It was a great tour!

Earlier this week, we returned from a very successful three-week Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra European tour. We played 11 concerts with highlight evenings in Hamburg at the Elbphilharmonie and in Salzburg at the closing concert of the Salzburg Festival. It was a pleasure to play timpani on Mahler 1 and a suite of music from the Strauss opera Elektra beside new PSO Principal Timpanist James Benoit, and some percussion, too.

As always, it was so greatl to make music with all of the wonderful musicians of the PSO, Mo. Honeck, and our amazing soloists, but this tour will be particularly memorable because I was joined by my lovely and talented wife Karen who has been on an extended contract with the PSO this season. We sure missed our kids, but we had a ton of fun!

The conclusion of the tour marks the end of a five year stint as a substitute full-time member of the PSO. While I have played as an extra in the PSO for 26 years now, the past five years were super intense and are a career highlight — a period of time that I’ll always value.

No need to worry though, I’ll be in Pittsburgh a whole bunch in the coming season. I am, however, also looking forward to time in Baton Rouge with my LSU students, concerts with the North Carolina Symphony and Kansas City Symphony, and giving a class at PASIC in Indianapolis. More on all of that, soon. For now, rest and gratitude!