via Munich, at 12:50 pm.

Just got back to the hotel after playing a run-out performance with the Utah Symphony in Ogden, 32 miles from Salt Lake City.I had to play one of my favourite concerti, the Sinfonia Concertante by Prokofiev, a piece which works really well if one takes the markings of the composer seriously - shaves off about 10 minutes from performances. Actually rather simple: just don't drop to half speed whenever there is a slow tune to milk. Think long lines, think like a singer, and immediately the piece grows and becomes much more effective.

I am never sick. Actually I am normally even bragging about my desire to "sick", thinking of being able to stay in bed all day, to read books, papers, to listen to music, hoping of hot tea and the pity of the loved ones... Well, what can I say - after the snow storm in Dallas couldn't stop me on my way back to Europe, and the century storm "Kyrill" two days later delayed my homecoming from Jersey for only  five hours, it was my son Janos who gave me his infection - a little flew.

Bob asked in one of the last Blogs how my Reger went last week. The situation was that I tried to force myself to learn music which I have to play respectively record next year.