Snippets from ‘The Shakepeare’s’ pub. Situated opposite ‘The Usher Hall’, it offers the perfect location for musicians, audience members and critics to sup a drink before attending a concert. The interval is often spent here too. All snippets are anonymous so as to protect the naughty and not so innocent!
Overheard:
Eager concert goer to LSO Musician:
EGC: ‘How do you get on with Mr Gergiev?’
LSO: ‘Who is he?’
EGC: ‘He is your principal conductor’
LSO: ‘Ahh, that’s who he is!’
Valery Gergiev is known as ‘the Jetset Conductor’. As well as his principal conducting role for the LSO, he is General Director and Artistic Director of the Marinsky Opera in St. Petersberg, principal conductor of the Rotherdam Philharmonic; principal guest conductor of the Metropolitan Opera in New York and Artitistic Director of the ‘White Night’s Festival’ in St. Petersberg.
One LSO Musician said: ‘He likes us (the LSO) because we don’t need much rehearsal time.’ Rumour has it that Mr Gergiev rehearsed with the LSO in a morning, flew to Russia in the afternoon and flew into London the next day for the LSO’s performance! Still, he has conducted the Prokofiev well this weekend!
After the EIF, the LSO fly to London for the PROMS, then to Gstad for more Prokofiev and then Mr Gregiev is back to Edinburgh for three opera’s! We wish him well, and hope he takes his multi-vitamins!
Overheard at the Edinburgh Book Festival:
Norman Lebrecht is one of Britain’s leading music critics and the author of many important works on music. He was at the Book Festival last week and was asked what he thought of the new Festival President, Jonathan Mills. This was his reply:
‘Well, of course Jonathan Mills really wanted to be Director of the Wigmore Hall and approached me for advice. He didn’t get the position, so applied for the Edinburgh job and I was surprised he got it. He did run a minor fesitval in Melbourne, but nothing on the scale of the EIF. I didn’t think he was up to the job and nothing in his program so far has changed my mind!’
Norman Lebrecht
