We touched down in Munich yesterday to find a misty, rainy city on its way to Monday morning work. On the quiet bus ride from the airport to the hotel, there was the feeling—just like the one on regular Monday mornings—that a lot was about to happen, despite the present calm. Contractually, musicians get a day off after the first travel day as a way of “stretching the legs,” so to speak, and so that jetlag doesn’t find a musician onstage, turning the rests in their part into something more literal. But not everything about the tour is still ahead. Years go into planning. For the second half of our season, the Operations department would get a concert started, then rush backstage to email updates to the travel agency, the cargo carrier, artistic management, or one of the other many people that are required to make a 22-day tour work. The big questions sort themselves out quickly: we want to visit Europe as cultural and artistic ambassadors of Pittsburgh; we want to challenge ourselves in a succession of intense performances and fast travel (our final 5 days each have a concert in a different city); we want to show people what we’re made of (an alloy of iron and carbon relating to Pittsburgh?). But where does the cargo truck park in Wiesbaden? When does the journalist’s flight get to Hamburg? Where is Melia sitting in Cologne? These are what have occupied so much time, and they aren’t insignificant. They’re the tiny details out of which emerges an incredible, whole thing: the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is on tour. The critics have categorized and compared to try and find out what distinguishes each orchestra. “That which we are, we are:” the stress and rigor of a tour forces a confrontation of discovery: who are we in Dusseldorf? Who are we with Anne-Sophie Mutter, or Yefim Bronfman? Who are we playing Mahler 5, or Firebird? We also listen to ourselves, and what we hear informs us—makes us new.

We recently welcomed Dale Jeong as our new Associate Principal Cello. The 21-year-old will, for most concerts, be joining a veteran of the PSO, Anne Martinale Williams, in the front stand of the cello section. I thought there was hardly a better way to tease out the unique experience of touring than to have the two sit down after rehearsal at Heinz Hall last Wednesday and talk advice, concerns, or anything else cellists need to tell each other. She began by saying, “don’t lose your passport.” Hardly musical advice, but sound nonetheless. On her first tour in 1978, she lost hers in Vienna, somewhere between the train station and hotel, and had to spend time at the embassy. I asked her how to manage all the changes in venues across tour—9 different venues total. “It still has to be excellent. The hall is just an added lesson.” She did single out Merano as an exciting stop.

The orchestra’s first time at the festival there is exciting in itself, but Anne was looking forward to the Alpine journey there and back. It was tough to get what I came to the conversation wanting: Dale was more excited than nervous, and Anne had a patient contentment around her. Tour was happening, they were rehearsing, and that was that. So I switched tack and asked how his Associate Principal experience was going alongside Anne. After a quick glance to her he said, “I mean, I didn’t expect to…sit there.” She laughed. Quickly their back-and-forth became endearing:

We didn’t get back to talking about the tour, except for Dale to say he was happy to find out he puts his cello in a cargo case and just shows up in Germany to retrieve it. Anne spoke about her excitement for this season’s big Brahms Second Piano Concerto cello solo, or the cello section feature in La Mer; Dale was excited for the big orchestral writing of Alpine Symphony. Then Yefim Bronfman walked onstage to practice, and we left for the lunch ahead of tour, where more non-musical advice was shared, like how the hotel breakfasts are big enough to cover lunch as well, or what to do about reed-knives on airplanes, or that you shouldn’t put smaller cases on large, convenient cases like the tuba’s, and that shampoo in the sink is sort of like a laundry machine.  

The next night, after that Wednesday rehearsal, was the Sendoff Concert. It’s easy, with a word like “sendoff,” to imagine gently pushing a rowboat on its way down a river. Last Thursday was more like a rocket launch, which is fitting for the 777 that flew us across the Atlantic. Heinz Hall was packed with the people and energy to start the tour in the best way possible. We’d played Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in April, and Mahler’s Fifth in June, but familiarity was only the jumping-off point for rehearsals.

The energy felt especially focused—locked in. The Post-Gazette said “‘fine-tuned’ is an understatement for their current level of preparation.” The story of a concert, as programmers and marketers know, can make or break that concert. It may have been the preparation, and the rehearsals that week leading up to the performance, but it was also the feeling of demonstrating to Pittsburgh the way we’d be representing our city in Europe. That was really the story, moreso than the repertoire, and that pride was some good fuel. See our Instagram for more photos.  

With wind in our sails we’ll have our first rehearsal tomorrow, then leave Thursday for Salzburg and our first concert of the tour. The first half could be called manageable—Salzburg, Grafenegg and Merano are followed by two days off in Vienna, which everyone is excited about—but the second half sees nearly a concert a day, with two flights, many trains, and many more buses. The wind that floats those sails will need to last, and we’re up for it. Be sure to follow our social media channels, linked on the tour landing page, for tour footage and updates. I’ll be writing a couple more of these “on the trail,” with, I hope, some anecdotes and artifacts from some of the places we’ll be visiting. I’m sure also that Jim Cunningham at WQED-FM will do us justice in his coverage back in Pittsburgh.