The RPO on stage for Synthony at Dr Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, Orlando.
Peter Graham, a memebr of the Second Violin section, shares his experiences from the Orchestra’s first week of our recent tour to the USA.
I’m currently in Fairfax, Virginia, the George Mason Center for Performing Arts, and we're about just over half-way through our American tour. We started down in Orlando in Florida, and we had a bit of a disastrous start to the tour, I think it's fair to say.
Tuesday 13 – Wednesday 14 January
We were supposed to arrive in Orlando the day before our first concert, have a nice evening free, acclimatise to the jetlag, all the rest of it. Unfortunately, the flight was cancelled, and our amazing tour manager Rose Hooks somehow had to get 80 people to America.
She got us to Heathrow by booking us some last-minute coaches, and she got us on a flight to New York, which is quite a long way away from Orlando, but, thanks to Rose, we made it to Florida in time. We had an early flight the next morning, so only about a 4 or 5 hour stopover in New York, and then a flight to Orlando the next day.
Sir John Rutter conducting the RPO at Dr Phillips Centre for the Performing Arts, Orlando. Photo credit: Petru Cuciuc.
Thursday 15 – Friday 16 January
And then it was straight into the rehearsal of a concert with Sir John Rutter. Given we were quite beleaguered from travel, he made the process as easy as it could be, and we had a lovely choral concert with a local choir. The next day was something completely different in a concert called Synthony, where we collaborated with DJs and conductor Sarah Hicks to play house and dance tracks from the 1990s and early 2000s to a packed house that got up and danced throughout. I think we all loved it.
The RPO on stage for Synthony at Dr Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, Orlando.
Saturday 17 – Sunday 18 January
We then moved down to West Palm Beach and Miami, further south in Florida, where we were joined by Vasily Petrenko for some wonderful programmes that included Sibelius’ Second, Shostakovich’ Tenth, Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with Ray Chen, Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto with Boris Giltburg, some Nielsen, some Berlioz, and the usual array of encores that Vasily likes to do on tour.
The Kravis Center, West Palm Beach, Florida.
The RPO on stage with Ray Chen at the Knight Concert Hall, Arsht Center, Miami, Florida.
Monday 19 – Wednesday 21 January
We moved across to the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall in Sarasota and then up to Charleston in South Carolina, which is a beautiful place, and we all felt like we could relax a little bit there after the slightly manic start in Florida.
Sunset at Sarasota, Florida.
The RPO on stage with Ray Chen at the Gaillard Center, Charleston, South Carolina.
Thursday 22 – Friday 23 January
From Charleston we travelled up to Blacksburg, a place I'd never been to, and then from Blacksburg, we came here to Fairfax in Virginia. And this is where things start to get a little bit cooler, temperature-wise. There's a serious weather front coming and snow is coming in. We're off to New York, so it’s going to get interesting.
See you soon!
The RPO on stage at Center for the Arts, Fairfax, Virginia.
A snowy New York skyline.