Facebook Fan Page!

Just a quick note that Steve Parulski (our Marketing Director at the NEPA Phil) just set up a fan page on Facebook for our orchestra and it will be updated regularly with concert info, photos, and other info about our orchestra.  Visit us and become a fan!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Northeastern-Pennsylvania-Philharmonic/54408510325?ref=mf

Reflections on Broadway, The Trumpet Shall Sound!

Well, we're more than halfway through a terrific season, and just had a very successful broadway tenors concert in February, just in time for Valentine's Day - it was practically sold out, both nights!  

So is broadway a great evening of music or what?  Well, we in the planning part of creating a season always reflect on that very question.  We don't want our programming to get too predictable, but we also know people seem to love broadway.  Now personally, I do like to conduct it, but I'm weary of programming too much of it - it's sort of our "go-to" genre within pops.  Just like on the classical side, pops programming can be so broad.  It can contain anything from Beatles to John Williams, to Rossini, to Broadway and everything in between.  A few years ago we skipped a broadway concert as a part of our 3 concert pops series, and I don't know if it was missed, but the last two years it's been a huge sell and we're banking on it again next season (has our season been released yet?  Maybe I shouldn't say anything yet -- shh!!).  But it always seems to entertain people and the repertoire is so rich and full of incredible songs from such an array of composers!  So we will continue to program it I'm sure, but what other things are you interested in hearing?  After all, it's really all about you, our audience!

Anyway, on to March and our upcoming Mozart in Paris concert!  I'm really excited to be working with George Vosburgh from the Pittsburgh Symphony - he's the PSO's Principal Trumpet and is one of the musicians in the PSO that I most admire.  I'm not sure if all of you know about my 'dual-citizenship' - serving simultaneously as the Music Director of the NEPA Phil and the Resident Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony.  So I get to know musicians like George Vosburgh from week to week, working with him quite often.  But I don't often get the chance to work with him as a soloist.  Regarding the piece he will play with us (the Hummel Trumpet Concerto in E Major), he has edited his own orchestra parts for the performances.  They are marked with specific bowings and dynamics and sometimes altered rhythms, so we can save precious rehearsal time and do the piece exactly as he wants it done.  There's always a little negotiating between soloist and conductor, but I already know that I like his approach.  Don't miss this concert with one of the legends of the trumpet world!  He's amaaazing.

Mozart's 31st Symphony is a gem, not as often performed as some of the other mid-late Mozart Symphonies (he wrote 41 of them), and maybe it's because this symphony harkens back to a lighter style of Mozart's composing - it sounds like an early Mozart symphony but with bigger proportions and an expanded orchestration (including clarinets)!  And we'll be playing the famous 7th Symphony of Beethoven - one of his most popular (it's weird, but actually his most popular seem to be all of the odd-numbered 1-3-5-7 and 9).  It has a famous beautiful theme in the 2nd movement that is a series of variations on a simple and gorgeous theme.

We also hope you visit us in the beautiful Meadow Theater at Lackawanna College for the Scranton performance (Friday March 13).  We thought it might be nice to do this more "classical-leaning" concert in a smaller space like the Meadow Theater.  We'll be repeating the performance at the Kirby Center on Saturday the 14th.  See you there!

After the concert thankfulness. . .

So the Holiday concerts went really really well this past weekend.  I'm still elated from the weekend!

It's amazing how these things go together almost magically - - as usual for this sort of program, we only had a single rehearsal with the orchestra, and I have limited rehearsal time.  Despite these challenges, the orchestra is always well-prepared and professional, and they come ready to put it all together.  But when you throw in all of the extra groups we have, there are more and more variables that could feasibly take things off-track.  But every group and guest came in prepared and delivered on each concert night!  I want to thank everyone who participated in the concert - 

Ballet Theater of Scranton, Joanne Arduino - thanks so much for the wonderful work you did on both the Parade of the Wooden Soldiers and the Jingle Kickline!  People love this so much!

Ballet Northeast, Kristin Degnan - thank you for such a stirring and artistic display of storytelling through dance in Waltz of the Flowers and the Polonaise!

Cody Brooks - thanks for narrating 'twas the night before Christmas.  Beautiful beautiful and heartfelt.

Laura Anne Ayres -Thank you for closing our concert in style with such lyric and expressive singing, and for bringing "This Christmastide" to NE PA.

Cindy Gowell - Thank you for your 52 years of support for our orchestra, we thank you, and we enjoyed your guest conducting of Sleigh Ride so much - you are very loved by all of us at the Philharmonic!

Choral Society of Northeast Pennsylvania and Kantorai and Chanteauses choruses - - your singing was such a critical part of making this concert a success.  I hope you had fun - we certainly enjoyed having you!  Thank you!

And lastly, the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic, for your brilliant musicality, professionalism and positive attitude that comes across from the stage to the audience, I thank you. 

Of course, thanks to Santa (for making it to the concert, despite Rudolph's wrong turns getting you there!) and to our full house audience, without whom we wouldn't be here.  And to the wonderful staff led by Nancy Farkas, and our board for their support of the Philharmonic!  We are thankful and look forward to the new year.

Stay tuned for news about our upcoming concerts and other musings as they come up. . .

First post (Holiday Cheer)!!

Welcome to my blog - Larry Loh here, Music Director of the fantastic Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic!   Let's get to know each other here!  I welcome your feedback and suggestions and hope you enjoy my stories and thoughts.

We are in the middle of my 4th official season as Music Director.  So let's take a trip down memory lane to my first meeting with the Philharmonic!  This is a good story, I think, with a sort of horror element amidst the holiday cheer. . . .

Some of you may know this, but my first meeting with the Philharmonic was conducting an audition Holiday concert in 2004.  Glenn Roberts, the Executive Director at the time, told me that this would be a great test of my organizational abilities, since there would be two ballet companies, an adult choir, a children's choir, plus the Philharmonic.  There would be two performances in two different venues, but we'd only have one 2 1/2 hour rehearsal to put it all together.  Glenn and I started planning the concert early in the summer, months before the concert was to take place.  After exhaustive and numerous drafts, we finalized a program we thought would work.  

After months of preparation, it finally came time for my first and monumental trip to NEPA.  I was living in Dallas, TX at the time, and took a direct flight to Philadelphia, rented a car (for some reason, I did it this way) and drove the final two hours to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.  I didn't bring my family, stayed at Genetti's in Wilkes-Barre, ate very little and constantly looked over my scores.

We had several events/rehearsals before the single Philharmonic rehearsal.  There was a choral rehearsal with the excellent Choral Society of Northeastern PA, a guest group rehearsal the night before meeting the orchestra to go over choreography and logistics (when the chorus entered, etc). Once these things were in place, we were finally ready to put it together with the Philharmonic.

After this much anticipation, you want things to go smoothly.  You want to make a good first impression with the orchestra and come across as an organized "with it" leader-type.  We were at the Scranton Cultural Center and I was readying myself in my basement dressing room. Rehearsal was to start at 1 pm and it was around 12:45 - - with 15 minutes to go before meeting the illustrious members of the Philharmonic, I thought I'd use the facilities and head upstairs to the stage. 

I closed the door behind me and there was a definite "CLICK" - - the doorknob made a weird sound, but I didn't really think anything of it.  When I went to re-open it, it turned, but there was no moving parts except the knob itself.  The DOOR WOULDN'T OPEN!!  I was two doors in from the hallway (the door to the dressing room, then the door to the bathroom).  I thought, "keep it together, no need to panic, I still have 10 minutes."  I started knocking on the door, at first with a gentlemanly knock, then increasingly louder as the minutes ticked by.  I had about five minutes to go when I swallowed my pride and started yelling, "Hello???!?!?  Can anyone hear me???  I'm locked in the bathroom!!!"  I heard some young voices calling towards me, and I asked them to get someone to open this door.  I heard their little feet run away never to return.  

I sunk to the floor and resigned myself to my fate - - locked in the dressing room bathroom on the eve of my first rehearsal (and audition) with the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic.  I could actually hear the orchestra tuning upstairs, and heard what probably was, "Please welcome our conductor candidate Lawrence Loh" and then an awkward pause.  A minute later, I heard "Larry, Larry??" -- my hero Glenn Roberts finally made his way downstairs and freed me from my prison.

First impressions are so important, aren't they?  Well, I went in front of the orchestra and said,  "Hello everyone!  I'm so sorry I'm late - - you don't want to know where I was."  They laughed at my lame excuse and that relieved the tension that I felt.  Wow, what a great group of people, I thought.

So on the 4th anniversary of that first concert, we are here at another family-oriented Holiday Concert "T'was the Night Before Christmas," coming up December 5 at the Scranton Cultural Center and December 6 at the Kirby Center!   It will have many of the same guests as from that first concert, with some new music and some old favorites.  In addition to the Choral Society, Kantorei Chorus, Ballet Northeast, and Ballet Theater of Scranton, we have narrator Cody Brooks, guest conductor Cindy Gowell, and dear friend and guest soprano Laura Anne Ayres - all of whom will be spreading Christmas cheer with the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic.  

We know you're going to recognize many of the Christmas tunes at this concert, and you'll love the new ones as well.  There are even a few pieces that we are bringing back from that exact audition concert in a retrospective "Christmas Past" way.  

We hope you come to warm up to the holiday season!