Recorded at the Duke’s Hall, Royal Academy of Music, 2 July 2021. Found the donation window, incidentally. Back in January, 2020 after we heard John conducting them in Tchaikowsky I said to Mister Grumble, ‘That was as good as any small-city orchestra in the US. I’d’ve paid cash money for this,’ and darned if the RAM didn’t just make my life a little easier. Here it is.
Chocolate kisses for my John and a promise to teach him how to make s’mores when the time is right. Above: 2 July 2021 concert at the RAM, in full.
To continue from my earlier posting, “My Beloved John Wilson Appointed to the Henry Wood Chair of Conducting at the Royal Academy of Music and Conducts the RAMSO in Arnold Schoenberg’s ‘Verklärte Nacht’ (1899) at Snape Maltings, 6 June 2021”: We talked over beers, Mister Grumble and I, about John’s energy, among other things, a couple of weeks ago. After we toasted Bloomsday, he gave me his take on John and John’s music. Mister G isn’t as enamored of John Wilson’s enormous and varied repertoire—from Broadway tunes to Rachmaninoff to Turnage—as I am, but he has many good things to say about my beloved conductor’s basic character. I described to him (my angel baby is blind) how differently John looks and acts when he’s with the RAM, or the Sinfonia of London or the Royal Northern Sinfonia. Less tense, more in control, more in his element—happier. Plus he doesn’t sweat as much as on the stage of the Royal Albert. ‘Then this is where he belongs,’ said Mister Grumble.
Program:
- Samuel Barber / Knoxville: Summer of 1915, op 24
- Frederick Delius / A Song Before Sunrise
- Maurice Ravel / Ma mère l’oye, m.62
Cassandra Wright, soprano
- “The Story So Far, with Conductor John Wilson”
- “The Story So Far; Or, Conductor John Wilson—His Limits”
"I'll Be Dead Before You Break My Heart" 