From the notebook of Michelle Glover, MSYO Task Force Volunteer
We are now on the road to Budapest. The trip is flying by!
Last night’s concert was a great success… it was held in a beautiful, modern venue (where the Vienna Boys Choir performs) and the audience, which was comprised of many locals, loved the performance. I sat next to a woman from Vienna who said that MSYO was far superior to last year’s youth symphony performance. 🙂 wow!
Really nice to see the orchestra bonding with one another.
From the notebook of Andrei Gorchov, Youth Programs Administrator:
It’s been a short but lively two days in Vienna, finishing with our exciting performance last night at the MuTh concert hall. We were lucky to play a benefit concert for the Lions Club of Vienna for children with cancer. The hall was gorgeous and we received a lot of support! When we arrived in Vienna Monday, the buses let us off at the Ringstrasse, where most of the beautiful buildings were built in the late 1860s under the emperor Franz Josef. We walked from the legendary Vienna State Opera House to the Haus der Musik museum, where we read about the history of the Vienna Philharmonic, explored the science of sound, and walked through exhibits on the lives of great composers. The most beloved attraction was at the top floor of the museum. Here, we honed our conducting skills on a computer program that let us conduct a virtual Vienna Philharmonic! We then walked from the Haus der Musik to dinner, then to the Musikverein, the most famous concert hall in Vienna. We got to sit onstage behind the Vienna Mozart Orchestra as they played a program of selections from Mozart’s most famous operas! The hall was a dream come true and we were very lucky to visit. We started the next day with a tour of Vienna onboard our buses. We got off at the Maria-Theresien-Platz, where we saw a huge bronze statue of the famous empress Maria Theresa, and the Art History Museum and the Natural History Museum. We also got to see some modern architecture at the Hundertwasser Village, where architect Freidensreich Hundertwasser built colorful, surprising buildings in the middle of classical Vienna. After lunch in the park it was time to get ready for our concert. We’re nearing Budapest now, the final stop on our European tour. The Hungarian countryside is gorgeous and we excitedly await our first glimpse of the city. We have only one more concert in Europe, and we are more excited than ever!
