What is the best thing about touring with the New York Philharmonic?
The best thing of course is the music, and the next thing is getting to be able to spend a little time with your colleagues. If you have friends in the Philharmonic you like to share conversations and meals with, most of us are working all the time at something, practicing or teaching. Most musicians lead a pretty full life of constant work. In the city we all rush out after rehearsal and go to our next commitment. There is very little time to socialize. But on tour, you are stuck together in the plane, in the airport, waiting for buses. You get to know your colleagues and you become like a large family. It is a nice communal feeling. In airports and train stations, people used to sit down and play cards and chess games. I would say conversations are fascinating on tour. Some of our European-born musicians can tell us interesting things about the cities we are visiting, or we might plan to go to museums on our free day. Or in some cases musicians from other orchestras come backstage an
