Last night's concert was a pleasure to play, and, I would guess from the audience's hugely enthusiastic response, a pleasure to hear. Anne Akiko Meyers played with total conviction and musical and technical power, as she has every time I've heard her. I really like John Corigliano's Chaconne from the movie The Red Violin, and so did the audience, which rose to its collective feet with Anne's last gesture.
Mendelssohn's "Fingal's Cave" Overture and our encore, Brahms' "Hungarian Dance" in G Minor were very well received, and major excitement and another standing ovation were generated by our performance of Brahms' Second Symphony. It's an amazing feeling for an orchestra to play its heart out, and know that it's been understood and appreciated by the audience.
One of last night's audience members is in a position to know that feeling firsthand, and he must have been reliving his moment on the podium as he watched Maestro Seaman. Former U. S. Rep. and H.U.D. Secretary Jack Kemp won the right to conduct the RPO in Sousa's "Washington Post March” in Vail two years ago, and he remembers his RPO conducting debut fondly, he told us last night. Jack and his wife Joanne have a home in Vail, and they've become fans of the RPO.
I'm usually very shy of speaking to celebrities, but when Jack conducted us that time, I nerved myself to approach him, because he's the star of one of my fondest family stories. Years ago, when Jack Kemp was in Buffalo (I can't remember if he was a football star then, or beginning his political career, or both), he toured my Dad's workplace, and Dad, a physicist, engineer and enthusiastic talker about his work projects, was assigned the job of showing Jack around. A very nice photo of them both appeared in the Buffalo News, and, for a few weeks, my mom proudly showed it to visiting guests. Invariably, people would say, "My, what a handsome man he is!", and my mother would agree, wait a few seconds, and then say, "And Jack Kemp isn't bad, either!"
It was very nice to talk to Jack and his wife Joanne last night. Joanne told us that she grew up in Ventura County, CA, about an hour's journey from Los Angeles. She frequently attended community music concerts and heard excellent violinists and other soloists, but it was rare for her to hear a symphony, and it was a real treat to attend Hollywood Bowl concerts once or twice a year.
Jack grew up much closer to the Hollywood Bowl, and his mom regularly attended the Wednesday night concerts there with Jack and his three brothers. They always got the 50-cent seats (!), and heard some of the best music and musicians -- Artur Rubinstein, Walter Gieseking and the like. Jack's mom realized how important this was for her sons' education, and it's wonderful to see how this early experience led Jack to a lifelong enjoyment of classical music, which he shares with Joanne. They love the Rochester Philharmonic, and it has a special place in their hearts because of Jack's very successful conducting appearance. Let's hope for a repeat performance someday!
-- Ingrid Bock Yang, Cello
RPO member since 1979
