[New-Poetry] You there! Drop that oboe!

[Halvard Johnson]

	From: 	  halvard at earthlink.net
	Subject: 	[crewrt-l] You there! Drop that oboe!
	Date: 	August 15, 2006 10:44:43 AM CDT
	To: 	  cafe-blue at wiz.cath.vt.edu, crewrt-l at interversity.org
	Reply-To: 	  crewrt-l at interversity.org


August 15, 2006
TRAVEL
Tighter Security Is Jeopardizing Orchestra Tours

By DANIEL J. WAKIN
Air travel for classical musicians has never been easy.

Those husky cellos need an extra ticket. Hey, security! Watch that  
priceless Stradivarius. Double-reed players? They have long given up  
on carrying aboard those valuable knives and shaping tools used to  
mold the cane that transforms their breath into lyrical sounds.

And now, with new concerns about carry-on baggage in the wake of  
Britain’s reported terrorist plot, it has gotten tougher.

Strict regulations imposed last week forced the New York-based  
Orchestra of St. Luke’s to cancel a long-awaited tour of Britain over  
the weekend and sent other ensembles with imminent trips, including  
the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Minnesota  
Orchestra, scrambling to cope with the new rules.

“I’m heartbroken,” Marianne C. Lockwood, the president and executive  
director of the St. Luke’s orchestra, said yesterday. “I don’t think  
I’ve been through 72 more anguished hours in my life.” The orchestra  
was to have left last Thursday for concerts at the Edinburgh  
International Festival and the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in  
London, one of the major summer music festivals.

All travelers in Britain had to adapt to the ban on carry-on items,  
which was relaxed yesterday to allow one small carry-on. But not all  
travelers ply their trade with highly personal artifacts made of  
centuries-old wood, horsehair and precious metals that many musicians  
are loath to put in the hold.

Its rules are of course in flux. The United States Transportation  
Security Administration says on its Web site that musical instruments  
are generally allowed in the cabin in addition to a carry-on bag and  
a personal item, but it leaves size requirements and permission for  
the carry-on to the airlines. In addition, it promises that security  
personnel will handle instruments carefully.

That is of little comfort to musicians, particularly string players,  
who suffer constant anxiety over the threat of damage and fears that  
their instruments will arbitrarily not be allowed in the cabin, even  
though violins fit into most overhead bins.

The violin virtuoso and conductor Pinchas Zukerman said security  
officials had even asked him to remove the strings of his 1742  
Guarneri del Gèsu. “I’ve had unbelievable discussions at certain  
airports,” he said by telephone while waiting at the Atlanta airport  
for a flight with his wife, the cellist Amanda Forsyth. “They want to  
stick their hands in my instruments, and they say, ‘It’s my job.’ ”

Cellists have it the worst, Ms. Forsyth said. “We buy the seat with a  
cello, and they treat us like second-class criminals.”

The new regulations have, for now, increased the complications.

The Bolshoi opera and ballet, which have been performing at the Royal  
Opera House in London, will send their orchestra’s instruments back  
to Moscow by ferry and truck at the end of the week if the  
restrictions are not relaxed, said Faith Wilson, a spokeswoman for  
the Bolshoi’s promoter at the house, Victor Hochhauser Presents. The  
Bolshoi orchestra’s chief conductor, Alexander Vedernikov, had been  
quoted as saying that the musicians’ contract requires them to keep  
their instruments with them.

“Clearly this is a very unusual situation,” Ms. Wilson said. “I’m  
sure there are insurance issues, but I don’t think anybody’s ever had  
to cope with the security restrictions that we’re up against.”

The Minnesota Orchestra is due to leave on Sunday for a European tour  
that also includes stops in Edinburgh and at the Proms. Like many  
major orchestras, it packs its instruments in specially designed and  
padded crates.

The biggest ones, which hold harps and double basses, are six and a  
half feet high and four feet wide. About 20 players in the 95-member  
ensemble like to take their instruments or precious bows on board,  
but they will stow them this time around, said a spokeswoman, Gwen  
Pappas. The trunks are delivered straight to concert halls, so the  
instruments will not be immediately available for players who want to  
practice at their hotels.

The Philadelphia Orchestra plays the Proms in early September. Its  
trunks also have space for all the members’ instruments, but it is  
working on backup plans for about a dozen musicians who are going on  
to other jobs or on vacation and not returning with the orchestra,  
said a spokeswoman, Katherine Blodgett.

Those concerts, coming later, give the orchestras time to prepare.  
And these are large, experienced touring groups that own the crates.

Not so the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, a highly regarded ensemble that  
nevertheless tours infrequently and saw the trip as a boost for its  
image. It spent two years planning the trip and many months carefully  
polishing the programs, which were to have been broadcast in the  
United States.

The trip had special significance for the orchestra’s principal  
conductor, Donald Runnicles, who is Scottish, and for its president,  
Ms. Lockwood, who was born in England.

Ms. Lockwood described three days of phone calls, fueled by takeout  
Chinese food, to find alternatives. The musicians had planned to  
carry their smaller instruments by hand.

Charter planes were too expensive: about $300,000, which would have  
doubled the cost of the tour. The orchestra scoured larger orchestras  
from Philadelphia to Boston to borrow trunks. All were in use. St.  
Luke’s considered flying the musicians to Paris, having them take a  
train to London and having the instruments trucked in, but there  
would not have been time to make a Tuesday rehearsal.

Then someone from Edinburgh called Saturday to offer the loan of  
instruments.

In the end, none of the efforts mattered. British Airways canceled  
the flight that day at 5 p.m.



=====

Hal

"The secret of managing is to keep the guys
  who hate you away from the guys who are
  undecided."
                       --Casey Stengel

Halvard Johnson
================
halvard at gmail.com
halvard at earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
http://entropyandme.blogspot.com
http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com
http://www.hamiltonstone.org

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