represented by

(from left to right)
Rachel Weston, Gerard O'Beirne, Amanda Morrison, Michael Dore, Micaela Haslam, Simon Grant, Heather Cairncross, Andrew Busher

"New York Philharmonic had done an amazing job getting audiences to all these concerts. I'm not sure whether any of the big London concert halls could sell-out a Berio/Brahms programme 4 nights in a row. There certainly weren't many empty seats at Avery Fisher, which was most gratifying.

We were delighted to bump into Jeanne LeBlanc who plays 'cello with Steve Reich & Musicians. She had stepped in to replace someone in the Brahms and very sweetly came to the first half of the concert to hear Sinfonia - twice!

Heather went into her final pre-concert O King determined to nail that cruel top G towards the end of the piece. O King is more or less the same as my part (S1) in the 2nd movement of Sinfonia, only in Sinfonia I get a nice crotchet rest before launching into the top G - no such luxury in O King - and Heather is our 2nd alto! Anyway, she did a great job. Nice to end on a high, as they say..

We were sorry to be leaving the orchestra. Both the players and the staff had all been so kind to us, and the orchestra was really getting to know Sinfonia now. Stanley Drucker, the principal clarinettist, was way ahead of all of us. He'd played in the world première of Sinfonia 40 years ago (!) in 1968 with New York Philharmonic under Bernstein. Stanley played a fabulous Sequenza at the Rose Theatre this same afternoon. Adding to the sense of occasion, we had Berio's widow (Talia Pecker Berio) in the audience, along with his daughter Cristina, so this really was a special event.

Anyway, the last performance went well and we all headed out to enjoy a final celebratory meal. Will and I had arranged to stay on for an extra day in New York and we thoroughly enjoyed our Sunday in the city - especially downtown, where of course none of the city workers were out and about. We got caught up in the Obama rallies, and enjoyed a few classic touristy sites,

not forgetting Times Square where we couldn't resist uttering Hiro's classic line from "Heroes".

To finish off the tour in style, we decided to be intrepid and, that evening, headed way up Manhattan to a great live-jazz restaurant called Pisticci's. We had a wonderful meal whilst listening to a very fine singer called Pamela Knowles - highly recommended. We're already looking forward to returning to the Lincoln Center for the opening of Alice Tully in March'09 - see you then!"