Russia, England - two nations, one orchestra!

[wongkk]

This week I was lucky enough to get to a huge battle of a symphony concert at London's Royal Festival Hall, whose ample 1951 stage was crammed with an army of players from both the Russian National Orchestra and the London Philharmonic under the baton of Maestro-General Vladimir Jurowski.  The programme included Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture (has

Comments

[brotherskeeper1]

I cannot imagine such a grand scale performance! It must have been quite an experience o have 2 great orchestras playing together. I wish my grandson who is now in the St. Louis Youth Symphony Orchestra (which is as high as anyone can go until they finish their music degree) could have seen the performance. He would have loved it.

[wongkk]

It was an awesome experience - I can't really imagine any other activity which co-ordinates so many people to such a fine degree of attention and accuracy for so long.

The concert was sold out but my clever US friend managed to get 2 returns when she arrived in the UK. I was extremely lucky to be there. Hopefully your grandson will have more opportunities when he is a bit older and not tied up with studying. It is a privilege to live within an hour's travel of London as so many great performers choose to play in London - lucky me, indeed!

[ditch_gospel]

It sounds like it must have been impressive. Were there 130 musicians? Is this an unusually large number for a performance? I don't know anything about this sort of stuff! It's cool that they use actual ship bells in the performance.