Monday, January 15, 2007
Hobbies
I have an ongoing hobby: Photography. Being around musicians so much, I end up taking pictures of a lot of musicians. Sometimes they get married, and it happens that I am there to take- yes, pictures!
A strange situation cropped up yesterday: my orchestra were doing the dress rehearsal for a concert, I was not actually playing (the orchestra is very big, and we never all play at the same time), but I wanted to hear the rehearsal in our magnificent hall, the Philharmonie in Cologne.
After the rehearsal finished, instead of rushing off home like musicians always do, there was a flurry of activity on the stage, and I found myself witnessing a wedding. Our favorite recording engineer, Jens, had bent a lot of rigid German rules and was allowed to get married on the stage. And the orchestra provided the background music. Mozart's Jupiter Symphony, the prelude to the third act of Lohengrin plus the wedding music from Lohengrin were done, conducted by our music director, Markus Stenz.
I happened to have my camera with me (actually, I nearly always have a camera handy) and took some pictures from the stage. The bride (blushing) was a cute blond from Latvia, but I didn't know her.
One of the office managers from the Philharmonie came up to me, quite grim, and said, "You know, those pictures cannot be published!" which surprised me, because everyone knows I take pictures around here.
Jens was very grateful that I had been there to take pictures, but when I asked if he wanted me to put some on the internet so he could share them with friends and relatives, he became quite agitated and said, "Oh no, my wife is a kind of big celebrity in latvia and the press there are desperate to have pictures."
I was too embarrassed to ask why she was famous (or even what her name is), but I overheard someone else saying that she played the organ. And thanks god for Google, by putting together organ and Latvia, i could work it out.
A strange situation cropped up yesterday: my orchestra were doing the dress rehearsal for a concert, I was not actually playing (the orchestra is very big, and we never all play at the same time), but I wanted to hear the rehearsal in our magnificent hall, the Philharmonie in Cologne.
After the rehearsal finished, instead of rushing off home like musicians always do, there was a flurry of activity on the stage, and I found myself witnessing a wedding. Our favorite recording engineer, Jens, had bent a lot of rigid German rules and was allowed to get married on the stage. And the orchestra provided the background music. Mozart's Jupiter Symphony, the prelude to the third act of Lohengrin plus the wedding music from Lohengrin were done, conducted by our music director, Markus Stenz.
I happened to have my camera with me (actually, I nearly always have a camera handy) and took some pictures from the stage. The bride (blushing) was a cute blond from Latvia, but I didn't know her.
One of the office managers from the Philharmonie came up to me, quite grim, and said, "You know, those pictures cannot be published!" which surprised me, because everyone knows I take pictures around here.
Jens was very grateful that I had been there to take pictures, but when I asked if he wanted me to put some on the internet so he could share them with friends and relatives, he became quite agitated and said, "Oh no, my wife is a kind of big celebrity in latvia and the press there are desperate to have pictures."
I was too embarrassed to ask why she was famous (or even what her name is), but I overheard someone else saying that she played the organ. And thanks god for Google, by putting together organ and Latvia, i could work it out.
# posted by vailian : 9:53 PM
