After five days of intense rehearsals in Bruges, Anima played the premiere in Antwerp yesterday. It’s always a happy return to deSingel; we have so many good orchestral memories of the place. A good, fraternal vibe among the musicians saved the heavy workday. They were ready for serious business after Anima’s birthday party the night before. We celebrated Anima’s 25th with food and drinks and with El MariaChill de Don Pedro Arreola. This Antwerp based, Latin American combo had everyone up and dancing until – errr – some time past midnight.
Yesterday was an exciting day, for many reasons.We released Debussy unto our audience, but we were also expecting a delivery: one of the team members drove to Den Haag and back to pick up our vinyl record. Having left in a sunny Antwerp at 11 AM, he couldn’t predict that sudden heavy snowfall would congest Belgian and Dutch roads up to a total of over 1000 km of jams. He arrived at the concert hall with our vinyl at 7.58 PM – two minutes before the premiere.
It’s worth taking your record player down from the attic and from under thirty years of dust: the vinyl is so shiny, so new, so full of beautiful bits of music and such good quality. Until the end of this year, Jos will sign and dedicate records after every concert.
We have just arrived in Brussels and everyone’s resting a bit before getting on the tour bus that will take us to Flagey for the second concert. Tonight’s gig will be recorded by Canvas, Belgian television. Check the website and facebook page for the broadcast date.
Brussels is covered in snow, the sun is out and it’s a beautiful day. But the weather also has its down sides. Casualties so far: one cello and one double bass are showing cracks from the drought. The broken clarinet has been provisionally fixed, but it will need further repair when it’s home.
And we’re off to the concert hall.