YAAAAAY!!

I´m finally back home! I was marooned in Bangkok for three days. Volcanic ashes and all that. I know, not very original anymore but I have to mention this because there were some implications.

On Sunday the 18th of April after the concerts with the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra in Kuala Lumpur I took a flight to Bangkok in order to continue with Finnair to Helsinki. The latter flight, naturally, didn´t exist. Next day, when there still weren´t any signs of flights to Europe, I decided to cancel this weeks concerts with the Tapiola Sinfonietta. We had a rehearsal scheduled already for Monday afternoon. Finally on Wednesday the 21st after a considerable struggle I was able to get a seat for the first flight operating to Helsinki. This flight went otherwise well but finally landed in Oulu, a city in Northern Finland. On Thursday morning (5.45am) I took a train and came home at noon. Now I´m actually able to go to Tapiola and listen to the concerts I cancelled...

I have mixed feelings about this. Canceling concerts is the last thing I want to do and being stuck far away from home without having any idea when to get back is a surprisingly unpleasant feeling. However I was fine all the time and an obligatory rest of three days in the middle of a hectic spring season didn´t feel bad. Now one of my main concerns is how to get a visa to Moscow for Sunday evening.

Thanks for all your support and encouraging messages, they cheered my up a lot. The atmosphere in my Bangkok hotel was like a modern version of "Il Viaggio a Reims": people from all over the world stuck in the same hotel trying not to become too bored. Since I didn´t have much scores with me I spent time by reading (Kazuo Ishiguro´s "Nocturnes"), sleeping and observing the bizarre and dangerous traffic on the Chao Phraya-river. It was also quite entertaining to follow the movements of friends and colleagues via mail, SMS and Facebook. I´ve been very impressed by the heroic train/ship combinations some of them have found.

An internet columnist wrote yesterday that this is a warning: "the jet set traveling is coming to an end". No it isn´t. Traveling never stops. J.S. Bach walked 200 miles to hear Buxtehude, the 18th and 19th century musicians made extensive tours in coaches and the performers of the early 20th century took steam ships to South America. We fly. That´s what the people of our time do and I´m sure that if flying for some reason becomes impossible, we would sooner or later find other ways how to travel.

In Kuala Lumpur the MSO was adventurous enough to program a combination titled "Finnish Legends" with two movements from the Lemminkäinen op 22 and Einojuhani Rautavaara´s Symphony no 7 "Angel of Light" which I haven´t conducted for years. Rautavaara´s music is about sound and that´s exactly the feature which speaks to the audiences around the world. Young Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang played the six Humoresques by Sibelius in a most convincing way. Not only could she play all those devilishly difficult passages without any technical problems but she was also able to find meaning and beauty when Sibelius himself seems to be slightly lost. I´m very happy we have invited Vilde Frang to Tampere in October for the Brahms Concerto. Be there. She´s something very special.