After 25 years at Utah State University, it’s high time I take a sabbatical. As a professional classical bass trombone player and professor, I have always wanted to visit the European musical hotspots of my musical heritage: Venice (St Mark’s Cathedral), Milan (La Scala), Bayreuth (Wagner Opera), Leipzig (Bach), Paris (Paris Conservatoire), Cinque Terre (Mediterranean Coast – a little R and R too!), London (theater), Vienna (Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven etc.) just to name a few. This sabbatical will provide the opportunity for me to visit the homes, churches, universities, towns, concert halls, and museums of the masters; the actual places in which they composed and performed their music.
So, Liz and I will embark on a 3 month journey to the UK and Eurozone in order to study and enjoy the music of our classical training in the towns and cities in which the composers worked and lived. This journey started in late January with the planning phase; plane tickets, itinerary, car rental etc. The actual trip will commence on Aug 2, 2016 and end with our return to the US on November 9, 2016. This blog will serve as a running commentary, diary, documenting the places we go and things that we do.
Most of the preliminary ground work has been done. Our basic path starts in Vienna, performing in the Classical Music Festival in Eisenstadt, Austria. From there, we fly to Dublin and take in Irish Music from around the country. Liz performs in a Celtic Band that plays Irish and Scottish music. This part of the trip is devoted to her; a chance to hear and see Celtic music performed by musicians in pubs and venues around the island. We then hop over to Scotland and on down to London. We ferry from London to Amsterdam, train to Brussels and train to Paris. We pick up a car in Paris and and start out Euro-journey through France, Italy, Austria and Germany. Finally, we head back to Paris to drop off the car and head home.
I hope you enjoy following along on our journey as we go. We will blog through out the entire trip sharing stories of the road and posting pictures of where we visit and stay.
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