Wednesday 27 April 2011

SK841, destination: Zurich

Blog entry 27th of April

'There's no use trying' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things'. (Alice)
'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was younger I did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

I love this quote. It's funny, but true. Always believe, always. Your goals in life will never be achieved if you don't believe they will. It's a while since I read the book about Alice, but I always carry with me the Queen's words. At Oslo airport I bought myself a book before boarding the plane, and what a nice surprise that the first words in the book were actually this particular quote! I had to include it in this blog entry ;)

I'm at the moment a big Kurt Weill fan. I've been for quite a while actually, but just bought myself a CD with Anne Sofie von Otter recorded in the early nineties, and wow! What a voice for this music. Listening to it at the moment ;) I could of course go on and on about the music I love and artists I really admire, but let's take one at a time, shall we?

At the end; just a little encouragement to all of you loud talking gentlemen at planes, not everything is meant for everyone to hear...

Ciao,
Tine :)

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Sunday 17 April 2011

On my way home from Brno

Blog entry 16th of April

In the air between Vienna and Oslo

I'm up in the sky again. It's been a lot of that lately... I'm sure I've already told you that I'm supposedly afraid of flying - well, I've just decided to forget all about that. It's no use when you spend so much time up here as I do. Besides, they say that flying is more safe than driving a car so...
Today the weather is perfect, no clouds which means that you can see everything that's happening on the ground as well. Not that I look down, I mean - hello - I'm afraid of heights... There's a lot of thing I'm scared of. But hey, I'm not complaining, that's just life :)

I've had the most amazing week in Brno. Brno is situated only one and a half hour driving from Vienna, and it's the second largest city in the Czech Republic. When I travel I always get a feeling of the city I'm in, if I feel comfortable, safe etc. Brno looks like a miniature version of Vienna and feels warm, welcoming and definitely both safe and comfortable. The orchestra is good, but most importantly the musicians are so generous both with their musicality and friendliness. I can say the same about their Chief conductor Alexandar Markovìc, a joy to work with. Two enjoyable concerts in a nice concert hall (a small version of Musikverein in Vienna, same architect), with a lovely and warm audience - can you ask for anything better?

It's time for my Easter holiday next week. Looking forward to spending time with my mother and little sister, I've been away so much the last month, so good to spend some nice days at home together. Lot of things to be done in our house, so I will try to be as useful as possible... Let's see how that goes!

Just some pictures from Hanover last week:


















Lovely carrot flowers!
And here from Brno:






Not easy to stay awake backstage after a long day... Don't think the Schubert Symphony had anything to do with it...









That was all from up here,
Tine :)


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Friday 8 April 2011

In a car in Germany

Blog entry 8th of April

I just fell asleep in the car. The Finnish singers were talking in Finnish, the car is very comfortable, the sun is shining through the window so it gets warm inside the car - but most importantly it got a bit late last night... woke up by my own snoring (quite embarrassing...)!
I'm in Hannover playing with the wonderful NDR Radiophilharmonie. They have a Norwegian Chief Conductor, Eivind Gullberg Jensen, and he invited us to his apartment after the concert last night. It's so nice after a performance to have some social time with the others. Extra special this week is that they have a visiting Norwegian Concertmaster, so a real Norwegian trio in front - fun ;)

As I were saying we are in the car. New concert tonight, new place but same reportoire. Hummel is a great piece to play. The concert last night was definitely fun, full hall and nice atmosphere, but some concerts I find it hard to focus - last night was one of those. I guess when you play concerts all the time it's hard to have the same concentration and focus in all of them, but I hope that it will feel better tonight. Because that's the thing, even though I might not have complete focus it still goes well (most of the times anyway... :)), it's just that I want to feel good, feel great actually, because there is nothing better than a performance were you just forget everything else and live in the music.

A friend will visit me tonight, always great to have a friendly face among the audience ;)
Including a picture of the Maestro and myself trying to figure out how to take pictures with this iPad.






That's all for now. Will enjoy tonight, try to focus - and at my early flight home tomorrow I will definitely stay awake, snoring among total strangers on a plane that IS embarrassing :)
Tine
.
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Saturday 2 April 2011

Skopje

Blog entry 1st of April

Had the earliest start ever this morning. Pick up time from hotel 2:50 am, I call that in the middle of the night... still alive though, waiting for our flight to Vienna to start boarding. If everything goes as planned I will end up in Flekkefjord, Norway, around 3 o'clock this afternoon. Just have to stop in Vienna, Frankfurt and Stavanger first ;)

But, the reason I'm writing is that I have to tell you about Skopje. I really enjoyed the two days in the capital of Macedonia. Such a nice place with a beautiful old city (our hotel was situated in that part) and so warm and welcoming people in the orchestra! Had an amazing lunch with Roza from the orchestra and the conductor at a great (and very cheap compared to Norway) French restaurant sitting outside in 20 degrees celsius!

Also so nice that one of my very best friends that I've known since we were both 6 years old, Dagrun, could come with me ;)

Here are som pictures:












Boarding now....
Tine ;)
Alexander the Great Airport, Skopje


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