Friday, January 1, 2010, 8:00 am local time
Thursday, December 31, 2009, 5:00 pm Tucson Time
Shenzhen Impressions
A few minutes before midnight, a group of us gathered near the hotel on a plaza surrounded by lit-up buildings, like a miniature Times Square. It quickly filled up with many thousands of young Chinese people, packed so close together that one could hardly move. At one minute before midnight, giant numbers appeared on the side of one multi-story building, counting down the seconds. The whole crowd shouted out the numbers (in Chinese of course) and cheered the beginning of 2010 (or perhaps the end of the aughties). A group of about 20 youngsters asked us to take their picture. Then we asked them to photograph us. Then ... we all posed for a group photo, Americans in back, Chinese in front, and an obliging policeman stepped up to take the photo. Priceless!
In both of the Shenzhen concerts, we played 'The Jasmine Flower', a popular Chinese song, as an encore. For the first of the concerts, Christi Amonson, our soprano was ill, so we had no singer. Sitting at the back of the fist violinists, Larry Lang did not hear Linus announce the piece but suddenly realized that he was going to be the soloist. He stood up and played the first verse from the side, then walked to center stage for the second verse. He did it beautifully and it was a magical moment.
On last night's concert, Christi was well enough to sing again, and had already charmed the audience with Bernstein's 'Glitter and Be Gay' from Candide. When Linus signaled her to come on stage for an encore, the audience immediately cheered. Then when we played the first few notes of Jasmine Flower, they applauded again. She sang the first few words in Chinese - another burst of applause!
The auditorium in Shenzheng is superb. The exterior is like an egg, covered with many metallic triangular facets, but with one end opening to a soaring glass wall. Backstage, the production space is so vast that an eighteen wheeler could drive straight in and look small. It dwarfs the sound shell that surrounds the orchestra. Acoustically, it was a joy. We could hear ourselves and every part of the orchestra clearly, and it made us sound good. The first time we ended a piece with a staccato chord, the reverberation was so long and warm that we all gasped. Tannis Gibson, our soloist in Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, loved the concert grand piano in the auditorium. It is a German Steinway, with strong warm sound and a striking range of tonal color. She said she had not had a chance in years to play a piano like that. And tonight we will perform at the Dongguan Yulan Theater, which Linus claims is even better. It is hard to imagine how that could be. It is wonderful to have a chance to perform in spaces of a quality that we can only dream about in Tucson.
The December 31 concert was indeed sold out. One member of our group even had to buy a ticket from a scalper outside, because we ran out of comp tickets. But that did not translate into a full house. Apparently, many of the tickets were bought by Nissan for their employees, who did not necessarily attend. But those who did attend gave every sign that they enjoyed the show immensely.
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