Ever personally met a famous Artist / Conductor?

[hornteacher]

This is a thread from a few years back when I got to meet HH at one of her recitals.  Several pictures too.

http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,2239.0.html

[Saul]

I have met Andy Statman and had a very pleasant short conversation with him, he is a very nice man, and a fine musician.

[Scarpia]

This is a thread from a few years back when I got to meet HH at one of her recitals.  Several pictures too.

http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,2239.0.html

And don't forget to scroll down the thread to see the wisdom of Iago, RIP (probably not though).

[MishaK]

I shook Emil Gilels' hand and talked to him for a bit once after a concert when I must have been 7 or 8 years old (he played Beethoven PC4, IIRC). In more recent years, I briefly chatted with Daniel Barenboim, Stephen Kovacevich and Paul Lewis (on separate occasions). All very nice and engaging. Paul Lewis in particular is the nicest guy you can imagine.  I was also once at a museum in Holland and Charles Dutoit darted past me with some young Japanese chick in tow, headed straight for one particular van Gogh painting, animatedly explained something about it to his friend while gesticulating wildly, and then disappeared as quickly as he had materialized.

[Antoine Marchand]

This is a thread from a few years back when I got to meet HH at one of her recitals.  Several pictures too.

http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,2239.0.html

Interesting thread, indeed. For the first time I did read one of those apparently famous posts by Iago, a member who did not know.

It's funny but no one in that thread seemed to notice a certain resemblance between hornteacher and Hilary.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I took a graduate course in contemporary criticism with Charles Rosen, around 1971 - a brilliant but difficult and arrogant man. I've spoken to Elliott Carter on a number of occasions (although he never seemed to have remembered me from one occasion to another), and I met Pierre Boulez once following a concert where he conducted Le Marteau. He was most pleasant, even though I always sensed the iron hand beneath the velvet glove. There were others, but these are the most memorable.

Among those others that came to mind, I was once assigned to chauffeur David Bar-Illan to his train station following a recital he gave at the college where I then taught.
I said a few words to Harrison Birtwistle after a piece of his was played at Carnegie, and in addition to his rumpled suit, he had the limpest handshake I've ever encountered.

If others come back to me, I'll edit this message.

[Superhorn]

  Sforzando,I also took a graduate course in criticism with Rosen,and that was at Stony Brook where he was teaching in the 80s. Did you attend that school too?  I forgot to mention that in my last post.
  Yes, he is certainly a brilliant man, but he didn't come across as arrogant or unplkeasant to me.

[(poco) Sforzando]

  Sforzando,I also took a graduate course in criticism with Rosen,and that was at Stony Brook where he was teaching in the 80s. Did you attend that school too?  I forgot to mention that in my last post.
  Yes, he is certainly a brilliant man, but he didn't come across as arrogant or unplkeasant to me.

Horn - yes, that was the school were I got my BA and MA. Perhaps Rosen mellowed in the years after I left.

[jochanaan]

We joke about our "romantic flings" with various artists, but I'd venture to guess that many of us really do have romantic longings for some of our favorites.  There's lots of energy at a concert, and when it involves performers of the opposite sex... But almost all classical music fans, certainly all of us here , keep it in perspective.

Of course, there was that fling I had with Dame Janet Baker...

[Superhorn]

  Rosen was a little bit condescending to us graduate students, and would often pooh-pooh our opinions, but he wasn't nasty about it.

[Maciek]

Herbert Von Karajan was not at all the authoritarian martinet people seem to believe he was. In fact, his concern for the personal well-being of his musicians seemed almost democratic, in a certain way.

Arthur Rubinstein liked being the center of attention.

Pollini is shy & modest - or perhaps, understated.

toucan, can you say more about your meetings with these men? Sounds very interesting.

[karlhenning]

A Maciek sighting!

[Maciek]

 

[vandermolen]

I remember last year, watching the very racy, and revealing performance of Salome on DVD, with Ewing in the title role. 

Yes, I encouraged her to re-enact this sequence during the school parent's evening - but sadly she declined my offer 

I also received some nice responses from Richard Arnell, after I sent him a letter of appreciation not long before his death.

[springrite]

Yes, I encouraged her to re-enact this sequence during the school parent's evening - but sadly she declined my offer 

Maybe you should have offered to do the re-enactment yourself. She might have picked you up on that offer!

[vandermolen]

Maybe you should have offered to do the re-enactment yourself. She might have picked you up on that offer!

That would have cleared the hall very quickly ! I'll remember your advice for next time 

[jlaurson]

Yes, talented people tend to be nicer, much nicer than average, as well as more talented
(seems to be the same with popular artists, on balance)

Herbert Von Karajan was not at all the authoritarian martinet people seem to believe he was. In fact, his concern for the personal well-being of his musicians seemed almost democratic, in a certain way.

Arthur Rubinstein liked being the center of attention.

Pollini is shy & modest - or perhaps, understated.

I don't buy the first statement for a minute. There's much more to being nice than talent and the opportunity to use it.

I've met my fair share of embittered, weird, shy (talking to Pollini is excruciating because of his reticent modesty, at least when he doesn't know you and you yourself are nearly fainting with reverence...), but also sunny, genial, uncomfortable, sociable, smooth conductors or instrumentalists. They're like everyone else... probably no more friendly than an average educated person; not even stranger, on average.

...except sometimes you get an ego-gone-wrong; typically of the very-near-but-not-quite top ranks. My second interview for the now defunct station WGMS 104.5 was with such a conductor and the experience nearly made me want to quit, had I not mustered enough anger mid-way through the interview that I just started sniping back.

It's unfair to single anyone out, really... because there are many very nice lads and lasses among the lot... but since I'm easily swayed, Sarge-like, by alluring females, I'd have to say that the most charming, so far, was probably the violinist Carolin Widmann. What a genuinely uncomplicated, lovely, pleasant person. Not at all 'German', not stiff... good thing I had heard her recording (which made me want to interview her in the first place) before the meeting, or else I would have considered my own judgement to be the subject of bias.

[not edward]

I've not met many name performers, but Bryden Thomson struck me as a very affable chap.

As for composers, I met Harrison Birtwistle for about three minutes (he seemed reserved but pleasant). The other name composer I've met was Helmut Lachenmann, who seems to have the sort of personality and body language that dominates a room, despite his somewhat awkward English. (Of course, being extremely tall probably helps him there.)

[Beetzart]

Daniel Barenboim in Cairo 2 years ago.

[(poco) Sforzando]

  I also took some courses at Hofstra University with the late composer Elie Siegmeister ,who was on the faculty, and the New York City Opera bass Herbert Beattie, whom I got to know fairly we,, and is a very interesting man.

For some reason I'm finding this thread again. As a teenager growing up on Long Island, I once met Siegmeister, and though I didn't know Herb Beattie very well, I was very friendly with his son Kurt, who went to my high school and is now a well-known name in Seattle theater. I did take some college music courses at Hofstra with the composers Herb Deutsch and Al Tepper. And in high school I studied piano with Morton Estrin, who is probably best known (probably to his chagrin) as the piano teacher of Billy Joel (whom I've never met).