I got in to the Sunriver Resort community around 10:30 p.m. Tuesday night, unpacked and promptly went to bed. The festival started right off the bat this morning with a 9:30 a.m. rehearsal. We worked on Schumann’s First Symphony “Spring” and the Beethoven Third Piano Concerto with Van Cliburn silver medalist Yeol Eum Son. I forgot how much I love the Schumann, in spite of its orchestration oddities. It’s such a good-natured piece. The Beethoven 3rd is the piano concerto that I’ve performed the least of the five that he wrote (nos. 4 & 5 are played SO often). It was great to get reacquainted with this gem after quite a few years.
There were some other surprises as well – principal flutist Adam Kuenzel brought along his wooden flute this year, for some of the pieces (for others he will use his super cool gold flute) – and I just love the sound of the modern wooden flute. It has such a unique, organic tone (I almost typed “woodsy”) that I am enjoying very much in Adam’s capable hands.
Between rehearsals, I chatted with my hosts, then set out to find a route to cycle. I had in the back of my mind that I wanted to try the ride up to Mt. Bachelor again, but wasn’t sure that I wanted to do it early in the festival. I ended up setting out on the road to Bachelor anyway, with the thought that I’d do a 20 or 30 mile round-trip. As I started in on the first set of real climbs, I started to think to myself that if I were going to go to the trouble to start the climb, I may as well finish it. I wasn’t sure if I had the strength/stamina to do it at this point, especially with the starting altitude being around 4150 feet. Add to this the fact that there was some cloudy weather moving in, pushed by some brisk winds that were either cross or head wind through the entire ascent. I made a cut-off time of 5:30, that would ensure that I’d get back home by 6:30 so that I could eat something, change, and get to the evening rehearsal. It was a tough ride up, some stretches were covered at only 5-6 miles per hour, but I made it up to the top at 5:29 p.m.! And the ride back down was incredible fun – no car traffic at all, and I got up to 42 mph in places!
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So, the evening rehearsal. We started with the piece that we’re playing for the kids’ concert on Sunday afternoon – Peter and the Wolf by Prokofiev. Our principal bassist Frank Diliberto let ably from the podium, while Lawrence Leighton Smith narrated with some interesting changes of the well-known story. I’m not sure what exactly will happen at the concert. We then rehearsed the lovely, sparkling Divertimento, K. 131 of Mozart. This piece was on one of the first CD’s that I ever owned, a classic recording by Orpheus, and it’s such a great piece by a young composer of just 15 years. After a break we came back to rehearse the two solo selections that will be played by our new concertmaster at the SRMF, Jun Iwasaki. He played the Dvorak Romance and Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending with a warm, polished sound.