In Helsinki

Although I am not working a “real” job these days, I booked several days in Valo because I still need to work on many other things, even if these things are not “real” work (define real!). In addition to an office, Valo gives me a free gym, unlimited coffee drinks, including cappuccino and espresso, and an absolutely delightful breakfast and lunch buffet at a discounted price. Honestly, if I had it at home, I would rarely cook.

However, this time, I do not need to rush, and I do not need to ask to extend my hours, and I have some other life as well :). I can leave before 5 PM, and randomly wander the city.

On Tuesday, I didn’t go to coworking at all, and Boris and I biked to IKEA, had lunch there, and biked back

And on Thursday, we managed to fit in a (shorter) bike ride after I was done with my “not real” work, and then went to a concert at the Helsinki Music Center. I’ve been there multiple times, but each time, I love it more and more, and admire how well-thought-out each and every piece is!

Previously, Boris used to get ticket in the middle, and although the visibility is great from each corner, we found that you cnt’ hear a soloist well enough when you are facing the back of the orchestra (and the soloist). This time, he got the tickets in the second row, right in the middle, so it was a paradise!

The Mahler Chamber Orchestra presented three pieces: Stravinsky’s Dumbarton Oaks concerto, Mozart’s Clarnet quintet, and the best part – Folk songs by Luciano Berio, sang by Fluer Barron. She was absolutely magical, I just can’t get over it! She was also playing harp, and the last note she sang was the first note picked up by harp, and it all sounded like nothing you can imagine! I didn;t find any recordings, so you have to believe me! A magical evening!

Cultural Events

Last week marked the opening of the new theater season. So far, I attended the following events;

The Prokofiev’s Piano Sonatas concert at the Guarneri Hall. It was good (the pianist, Adam Neiman, was excellent), but the lecture before the concert was unnecessarily long and not very informative. I have a feeling that everyone was just waiting for the speaker to be done and to listen to the music. Also, because of that lecture, the concert ended later than scheduled
Dirty Dancing at Nederlander Theater. I never saw the movie, so I couldn’t appreciate all of the details my neighbor was admiring, but I liked the music, the acting, and how the dances were staged. Not out of this world, but really nice.

Liliom – John Neumeier’s ballet at Joffrey. The libretto is based on the play Liliom, which was also the basis of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel. Great, as always 🙂 (well, so far, the only ballet I didn’t like much was Eugene Onegin)

Pictures below were taken by me:

To be continued next week 🙂

Grant Park Music Festival: Broadway Sings America

I have been to two Grant Park concerts in a row, and I absolutely loved both of them! The first one was yesterday:

Since this whole season is dedicated to the USA 250th birthday, that concert featured the numbers from various musicals about different periods of American history (in a loosely chronological order).

I heard most of these songs many times, but all of them presented in one concert made them especially powerful. At the end of the program, the orchestra and chorus performed one more song, which was not in the program: “Keep Marching” from Suffs, which we just recently heard on Broadway in Chicago. And the conductor concluded the concert with a reminder how important is it in the times like this, to “keep marching.”

As I already mentioned, the GPMF series is the only way I feel I can celebrate the America’s 250th…

What a beautiful city we live in!

An Organ Concert At The Kallion Church

It was a super-fun concert, and if you look at the program and wonder how some of these pieces could possibly be performed on an organ, you are in your right to wonder! It was quite unexpected, and sometimes funny :).

The dress was bought for the occasion 😀

CSO Concerts

Last week, I attended two CSO concerts again:). On Thursday, I went with my neighbor to the concert featuring mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, who is currently the CSO artist-in -residence. I like mezzo-sopranos more than I like sopranos, and I really enjoyed her voice!

After her performance of Neruda songs, the orchestra played Walton’s 1st symphony. My neighbor, who watched a thousand times more movies than I and is very well versed in the history of American filmmaking, had heard many of his works before, and I didn’t even know his name! I think I will be forever discovering authors, artists and musician that “everyone knows,” but I am totally fine with it :).

I am a little bit embarrased to say that I paid attention to Joyce DiDonato’s appearance, especially because I was just ranting about my mom’s obsession of how the performers look, but I am still going to mention it. I figured she should be about my age, and I later checked that she was 57. She does not make attempts to hide her age, and she puts on the reading glasses when she performs, but she also wore an absolutely stanning black dress with giant golden leaves on the front, with opened back and closed neck. I do not know why I find it important to share my feelings; it was somehow empowering and reassureing: yes, wareing extravagant dresses at this age is OK; and not going for a plastic surgery or botox is OK as well.

Saturday was the day of a Family matinee at the CSO. Both Nadia and Kira were spposed to go, but Nadia had a soccer practice and a swimming lesson, so it was Anna, Kira and I. It was Mother Goose and a Cabinet of Wonders show starring Natalie Merchant. She was dancing in the asles, and the kids were taking off their seats and following her along:). It was almost a mess, but a very exciting one! Probably the best family matinee so far!

Another Concert With Mom

I think I will stop taking my mom to the concerts :). On Sunday, I took her for another one, this one was at the CheckOut, a new venue relatively close to where I live. I’ve been there several times, both on my own and with my mom. She is always complaining that the sound is not good enough, and the venue allows her to be super-close to the performer, and see and hear everything.

To be quite honest, this concert was a disappointment for me. To put it politely, it looked like the performer used to be an excellent piano player many years ago, and now is rapidly losing it.

I know that this can happen even with the most outsatnding musicians. I will never forget how I went to listen to Van Clyborn concert at Ravinia many years ago, and he was not even that old, but it was a micerable experience.

My mom didn’t get what was going on, but she was saying that “the movements of his hands were not in sync with the sound,” which was totally her imagination and that “it was bum-bum-all the same over and over,” which was also not exactly the case.

I have another pair of tickets for both of us for the concert on May 3, but I looked at the program and at the performers and realized that it wil be another “what is his national origin,” situation, so most likely I will return these tickets. Actually, than was a replacement for the concert which I could not attend because of my travels, and I knew it won’t be an adequate one, so I do not have big regrets!

And More CSO

That was the third CSO concert I attended within one week. This one was last Thursday, and I went with my neighbor, with whom I attend most of the events. The conductor was Andrey Boreyko, and the featured soloist was Evgeny Kissin. I told my neighbor that the first time I saw Kissin performing was when he was nine years old, and I still remember it, because he sounded extraordinary. Well, 40+ years later, he is definitely a great pianist, but I somehow felt like he lost his spark, or just was not at his best.

The technique is flawless as usual, but it didn’t touch me as much as I thought it would, and I attribute that to Kissin not putting his whole soul into this performance. I do not know how to better describe what I felt.

You won’t tell any of that, looking at the pictures below, so I am willing to accept it was just me.

One more note. One of the pieces performed was a Suite from the Tale of Tsar Saltan, and even the program notes stated that the Flight of the Bumblebee is the only music from Rimsky-Korsakov that the world knows. The audience became very enthusiastic with the first sounds of this part of the suite, and even my neighbor pushed my elbow 😂. Well…

Helsinki Music Center

On Friday evening, we went to one more concert. Once again, it was in the Helsinki Music Center, which I first visited last time, and loved it. This time, it was Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. The concert was titled “I Want to Be Alive”, and that was the name of the piece which was performed after the intermission, and was composed by Daníel Bjarnason. OK, I know it sounds confusing, so let me say it again. Daníel Bjarnason was conducting, but the first part featured Wagner and Szymanowski, and in the second part, the orchestra performed the piece composed by Bjarnason, which was called “I Want to Be Alive.” And that’s also how the whole concert was called.

Once again, I love this venue!

Once again, sitting on the side when there is a soloist, is a bad idea. Boris said he remembered I said so, but he got the tickets on the side again, and it was a bad idea again/ The orchestra sounds great. The soloist when there is no orchestra, also sounds great. But not together. You have to face both the orchestra and the soloist to get a good sound.

And one more, completely unexpected! We saw Esa-Pekka Salonen in the foye!!! First I thought: no, it’s impossible; it’s just someone looking like him, because otherwise, there would be a big crowd around, and he is just talking with a couple of people. But later, when we passed by one more time, I realized that Finns were just being polite, because other people were turning their heads back after they passed this group :).

Below is some interesting art on display in the foye, and a sculpture in front of the Music Center.

… and yes, a million years ago, there was such a thing as an ice-cream after going to the movies, right?

The CheckOut Piano Series

The Checkout is our new “local” venue. I’ve been there twice already (here is one of the posts), and when they announced the Sunday Matinee Piano series, I decided to take my mom there, hoping it would be less stressful for her than going to the CSO.

The concert was brilliant! Same as during my previous visit, I enjoy the unique opportunity to hear an exceptional performer in a very intimate setting. The performer, Feiyi Liao, is a doctoral student at Northwestern, and he performs not only with exceptional techniques but also with a heart and soul.

The program was “classic” (Mozart, Gershwin, and Franz Liszt), but each piece sounded like “for the first time”. I chose the seats so that my mom could see the performer’s fingers over the keyboard (if that’s not the case, the concert is lost for her). She liked it :).

This Yamaha concert grand was donated to the CheckOut by Piano Forte. Beautiful sound, and the primary reason for the Solo Piano Series

Leopold Museum And The Concert

Looking at the posts about our previous visit to Vienna in 2022, this one and that one, it appears to be hopeless – I was complaining about the cold weather back then, and promised to get there in better weather, and we came back for even worse weather!

Also, I still haven’t done my homework on Modernism in Vienna, but at least this time, we had more time to explore. After Belvedere, we headed to the Leopold Museum, which was partially under reconstruction last time, and this time, we spent a lot of time there. It was a more in-depth dive into the New Objectivity, Modernism, Kimpt and Schiele, Secession and Women’s Rights, and the artists in the exhibit were pretty much the same we saw in other museums, so I won’t repeat myself. The Leopold Museum has an excellent online collection that you can tour.

I liked a four-minute movie with the tram going through Vienna in the early 1900s (don’t remember the exact year). It always feels surreal to see people “live” more than a hundred years ago, and it’s surprising how much alike things look (you want to say these are the same trees :)), and the people waiting at the tram stop. It’s also interesting how little the men’s clothing changed since then, and how much the women’s clothing changed 🙂

Several pictures of the museum interior, a couple of interesting objects, and paintings: