Biodome

I am still recovering from the last time!

Clearly they should have performed this piece:

There's also another version of the same massive painting on display at the Munch Museum in Oslo. If you get the audio guide (which is something I recommend), they tell you all of the interesting historical facts and trivia related to the work.

The Kaunas State Choir is visiting Oslo in order to celebrate the anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Norway and Lithuania. Yesterday, they held a concert at the University of Oslo's Aula, with the local student choir, Chorus Mixtus, hosting the event and also joining them in the programme. Notably, the King and Queen of Norway were also among the audience, and the public had to follow the required etiquette, both arriving early (before the King and Queen), and leaving late (after the King and Queen had left). Most of the pieces focused on two composers: the Lithuanian Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis and the Norwegian Edvard Grieg. However, there were also a few pieces from other composers, most notably Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas by John Williams. I thought it was interesting to see how ubiquitous the piece had become when it comes to festive concerts, even at the highest diplomatic level and formal occasions such as these. Here is a video fragment of the performance: received_1207845244593925.mp4 Here is the programme: And a few pictures from social media:

John Williams is still listed as the conductor on their website. If you have an update from Berlin Phil that we haven't seen, you should provide a source.

There were meetups in London/Vienna/Berlin/Milan, some of them quite well-organized and large, with restaurant reservations etc., others smaller and more spontaneous. You might check the forums for any meetup threads before the event, or make one yourself if it does not exist.

I really hope Berlin Phil find a way to invalidate scalped tickets, and the scalpers get forced to pay refunds.

IIRC, there are ID checks before entering the hall, so I think resellers (or people who buy from resellers) are taking a risk here. Although that might have been related to the pandemic, and not to the actual tickets. I can't remember.

I had the window open 2 hours in advance, but still had to wait long in the queue, only to see a completely sold out hall. In the concerts before, there was always a chance to get a ticket, even in a sub-par section. This time, it was just hopeless.

Here's the ending! They also played Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas! It does make a dent in my finances, and now especially with the krone, it's very noticeable, and a full-time job is barely enough. Nevertheless, I think it's worth it. I wasn't even going to London because of Home Alone, though. It was an afterthought, as I noticed that there luckily was a concert today at RAH. I went with some family to see Phantom of the Opera yesterday. That one was also a great experience. Here's the conductor doing a little performance for us after the end: VID_20231202_220226_HLG.mp4

John Williams is being performed live in London once again: https://www.royalalberthall.com/tickets/events/2023/home-alone-in-concert/ I'm just waiting for today's concert to begin!

The official reason given was "to protect the guests' privacy", although I'm not sure how pictures or videos would violate their privacy. The participants were announced publicly well before the event, and they looked happy to be there. I guess it's more to do with the organizers and Mike not wanting any of the photographic/audio/video content presented during the event to be distributed outside of their control.

They told us to take no pictures, no video or audio recordings, and to not post about the event on social media. Without going into the actual content, I can say that the LSO musicians and Mike were amazing to listen to. You can really feel the love they have for John Williams as a composer, conductor and musician. I remember @bigjimwilson asked about the elitism/snobism that is prevalent within some Classical music academic circles and orchestras, such as the Berliner Philharmoniker. Well, there was none of that LSO! I can also mention that my brother was lucky enough to win one of the smaller prizes. He didn't have enough space to take everything aboard the plane, so we split the loot! It was several CDs, Blu-rays, booklets, artwork, a Legacy of John Williams t-shirt and a box with E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial merchandise.

It was a great concert!