Somehow it doesn’t seem fair to travel thousands of miles from quake-famous San Francisco, only to be awakened at dawn on the last day of your Asian tour in Tokyo by a big temblor just 200 miles from its epicenter. And yet, that’s what greeted San Francisco Symphony musicians, according to SFS Communications Manager Oliver Theil:
We definitely felt it [the Fukushima/Miyagi quake, reported 7.4 locally, 6.9 by U.S. agencies]. Tokyo was rocked quite a bit, those on the higher floors of our high-rise hotel shaken up the most. Our building swayed and shook for a good several minutes as many orchestra members evacuated the hotel shortly after 6 a.m.
Travel was unaffected and we are now rehearsing for our NHK-broadcasted concert this evening. Aside from tonight’s Bruckner No. 7, we hope this is the last bit of excitement of a memorable tour. We are all looking forward to coming home.
Michael Tilson Thomas is a true rock star in Japan, Theil writes late Tuesday night after the concert, and before the flight back to San Francisco. “Be it hotels or concert halls or train station platforms, throngs of Japanese super-fans are lining up at every moment for autographs of everything from Mahler box sets to old LPs.”
If it’s Tuesday in Japan, it must be time for a concert in Tokyo (as it was on the day before, too). During the previous week, it was Shanghai for two concerts and then on to Beijing for a concert Nov. 18. All this following performances and other events in South Korea and Taipei. It’s been a dizzying schedule.
Related Article
In Shanghai, besides giving a successful concert, SFS musicians were busy with master classes at the Shanghai Conservatory (which has a long history of collaboration with the S.F. Conservatory of Music) and MTT held forth with students of Dulwich College. “A bustling metropolis of 24 million people and the largest city in China,” reports Theil, “Shanghai is also a sister city of San Francisco, and warmly welcomed the orchestra for two concerts and a day of educational activities with the talented youth of the city.”
In Yuja Wang’s hometown Beijing, where the orchestra contended with heavy smog that required face masks at times, they were acclaimed by the audience and The Beijing Morning Post, among others. The Symphony’s Tumbler account noted: “We were warned that the air quality in Beijing could be a little troublesome, and unfortunately the reputation was indeed warranted. Get out those masks, everyone.”
Counterpoint to that was that during the brief break before the concert, there were street food sellers in alleyways around the hotel, selling exotic “items that would make Anthony Bourdain very proud” (e.g., live scorpions - yum!).
At the concert featuring Bright Sheng’s Dream of the Red Chamber overture (commissioned by SFS, the opera by S.F. Opera), the composer was in the audience, acknowledging the applause.
