I’m writing from the United Lounge at Tokyo’s Narita Airport where the Pittsburgh Symphony has been hanging out for the last four hours. The plane has been changed, and a new departure time of 7:00 pm set. The passengers have been waiting while the security staff and medical personnel evaluate the risk of swine flu […]

The new 2009 World Games Stadium at Kaohsiung has been initiated with the joyous and thunderous sound of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy and Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture performed by the Pittsburgh Symphony.  Fireworks during the 1812 and at the end of the evening went off without a hitch. Not as impressive as Zambelli, of course, but […]

There are so many unexpected moments in China. Here in Taiwan we’re in a hotel connected to the Japanese Department store Hanshin which has a large food court on the basement level and eight floors of shopping. The food court is a riot of interesting places including a McDonald’s offering a Big Mac Meal or […]

I’m sitting just behind the stage of the Kaohsiung stadium while the Pittsburgh Symphony rehearses Beethoven’s Ode to Joy from the Ninth Symphony with a chorus of singers from the Vienna State Opera and choirs from Taiwan. It is a very warm and humid evening. The stage for the Orchestra is brightly lit with colorful […]

There are a few westerners in the big hotels in Beijing. At breakfast, I met Linda Heimels, born in Amsterdam. She told me she loves living in Beijing even more than her few years spent in New York and Washington D.C. She told me the Chinese are very warm and open once you gain their […]

While sifting through the photos I took today, I’ve been listening to MTV China on the hotel TV. You have to wonder what Chairman Mao would have thought about the Pussycat Dolls, Madonna, Britney Spears and Janet Jackson cavorting in the People’s Republic. There’s some Chinese rock and a Chinese rapper in something called simply […]

When the Pittsburgh Symphony planned its first tour with Manfred Honeck in Asia, it wasn’t expecting a worldwide flu pandemic. But in spite of the worries, the orchestra has arrived safely in Beijing. After nearly 24 hours of travel and a 13-and-a-half hour flight from Chicago, the players were scanned with a thermal sensing device […]

Beginning May 12, 2009. Jim Cunningham will be on the scene as one of the first American orchestras to visit China returns to the land of Lang Lang and over 50 million young classical music students. Music Director Manfred Honeck will conduct the PSO in Beijing at “The Egg,” then in Shanghai, and finally at […]