Posted by Klaus on May 12, 2002 at 20:12:15:
In Reply to: Tubist on "Orchestra!" posted by Steve Marcus on May 12, 2002 at 17:59:19:
You are right about the "Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra" being a select youth orchestra having auditions every year.
The founder of the "Schleswig-Holstein Festival, Justus Frantz, is a great pianist and conductor with only one quality/quantity surpassing these musical ones: his attitude. He is out of the festival management now.
But he did a lot of good things. The first conductor of the orchestra, that JF made come, was Lennie in one of his last years. That year I followed the TV feature of the rehearsals of a Mahler programme. I most explicitely remember Lennie telling the strings to start their vibrato in a ppp section before they ever put the bow on the string. And he promenaded an "honour T-shirt" given him by the low brass section of the LA orchestra (my memory is old on that point) sporting a text something like "The BIG Hunk".
But of course the most important thing was, that he made them play in a way, that I think, they will never forget. At least I will not.
Yes, I have a soft spot for Lennie. These days it is 39 years ago, that I biked 40 miles forth and 40 miles back to watch the movie version of "West Side Story" in Copenhagen. And my bike back then was nowhere like an "RD" model of today.
Back to the festival orchestra: as it is drawn from an international body of music students, I have seen German as well as Brit tubas in it over the years.
The festival management might be able to provide a name of the tubist in question, so I will put a link below. (In case it can not be navigated from, the basic link is: www.shmf.de).
(The Lennie photo is from the official festival pages).
Klaus