Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Thread alerting us about upcoming important concerts?

I said I wouldn't travel even if I lived in a remote area without easily available concerts. Maybe part of my thinking is due to the endless number of performances on Youtube.

Well, if Youtube is like a concert to you, then maybe your are alive at the right time in history

So?

As they say, "what's your point".....

You didn't have to leave NYC to hear her play.

Which is not a surprise since you live in the 6th largest city in the world as ranked by urban area population. It would be a surprise if you said <some major performer> had never given a concert in NYC.

This is a great thread. I know many people that travel hours to see a huge name pianist/performer. It's not uncommon at all.

I also enjoy reading about the events various people are going to, even though I probably won't go.

Exactly.

I don't know if there's a pianist I'd travel far to watch; but years ago I flew to Amsterdam to watch the Bangles perform. Last year I flew to London to watch "Harry Potter and the cursed child". And I haven't even mentioned football fans who travel all around Europe to watch their favorite team play.

So if you want to travel far to watch a piano concert: Go for it.

About half a century ago, I travelled to Amsterdam to watch Amadeus - OK, I happened to be there while on a budget (read: penniless) 'backpacking' Inter-Rail trip around Europe, and even though it cost me one night's accommodation in a youth hostel, I couldn't wait until I'd returned to the UK to watch it, such was my addiction to all things Mozartian. And it was worth it, even if I had to put up with the Dutch subtitles (the movie of course wasn't dubbed, unlike what happens in France and some other countries).

I get the brochure sent to me automatically by post every year from the Schubertiade which is held in Schwarzenberg and Hohenems (Austria), with the delights in 2018 including Sabine Meyer playing the Brahms Clarinet Quintet, Khatia Buniatishvili playing Brahms's Sonata No.3 and Tchaikovsky/Pletnev and Rach's Cello Sonata, Christoph Prégardien and Ian Bostridge singing Schubert, Igor Levit playing the Diabelli, Hamelin playing Beethoven/Liszt, and the pièce de résistance, a mandolin & accordion duo (Avi Avital & Ksenija Sidorova) playing Mozart, Bach, Villa-Lobos and Bartók. Almost irresistible, especially in such idyllic locations.....except that I almost always find somewhere else exotic to travel and climb instead .

Maybe next year.......

You're looking at this through a remarkably narrow lens.

A few things:

-- What good does that do me now? She's not playing in NYC, nor probably any time soon.

-- I didn't go then. Maybe you might say that's my mistake, and maybe it was. But, maybe someone just wasn't particularly in a mindset of going to concerts at that time (or times), but is now? What if someone didn't go because he just didn't know -- we can even say, maybe it was because we didn't have a thread like this one at that time? Or that it was before this site existed, maybe before this person was on the internet at all and just wasn't much plugged into what concerts were going on?

-- Running through all this, you're looking at this exquisitely personally, which is fine -- for yourself. It takes no account of what might be relevant for others.

April 30, also at Carnegie.

I'm planning on seeing Marc-Andre Hamelin at Stern Hall on Nov 15th. Never seen him play in person before, not sure if I should be excited or scared of being demoralized.

Hamelin’s concert last week was thrilling. I had heard of him as a brilliant technician and so I expected a cold or sterile performance. Instead: he played a quite varied selection of works — including a long rather modern piece by Feinberg that wasn’t really to my taste — with such commitment and daring (including a couple of little wobbles, or so it seemed) that I eagerly joined in the standing ovation before the intermission. His playing conveyed how deeply interesting this music is to him, and that made me interested in it too. Knocked my socks off! Made me want to be a more daring player, to worry less about hitting every key perfectly and instead to think more about how to deliver to a listener what I love about the music I am playing. Commitment and daring! (And try to hit the right notes too.)

Yeah, these are Big Thoughts for someone who has been playing for less than 2 years! But still, it’s what his playing made me think. Go, and may your playing be enriched!

I live in London where we certainly have no shortage of music. But I am just about to travel to Vienna for am opera. Of course, everyone is different.

Yes.
I once went from New York to Monte Carlo for an opera.

I had gotten kind of obsessed about this particular obscure opera (Cherubin, by Massenet) because of a beautiful old poster for it (about 100 years old). I sent letters and made phone calls all over to try to find out if it was being performed anywhere. (This was long before I was on the internet.) I lucked out -- it so happened that it was being done soon, and in such a beautiful place. This was a total fluke. As I've since learned, years go by without any major performances of it. I would have gone just about anywhere for it.

I’ve always said that if Page Plant Jones and Jason play together is fly anywhere. London would be the most likely site.

Me too. I got great seats, perfect really. First tier near the front, perfect view of the keyboard.

I saw him a decade ago at Mannes I think. He played Gaspard and the Liszt sonata on the same program. Make no small plans, they say.

I’m really looking forward to this concert.

I looked it up. Oh what fun! How was it? Did you rid yourself of your obsession? I see Naxos has the video of a performance in Sardinia from 2006. I must add to my queue.

A few years ago, I traveled 330mi to see this rarely performed opera, "Oresteia" by Sergei Taneyev. It was totally worth it. Even today, I don't see any videos of Oresteia. But it will live in my memory

It was beautiful, in every way.
As Yogi Berra said after seeing some opera (true story, supposedly), "Even the music was good."

Such a beautiful setting and beautiful opera house, such a visually beautiful opera, and yeah, even the music was good.
Perhaps not the greatest music ever written but beautiful, and the cast was top-class.

And yes, the obsession ended as soon as I found out that the opera was being performed somewhere, and got the tickets.

That's so nice. And it was a nice opera house? A friend of my wife's lives part of the year in Monte Carlo and has invited us over to see them. But I've never had a good reason, except to play poker, and I can do that here in the US. Maybe I should look up what is playing... Oh, it appears one of my favorites, Verdi's Otello is playing in January. I wonder what the weather is like in January? Probably too cold.

Warmer than Washington D.C.!

Internet says:
average daily high 54° F
average daily low 46° F