Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Bronfman (stops) playing Rachmaninoff
Ok, so I may have lagged a little bit in writing about this—but I still want to talk about it. Typically there are about 100 things going on at the DSO. Between concerts, DSO events, rental events, education programs, etc. etc., there is rarely any time that’s boring or dull. But recently, there was something that happened that was extra interesting. I was at our “Bronfman Plays Rachmaninoff” concert a couple Thursdays ago, and in the middle of Bronfman playing Rachmaninoff, he STOPPED PLAYING. It was crazy. My jaw dropped. At first, I thought it must be some sort of planned performance art that I didn’t know about. It wasn’t. It was a stuck key and Bronfman didn’t want to continue playing until it was fixed. So obviously this whole thing could have been a disaster—had Bronfman been a poor sport he could have walked off stage, had Peter Oundjian (the evening’s conductor and the DSO’s Principal Guest Conductor and Artistic Advisor) gotten upset with Bronfman it could have thrown the whole concert out of whack, had the audience not been patient they could have left… But none of that happened. What happened? Bronfman and Oundjian turned it into a comedy routine! It was unbelievable. And very, very funny. They took what could have been a really terrible, uncomfortable moment and turned it into something really special. And I think the entire audience felt that way—they witnessed something they would never forget. I know for myself, I’m really, really glad I was here to witness this particular “disaster.” I’ll always remember it.Oh, I forgot to tell you how it was fixed—the DSO actually has a piano technician, Hugh Gulledge, who is in-house whenever a piano soloist is performing. He was called to the stage and proceeded to dismantle the keyboard (in front of about 1,800 people) and repair the key. All in about 15 minutes. The audience was quite impressed--- and then the concert continued.
See, you never know what might happen here!
Labels: 06-07 season, audience
posted by Mari at
2:32 PM
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