I now have only three more performances of La Rondine to do. Then I move back to symphony, playing English horn in Tchaikovsky’s Orchestral Suite No. 3. We were discussing the work in the opera pit today. I know I’ve played it before, but I’m thinking perhaps it wasn’t with symphony, but with the ballet. Hmmm. I wonder.

[time lapse]

Yep, we did the final movement of it with the ballet back in 2000. But it was only the last movement and I am certain I’ve played the rest, so we must have done it with symphony as well. I’m sure it was with San Jose Symphony, and I don’t have a good record of all those years I played there (1975-2002 or whenever it was it folded) because I didn’t save symphony programs. (I actually gave most of them to the symphony back when I was symphony, because I realized no one there was saving even one copy of programs or keeping any sort of records at all.)

The work has some rather significant English horn solos. The first is at 8:33 in this video:

Moving from principal oboe to solo English horn means reed work! And yes, I’ve been working on them. 🙂