Packed with people at my first performance in Australia! Great fun! Thank you so much, Irina Vasileva-Thoo, for makeing this possible!! So I had just landed at 1 am in the morning on the 27th of May, then got picked up by Irina´s wonderful parents, got a good russian midnight snack and then hit the pillow hard after spending one and a half day up in the skies! And then it was on with the kick start button the same day at 4:30 pm and have lots of fun! Fantastic audience! For some reason my american accent slowly transformed into a british-american accent, probably sounded like a drunk american pretending to be a british moviestar!!
HALF TIME BREAK, backstage - time for an...ecologic coke...! yep, that´s what it said on the label!! Tasted...funky...but quite ok!!
Of course I had to change!!
Photos above: Ilya Vassiliev
Today I flew in to The Zebra Rock Gallery in Kununurra! Here at the airport in Broom, where I had to change planes.
In front of the Zebra Rock grand piano!
The view from my window is pretty awsome :) Check it out!
The Elephant Rock behind me! Really looks like the head of an elephant, actually!
Catfish and turtles in the lake! Will be a crowded morning swim tomorrow!
Ah...was just told that there are crocodiles here, too....
BUT - fresh water croc´s don´t eat humans..???!!! so I guess my morning swim is still on my to do list?? :/
I made two new friends where I live. One from under the toilet and one from over the grand piano! You just have to love Kununurra and all of it´s friendly friends, lol!
Hand with frog: Bruce Livett
All photos: Bente Bakke
Strings of Norway, with the finest and coolest stringplayers in Norway, concert master Jonas Båtstrand. Conducting this fantastic gang was as big of a kick for me as it was a kick for the audience, I believe. Strings of Norway has emerged from the Café de Concert concept and it is about to change everything you thought ever could represent a chamber orchestra!
After figthing the bad weather during the sound check on St.Hans-evening in Oslo yesterday, I showed the audience at Tjuvholmen that the Chopin Raindrop prelude was finally over and that the sun was about to make the music sparkle!
The audience came out from their hideouts....
...and Strings of Norway got set on fire by Grieg, Mozart, Mendelssohn and Tchaikovskij!
Also performing with Strings of Norway yesterday was Kristine Hjulstad and her "Magical Theater" accompanied by excerpts from Mozart´s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Great fun for kids AND adults!
The Program in detail consisted of Grieg´s Prelude and Rigaudon from the Holberg Suite, 1st and last movement from Mozarts Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, 3rd movement from Mendelssohns "little" violin concerto (with Båtstrand as the soloist and also leading the orchestra), and the waltz and the finale from Tchaikovskij´s String Serenade. And that sort of lit the traditional St.Hansaften-fire on the water right after the concert!
After the outdoor concert the orchestra and friends had a little party at Café de Concert!!
Sigurd Slåttebrekk, my professor from when I was studying at The Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, also came both to the concert and the afterparty with his wife and also their amazeing son Ole Johannes, a great ballet-talent who did a revers summersalut and made the crowd to crazy at the party!! It was a great evening!
