Lucerne and a magical experience with the Berlin Philharmonic!

On Monday, I travelled to Lucerne, Switzerland to observe rehearsals of a semi-staged version of the St. Matthew Passion with the Berlin Radio Chorus and Philharmonic under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle. Chorus master Simon Halsey arranged for me to attend all of the rehearsals, which included a nearly complete run through of the piece, a staging rehearsal with Peter Sellars, and a working rehearsal with the chorus and orchestra led by Rattle. I have included a link below, which has a description of the project as well as a short performance preview. There are also some great clips on YouTube, of both the performance as well as an interview with Peter Sellars. Additionally, I attended the final dress rehearsal of an orchestral program with the Philharmonic, which was being recorded for television and presented Tuesday evening as part of the Lucerne Festival.

St. Matthew Passion: http://www.digitalconcerthall.com/en/concert/16913/rattle-lehtipuu-padmore-rundfunkchor-berlin-sellars-tilling-kožená-owens-gerhaher-halsey-knaben-des-staats--und-domchors-berlin-jirka-bach

Three wonderful, personal connections during my stay in Lucerne:

I spent a lovely evening on Monday with a former Frankfurter classmate of mine, Franz Schaffner, who teaches conducting at the Lucerne Musikhochschule, is organist at the Fransiscan Church (see link below for beautiful pictures), and is the founder/director of the Bach Ensemble Lucerne. He is married with three lovely children and lives in a beautiful old flat in the old city. We studied together in the early 1980's and saw each other five years ago when I was in Lucerne for a project with Helmuth. It was wonderful to re-connect with him and hear about his work and life, as well as meet his family.

Fransiscan Church: http://lucerne.all-about-switzerland.info/lucerne-franciscanchurch.html

Bach Ensemble Lucerne: http://www.bachensembleluzern.ch/dynamic/page.asp?seiid=2

The second personal connection was with Katherine Skovira, a former graduate vocal performance student from the UMN, who was in Lucerne as a member of the Lucerne Festival Academy Chorus, which performed Luciana Berio's Coro for 40 voices and orchestra under Simon Rattle. We enjoyed a lovely breakfast together on Tuesday morning and then attended the Berlin Philharmonic dress rehearsal of the Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances and Stravinsky Firebird. It was also great to catch up on all that she has done since leaving the University and to hear about her experiences in Lucerne and hopes/goals for the future.

Finally, I spent a lovely Tuesday afternoon and evening with Simon Halsey after the St. Matthew rehearsal walking around the lake followed by a relaxed dinner along the river. It was wonderful to discuss his work in Berlin, his teaching in Birmingham and what lies ahead for him in terms of performance and teaching activity. One unexpected surprise -- Simon gave me a last minute comp ticket to the St. Matthew Performance, which was a very special experience having observed the preparation process for the concert up close and personal.

Simon Halsey: http://www.rundfunkchor-berlin.de/content/e1/e934/index_eng.html

All in all, a great trip to Lucerne and exactly what a sabbatical is all about!!