International orchestras tour US for 1st time in 2 years
ABC News
The Royal Philharmonic became the first international orchestra to tour the U.S. since February 2020, completing a 14-concert, nine-city U.S. tour at Carnegie Hall
NEW YORK -- After enduring repeated COVID-19 testing and a 5,400-mile (8690-kilometer) flight from London to become the first international symphony to tour the United States in 23 months, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra arrived in California to discover some brass had not.
“The cargo people messed up one of the pallets, so a load of the instruments didn’t arrive,” co-principal horn Matthew Knight said. “Our trumpet section had to borrow trumpets from Yamaha and do the first concert on those — and then rent or buy tails, because all their tails were in the box.”
With their own instruments and evening clothes in hand, the Royal Philharmonic completed a 14-concert, nine-city U.S. tour on Monday night, the first international orchestra to play Carnegie since Feb. 24, 2020, a gap caused by the pandemic. The tour shows that such events can be done as the pandemic continues.
New music director Vasily Petrenko and cellist Kian Soltani received long and loud ovations for an all-British program of Britten’s Four Sea Interludes from “Peter Grimes,” Elgar’s cello concerto and Holst’s “The Planets." The program was broadcast on radio and streamed online.
