Dear Readers,

I’ve been thwarted! I went out around 2:30 for some lunch, and every restaurant had finished serving their lunch menu but was hours from starting dinner. I’d forgotten that about Europe, although it’s one of my biggest frustrations here, since my favorite time for lunch is between 3 and 4 pm. Oh, and everything closes on Sunday. That doesn’t make any sense to me!

On a more positive note, the polluted air and big-cityscapes of Asia have been replaced by greenery, parks, and the scent of honeysuckle. Stuttgart is very pretty in the summer. The temperature is comfortable, and my surroundings are peaceful. The first thing I noticed when I stepped out of the airport was the birdsong. It’s so much more pleasant than the buzz of motorscooters and the whoosh of rushing traffic. At breakfast the next morning, much to my concert dress’s chagrin, I rediscovered German bacon and sausages. I think I overdosed; salad and tea are now the order of the day.

Behind the hotel, I came across a graveyard, with gravestones dating back to the beginning of the 1800s. Cemeteries in Europe are very different from those in America or Asia. Here, they are treated like parks, where people go to walk their dogs or children, wander, read, or even take naps. Trees arch over epitaphs, and benches wait in the shade. I’ve been studying and reading there in the mornings. The German book I’ve been working through seems to have helped my command of the language; I did an interview yesterday afternoon, and although I hadn’t spoken any German for months, it seems I was able to get my points across successfully. If only my daily efforts in Japanese and French would pay off! At the moment, I’m listening to the French voice-over of an American TV show. I’ll work on Japanese verb forms sometime this evening.

The orchestra, Sir Roger, and I have been rehearsing quite a bit this week. It leaves my arms tired, but I’m glad for the extra time. The Elgar’s a huge piece!

I’m off to practice.

Yours from Stuttgart,

Hilary

Dear Readers,

Here I am at Heathrow in London, somewhat peeved at the British security system. Also at the fact that gate numbers aren’t posted till shortly before boarding, making it compulsory to sit amidst waves of clashing perfume and shopping music, in a mall of overpriced items and common duty-free enticements, while waiting to be told where to go. There’s no settling in to work or think before the flight – glances at the gate assignment board every two minutes rule that out. The only people who seem thrilled to be here are a group of Japanese high school students, girls and boys alike, perusing the virtual warehouse of cosmetics and brilliantly-colored designer displays with puzzling looks of sated ecstasy on their faces. Everyone else appears perplexed, isolated, tired, overwhelmed, or numbed to their surroundings.

Well, it’s time for me to head to Gate 9, as bidden by the airport. Off I go. More later.

So, now I’m sitting at the gate, after yet another security procedure. I understand caution and appreciate efforts to keep everyone safe. But this is really too much, and I’m miffed because I don’t like being made to feel like a criminal when all I’m doing is paying an airline to take me from one city to the next. In the States, it’s common procedure to remove one’s jacket, belt, jewelry, and shoes before sending one’s belongings through the X-ray machine. That used to feel invasive, but I’m accustomed to it now. There’s no privacy when one’s larger bags are inspected in one’s absence three times a week – but I’m used to that too. (For someone like me, living out of suitcases, it’s like having a uniformed government agent rummage through one’s entire apartment and all of one’s possessions, with bomb detectors and gloves, twice weekly, just because.) What annoys me, what I’m not used to, is what I went through today just to fly to Copenhagen: security questions at the check-in counter, boarding-pass check at the head of security, a half-hour wait in line, separating everything into assigned bins yet being told not to remove my belt, necklace, or shoes, which of course set off the metal detector when walking through, then a full body rub (not even a pat-down), an inside-of-belt inspection, being commanded to remove my shoes, waiting for them to be x-rayed, putting them back on, then being shepherded with all the rest of the passengers into a specific shoe-removal/x-ray area, going through the process again, being sent to wait for my gate assignment, having my passport checked again at the gate, and finally looking at the crowd gathering to board on the plane and realizing that the Pakistani family in front of me probably had it a lot worse than I did. Even though, granted, I did have the singular experience of being asked sharply if that’s a musical instrument I was carrying, so that I could be treated to an eye-rolling and tongue-clicking by the security guard upon his receipt of an affirmative answer. We all have different challenges.

Despite this, security checks aside, I still love traveling. Surprisingly, the enforced tedium of a long flight is relaxing, and little is more exciting to me than arriving in a city without knowing precisely what awaits at the end of the day. I like living out of suitcases – it constantly reminds me what’s extraneous – and after a decade of full-time performing, I find hotels to be nearly as homey as my own apartment. I still enjoy stepping out the front door of a building and exploring whatever’s around the corner. Most of all, though, it’s hard to beat making music every day and meeting people who place great value in the arts.

Now I’m on the plane. This flight has been a while in coming: I’d switched to an evening departure when I realized that my violin needed additional in-shop adjustment after yesterday’s fingerboard maintenance, bridge touchup, and seam gluing at Beare’s. My violin proved unusually finicky until we hit just the right spots for bridge, soundpost, and tailpiece placement, and fit in one last, tiny glue job (the varnish had begun to develop an invisible but audible fault on the wing of one of the f-holes). I’m not one to adjust endlessly, so it was a relief to get it right so that my instrument can finally go back to being as stable, reliable, and beautiful as it normally is. I’ll change the strings tonight when I arrive at the hotel, and then it’s forward ho, into this last stretch of Sibelius before the recording sessions.

For now, though, I get to fly my favorite airline – SAS – to Copenhagen, a city I always enjoy visiting. The seat next to me is empty; I’ll swing my feet up and slumber until dinner is served, and then I’ll watch a TV show or listen to NPR on my iPod for the rest of the trip. Or maybe I’ll study Spanish. I’m going to Honduras in a few weeks, and for that reason, I picked up a good, thick language dictionary (with grammar and idioms) in the course of a walk around London last night. Thanks to my past French studies, it took me all of one minute to learn to count to one hundred in Spanish. Whether that will do me any good remains to be seen. Language #5, here I come!

Yours from the road,

Hilary

Dear Readers,

Another relatively short entry, but this time because my stay in this city was short and I didn’t do much besides work. (Okay, I rearranged my hotel bedding again.)

The entire Tucson/George Hanson/Sibelius engagement lasted one day. I arrived on Monday, after my day in Albuquerque interviewing Ralph (we talked for nearly three hours!) The Tucson Symphony presents three midweek concerts per season, and this was one of them, with rehearsal and concert on the same day (Tuesday). In fact, it was my Tucson debut. The weather was nice and warm, into the 80s, albeit dry. A few weeks ago, I was in North Dakota, where it was 0 degrees with a -25 wind chill. In Cleveland, it was the same. My body’s getting so confused! Now I’m on my way to Salt Lake City to continue my western tour of Sibelius.

Being in the plane and somewhat distracted, I’m reflecting on all the things that I’ve signed over the years. This was perhaps prompted by the sighting of a Tucson fan dressed in a T-shirt I’d signed a couple of years ago. Here’s a list of surfaces I recall marking with my Sharpie after concerts: programs, CDs, CD players, liner notes/booklets, calendars/planners, notebooks, diaries, postcards, iPods, iPod cases, cell phones, music, violins, instrument cases, instrument cloths, instrument bags, pictures (mine and other people’s), picture frames, mats, shirts, jeans, hands, arms, hats, a stomach (never again), tickets, handbags, walls, a helmet, posters, banners, a piano, a glasses case, random scraps of paper, books, magazines, Nalgene bottles, student IDs, security badges, wallets, cameras, press kits, DVDs, rosin wrappers, napkins, string packets, an instrument bridge, canvases, and shoulder rests – and that’s just what I remember off the top of my head. If anyone wishes to expand this list with something different and unusual, and appropriate, he/she should feel free to bring it to a signing. I don’t anticipate ever having the chance (or desire) to sign, say, an animal or a toilet, but goodness, who knows?

Yours from the road,

Hilary

Dear Readers,

Greetings from Indianapolis! I’m here to play the Sibelius concerto with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and conductor Larry Rachleff. It’s been a while since I wrote anything at all, even an email, so in this entry, I ask that you please excuse my scattered thoughts and abrupt sentence construction. I am hoping that my grasp of English will soon return. In the meantime, in the interest of getting back into the journal game, here goes.

Did you know that this particular online journal began ten years ago, before the word “blog” existed? Its inspiration was a series of postcards that I wrote to a third grade class in upstate New York. The transferring of the postcard idea to an Internet forum was my introduction to the world of computers and to the Web – and it was titled “Postcards from the Road”, complete with a stamp graphic. Consider this entry a throwback: a couple of pictures and a few brief paragraphs. I’ll be reworking the presentation of the journal soon, to better suit its current constantly-shifting format. My new web designer and I are meeting in a week to hash out such details before launching the new site.

So, about this week’s engagement here in Indianapolis.

The orchestra is playing beautifully, with vigor, musicality, and dedication; Larry is conducting with sensitivity, enthusiasm, and authority; and I’m trying to play the Sibelius as written, avoiding what I can of the traditional rhythmic push-pull that has become a hallmark of many interpretations of this piece. Whether that works or not remains to be seen. Everyone is coming together so well this week though, that I feel free to experiment, and it’s fun to try something a little different in such a familiar piece.

Speaking of trying something different, this week I pulled all the covers off the hotel bed and turned them into a thin, firm mattress on the floor. I’ve gotten tired of my spinal alignment being at the whim of whichever bed the hotel decides to provide. Pity the housekeeper, but so far, so good!

Next stop: Albuquerque, to film an interview with 96-year-old fellow Curtis alum Ralph Berkowitz. I love interviewing people, and I’m looking forward to capturing him on camera. He’ll have some great stories to tell.

Yours from the road,

Hilary