On my first Marlboro tour I was playing the Ligeti horn trio with Soovin Kim and Benjamin Jaber and was extremely happy to share this modern masterpiece with audiences around the country. This tour was memorable for many more reasons—an amazing laser-tag game in Washington DC before one of the concerts; the stress everyone had when Ben Jaber’s passport expired and he had to find a different way to pass the border to Canada; and, of course, the unfortunate Hurricane Sandy and cancellation of the Philadelphia concert, causing delay and cancellations of all flights for several days, with me, Paul Wiancko and Tibi Cziger (who was not part of the tour but was in NY and was expecting his first daughter with Marlboro alumni Michal Korman and was unable to leave the country) staying for 48 hours at Michelle Ross’s apartment in New York.

My second tour was calmer in that aspect, but musically very exciting, as I performed with one of my favorite groups from my four summers at Marlboro: the amazing Brahms A Major piano quartet, with Hsin-Yun Huang, Emilie-Anne Gendron and Gabriel Cabezas. Besides the great concerts we had, two memorable moments were recorded. One was an unforgettable dinner at a Spanish restaurant in Washington (I was apparently the only non-foodie in the group), and the other was at the Philadelphia concert when, in the midst of the Scherzo, all of a sudden, the page turner (who was excellent until that moment) whispered loudly in my ear, “are you doing the repeat???”, which almost made me jump from the seat and became a running gag for the remaining concerts.

Looking forward to more tours to come!