During many of the orchestra's past domestic tours, I have somehow managed to land in San Francisco on my birthday. When my husband, emeritus co-concertmaster, William dePasquale, was still in the orchestra, he would always arrange something really special for us to do like a tour of the wine country or tickets to a special broadway show. This year I was able to celebrate all day with various colleagues from the orchestra.
I started the day (or my new year of life!) off by attending a church service at the famous Grace Cathedral on Nob Hill. Rich Harlow and Shelley Showers and I marveled at the physical and accoustical beauty of the church and the wonderful organist who played Messian most dramatically.
Harry Klein joined us for an elegant brunch at our hotel and then the four of us headed for the wharf to take a ferry for a sight seeing extravaganza to Alcatraz Island. We enjoyed a perfect weather day as did many locals who were out in the bay on sailboats and yachts. The Alcatraz tour is really interesting and there are gorgeous views of San Francisco and neighboring islands at every turn.
We performed in Davies Hall in the evening and to my delight, there was a pool table in the musicians' lounge. My husband, a fantastic pool "shark" had a table made for our house earlier this year and has been teaching me. I was able to play a couple of games with Tony Orlando, (who told me only after we started playing that his father once owned a pool hall) and actually won one of the games.
The concert was received with much enthusiam and we did our usual routine of playing an encore which roused the crowd to even greater heights. I wonder why we don't do that more often for our hometown audiences......??
After the concert, my birthday celebration concluded with a dinner that Derek Barnes organized at a restesaurant named Zuni which specialized in California cuisine and wines.
Some members of the orchestra went on to LA today and some of us elected to spend yet another gorgeous day in San Francisco. I spent a lot of time in the art gallaries and then was treated to yet another birthday dinner by Jason DePue at the Nob Hill Cafe
If I can't be home on my birthday, there is no better place to be than San Francisco!
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1 comment:
Gloria;
Great to follow the band west thru the blog. I heard last year's BBC Proms on NPR and enjoyed your comments and the Smetena encore, which you're still playing. Perhaps Maestro Milanov could play it for us during the "Best of" Series at Verizon next month. We'll be there.
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