But Enough About Us...

Okay, people, let's take a step back here. I'll be the first to admit that, when we play Carnegie Hall each season, I'm probably the first to run out and buy the Times two days later looking for the review. And when this year's rather unusual program struck a positive nerve with the New Yorkers, I think we were all thrilled. And this week's New Yorker article was certainly icing on the cake, coming as it did from one of the most respected voices in the classical music world.

But honestly? When we've reached the point that our local press is interviewing the New York press just to ask them to say one more time that the Big Apple thinks we're awesome, we might all want to take a deep breath.

Don't get me wrong - the fact that the media capital of the US is paying positive attention to our orchestra is a great thing, and I don't mean to make light of the pleasure anyone in Minnesota might be taking in that fact. (I can only imagine that our marketing staff is even now preparing to make copious use of the juicier quotes in next season's brochures, as well they should.) But when I heard Alex Ross talking to MPR's Tom Crann on All Things Considered this afternoon, the most important thing I heard him say was, "An orchestra is only as good as its last performance."

I'll be honest - good reviews can sometimes drive musicians battier than bad ones, just because of the pressure of living up to the hype the next night, next week, next month, etc. In fact, ever since that oh-so-flattering New Yorker piece came out, our rehearsals have been rife with gallows humor. Pretty much every audible mistake that's been made in rehearsal this week has been followed immediately by someone turning to the person next to him/her and intoning, with mock seriousness, "...greatest orchestra in the world."

Again, we're thrilled that we turned in a powerful show in New York, and grateful for the accolades, but we're back in Minneapolis now, with the home crowd that pays good money to hear us work our tails off week in and week out. Which means only one thing: Carnegie is over, and now, we're only as good as our next concert.

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On another note, and in the name of gathering some perspective in this week of laudatory excess, the Minnesota Orchestra will actually have one more turn in the national spotlight tomorrow, when our beloved Associate Concertmaster Roger Frisch is featured on no less august a program than ABC's World News with Diane Sawyer. And this story has nothing to do with Carnegie Hall.

I'll let the ABC folks bring you the whole story, but suffice to say that Roger recently faced a terrifying and potentially career-ending medical crisis for which there appeared to be no solution, until the doctors at Minnesota's legendary Mayo Clinic stepped in and performed a miraculous and groundbreaking surgical feat. You know, the kind they seem to perform roughly every other week down there in Rochester.

Roger's story is scheduled to run during Thursday's World News broadcast, which airs locally at 5:30pm on KSTP-5. (For you out-of-town readers, that's 6:30pm E/P on your local ABC-TV affiliate.) I'll update this post with a link/embed to the online feed once it's posted.

Updated, 3/18: Okay, so they got the name of the orchestra wrong (honestly, ABC, you showed a close-up of the words "Minnesota Orchestra" seconds after your reporter called us something else,) but the shots of Roger playing the violin while a surgeon pokes sharp objects into his brain? Coolest thing ever. Here's the link to the online text version of the story (which also calls us the Minneapolis Orchestra,) and here's the video of the story as it aired tonight on ABC...