A Universe of Sound: Recording Mahler's Symphony No. 8

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Comment by Carol Wright on August 18, 2009 at 4:27pm

Fun story about attending this concert. My mother is elderly and we need wheelchair, and enjoy sitting behind in the choir loft. No way for this performance. In spite of all my misgivings about finding orchestra seats at a matinee, I started my search online and got nowhere. In order for my mom to relate to the players, we had to sit in orchestra or in forward boxes. I didn't find anything and gave up. Phooey.

I shut down computer and went out to the car, stopping by our mailbox. There was a plain hand addressed envelope, with no return address. Wonder what...I opened it, and there were...believe it...TWO orchestra tickets, on the aisle for a matinee. I told no one I was looking for tickets and dreaming of going to this. How did this happen!? The neighbors had promised to buy us a pair of tickets to repay us for our patience in their remodeling. I gave them a dream list of concerts to attend. They were not the guilty party!

I then figured it was someone who had seen my video of Mom "conducting" Mahler's 8th...We'd just returned from a Mahler concert in SF, and I told her "One year, we'll see the 8th!" I turned on PBS and there was Simon Rattle conducting his HUGE Proms concert of the 8th. I filmed Mom engrossed in it, and conducting along. (She has Alzheimer's). See it on my youtube channel, CarolJWright.

Oh, I digressed. Where did those tickets come from??I queried everyone who commented on the video, and they didn't buy me tickets. I told this amazing story to my sister and she spilled the beans. Her daughter Heather enters every radio contest she can, and often wins. She had no idea who this Mahler character was, but figured her Aunt Carol was into that stuff, so mailed them as a surprise.

My niece Heather LOVED my story of it, that I had been desperate to find tickets. Oh, in reading the Chronicle review of the concert, I was struck by the article's photo of MTT conducting US (the organist actually) and spent $60 on a large print. A raging MTT now sits on the wall over my computer monitor. ;-)

Comment by San Francisco Classical Voice on August 17, 2009 at 12:39pm

Wow. What a production. Sounds fantastic BTW.