Wandering through the mecca of classical music is what we call a vacation. Home to so many amazing musicians and composers throughout the centuries, no culture appreciates this art form quite the same way the Viennese do.
Our trip to Vienna was based largely on musical hot spots. A walk through Stadtpark past the Strauss King and the famous Kursalon, a quick stop at Beethoven's Pasqualatihaus, Beethoven's Heiligenstadt House, and Sunday morning mass at St. Augustine's with a complete orchestra and choir. Beautiful!
Winter stroll through Wien's Stadtpark
Riding the straßenbahn around the Ring
Beethoven's Pasqualatihaus-- where he worked on many of his symphonies and his only opera, Fidelio
Hofburg
We spent our Sunday morning at the Augustinian Church around the corner from the Hofburg. Their Sunday morning mass is famous in Vienna, complete with a concert, full orchestra and choir. A beautiful (and chilly) way to start the day.
Augustinerkirche
Sunny ride to Heiligenstadt
Visiting Beethoven's Heiligenstadt house
We took the straßenbahn out to Heiligenstadt to visit one of Beethoven's former residences. At the time when Beethoven lived here it was a rural district of Vienna. The Heiligenstadt house is where he composed the Pastorale symphony. It's a special feeling to visit a place where a musical master once lived and worked.
Our nightly strolls near the Ring brings us to the center of Vienna, the world famous Staatsoper. Hopefully our next trip to Vienna will include a performance in this amazing venue.
An evening at the Musikverein is a musician's dream. Where better can you hear waltz music and Strauss? In short, no where. Vienna is the best place to celebrate and admire waltz music. We had so much fun. It was really a magical evening.
We did not hear the Vienna Philharmonic, but attended a concert by the Wiener Ring- Ensemble. A smaller chamber group consisting of members of the Vienna Phil. We give the performers credit for trying to inject some humor into the performances. Perhaps it was geared towards a 75+ aged crowd, but still very entertaining. The very drunk man behind us found it hysterical. But of course, hearing such beautiful music and admiring top notch musicianship is always invigorating and inspiring.
At intermission, Jaap snuck a peak at the Großer Saal where preparation were underway for the big New Year's Concert that was going to take place two days later.
Here's Jaap at Café Museum before the concert. Not as funky and interesting as I remember from being a student. (It's now part of a franchise of cafés--blah). But what place isn't interesting when I have this handsome hubby to stare at all evening?
One night in Dubrovnik we went to the symphony as part of the Summer Festival of Dubrovnik. We watched the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra perform an evening of J.S. Bach music in an open air atrium complete with a warm summer breeze. We got tickets for a performance in the Rector Palace Atrium, a Renaissance style palace in the center of Old Town. Attending concerts on vacation are becoming a tradition for us and I love the variety of performances we have seen abroad.
Before the concert we had a nice stroll down the Stradun and dinner at a Bosnian restaurant. Lots of skewered meat and grilled vegetables. Lekker eten!
Dear fans
of Elena's blog, it is a pleasure for me to contribute a little of my own
writing, the blog is named after me after all :)
On Sunday
July 9th, Elena and I went to Rotterdam to celebrate the North Sea Jazz (NSJ)
festival with our friend Joost Zwijnenburg. He lives in Rotterdam with his
beautiful wife Marina and daughters Nora and Suze. I have been enjoying NSJ with Joost since 1999, and although
I wasn't always in the Netherlands over the years, I think I have only missed 2
editions. Anyway, faithful readers of this blog know already that Elena and I
frequented some jazz festivals, including NSJ 2011 and Jazz Maastricht. NSJ is
a great tradition we'd like to continue for a long time! As always, Joost and
Marina are amazing hosts, and we can sleep at their place.
We took
the metro to Ahoy, quite convenient due to the threatening rain all day. A busy
jazz-lovers schedule was waiting for us there.
Joshua Redman
We
started out with some Joshua Redman, tenor sax, and artist in residence of NSJ 2012.
Last year we had plenty of time to admire him, however this year we had to
hurry to see NYC's favorite crooner, Tony Bennett. An 85 year old gentleman,
who still entertains. His songs were short (2 minutes each), but he sang many
standards. Also, he did a duet with his daughter Antonia, very sweet. It was
amazing to see this artist perform at his old age, we feel very happy to have
heard him (you don't know how much longer he will sing after all :p ).
After
Tony, we went to see a very weird big band, led by saxophone player David
Kweksilber, a guy that could be related to Kramer from Seinfeld. They played
some crazy tunes, I guess for real die hard fans, but not our thing ;)
David Kweksilber
It
stopped raining, so we enjoyed a few songs outside by Lianne La Havas, a cute
Norah Jones type, before Joost spotted a saxophone player in the program he
didn't know; Marius Neset. As NSJ offers the great opportunity to discover new
musicians, we quickly went to his concert.
This
turned out to be the best performance of the day. Marius, a 25 year old
Norwegian sax player, was playing with his quartet. It was amazing! He plays
like a young Michael Brecker, and really impressed everybody with his skills
and musicality. In one piece he started some crazy rhythmical multi-phonics, which
continued the whole piece (he can't get tired apparently) and was awesome.
Marius Neset
Next on the list was Jan van Duinkeren's Footprint, a nice hip Jazz ensemble. It was fun to learn that this trumpet player was a former (kind of) classmate of Marina. Also, during the whole days Joost would continuously run into friends, colleagues etc. Nice to see how many people he knows.
Benny Golson
An old
legend was next, tenor sax player Benny Golson (83 y), with his Dutch quartet.
Benny used to play with Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, and John Coltrane to name
a few. His repertory was full of bebop/ hard bob classics, most composed by
himself. He liked to introduce his songs with lengthy stories, but when he took
more than 20 minutes to introduce "I remember Clifford", we left....
The stories were entertaining at first, but we came for the music you know ;)
The last
concert we attended was by Benjamin Herman, a famous Dutch sax player. He had
recently composed the soundtrack from Eddie Terstal's Deal, and today he came
with a big ensemble (with lots of strings) to perform this soundtrack. I think
he spoiled most of the movie's plot by introducing all tracks, but who cares
anyway. The songs were great!
Here's an interesting video of Benjamin Herman.
This
concert concluded our NSJ 2012 experience, and it was wonderful! Thank you Joost
for introducing me to jazz and NSJ!
Our Berlin trip was about month ago, so this story is getting to you quite late. Now that life is slowing down again I have some time to share about our musical Berlin adventures. My last trip to Berlin was 11 years ago when I was a student in Vienna. I was happy to return with Jaap, but I only wish we had more time there. We've decided that we will return at some point in the future to give this city the time it deserves. It's such an interesting place.
Exploring the Tierpark
Our getaway was a band trip for a wind festival in Berlin. Jaap's hometown band, Arti, has a good concert band. Jaap began playing with them when he was just 10 and now plays with them when they are in need of a horn player. They needed a flute player and french horn player for their festival in Berlin. I was super excited when I found out I got to go on the trip with Jaap. It was so great to reconnect with my band roots again. Oh how I miss playing in band! We're such geeks and I love it. This trip reminded me of high school and college all over again. It also made me realize how much I miss playing in a proper wind band.
Arti youth band
The majority of our time was spent either in rehearsals, playing concerts, or on the bus. We literally had 5 hours of free time, so we went out exploring on our own. Here are some of the places we got to visit:
Checkpoint Charlie
Topography of Terror & part of the Wall
Reichstag
Another random place where Jaap has fallen asleep
Brandenburg Gate
No good band festival would be complete without a little party at the end. Good German food, beer, and "interesting" music. After seeing the Dutchies party to oom-pah-pah music, I now understand why they love band so much.
conga line
I loved our weekend of music, singing, and travel. There's one thing that I learned on this trip. Band geeks have no bounds. We are worldwide and we're all the same. We sing silly songs on the bus, can turn any random object into a percussion instrument at any time, and love good wind music. I felt like I was home.
Here's one example of band lovers keep themselves entertained. It became the anthem of this trip.
Today was a good follow up to yesterday's disappointing football match. We traveled to Utrecht to visit some of Jaap's friends. It was great day with fun company and lots of tall, orange people. Europe is experiencing some football fever. The European Football Championship started this Friday and Nederland's first match was yesterday. They lost to Denmark, but I still had fun watching the game with Jaap's friends. We went to a pub in Utrecht and I was surrounded by orange giants everywhere. I forget how tall Dutch people are!
Me, Angela & Billy
This morning was the Maastricht Mooiste. A race that starts and ends in the Markt for 5K, 10K, or 15K runners. This year I registered with my school board and colleagues, hence the yellow Mosalira running shirt. I ran a 5K and waited for my friend Angela to finish the 10K. It was the perfect day for a run.
Angela and I have started a tradition of finishing the race and having lunch on the Vrijthof afterwards. The perfect spot for watching the 15K runners close to the finish line. We did this last year and I think this will become an annual thing.
Later on Jaap and I took a stroll through the city and found some great live music. The city was alive today with happy runners and live music in the streets for Jekerjazz. (Jekerjazz are organized jazz weekends in Maastricht throughout the year). We found a group next to Café Pieter and pulled up some chairs. We've seen them before and they're fun to listen too. Another great afternoon in the sun!
