Category Archives: Lecture Concert

Always on our minds…

Well, with Monday night’s “Vienna 1900”-Lecture the spring season of 2014 is all wrapped up. We will be back for Road Scholar in September, but even in the meantime the tours will receive a good amount of our attention. We are busily working on new material all our groups will be receiving from fall 2014 on: lecture outlines, a CD, even nicer program notes… Apart from that, we also have a “little” flute camp coming up the end of next week, with almost 50 flutists of all ages. Afterwards, we will withdraw to a secluded cabin on an Austrian glacier and sleep for a week. No, just kidding. We have three kids, we know that sleep is overrated, anyway. Afterwards is the Salzburg Festival, which is still tour-free this summer. We will use some of our free time to prepare our talks for the Salzburg Festival tours in 2015! Road Scholar, you are always on our minds…

And: we got mail! A gentleman who took part in the last “Composers of Europe”-tour was so kind as to send us this:
“I was on the recent RS tour at which Julia and a marvelous quartet performed on May 24 at St. Salvator. All the tour group felt most privileged to be invited. During our time in Vienna we saw Traviata and a number of small concerts, but yours was the most interesting because of the excellence and esprit of the musicians.”
Well, thank you very much. That is really appreciated.

Road Scholar encounters and recommendations

We had one of those special Road Scholar moments just before our lecture concert on Sunday. A lady approached us and told us that she had signed up for this tour on recommendation. And seemingly one of the main reasons for the recommendation was us, Julia and Walter! We definitely feel very flattered – thank you so much, Doug and Lilly!
And speaking of recommendations: in August 2015 there will be a series of Salzburg/Lucerne Festival tours. We will be with the groups during the Salzburg part of the tour thrice, and the program in general sounds fantastic. We’d actually love to take it ourselves if we weren’t working there. But we can definitely recommend the tour- it would be lovely to reencounter some of you there.

Road Scholar

rsAs you know, we work almost exclusively for Road Scholar. This company seems to unfailingly attract the kindest, nicest, most interested and interesting people – we love meeting you and are always almost sad to see you go. This is especially true of the music groups that we see thrice during their time in Vienna. We’re really looking forward to the Salzburg Festival groups that will start in 2015 because it will give us another opportunity to get to know „our“ groups more closely.

Just as an example, here’s an email that a former Road Scholar participant sent to Walter during his tour to the US in March:
„I want to tell you how much I enjoyed the VPO at Weill Hall in Cotati, California, on Tuesday March 11.  I was so happy to see you and to hear you, after having met you and your lovely wife in October, 2012, when you hosted our Road Scholar group to a private recital.  That evening, the rehearsal in the Musikverein [of Das Paradis und die Peri], and the chat our group had with you in the Vienna State Opera House, are among the most precious memories I have of that trip.
Also to tell you:  The woman sitting next to me Tuesday evening—a stranger to me—also recognized you, because she took the Road Scholar tour in the autumn of 2013.  You have fans here in northern California!
Thank you for the enjoyment you give to your audience.“

What an incredible coincidence! Thank you for sharing!