Find out what the Orchestra is up to on tour with these regular updates.

See the map below for a visual overview of the tour. For the full tour dates, visit the performance pages.

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March 23 - Kate Birchall (violin) in Abu Dhabi

... and relax. The worst day of travelling so far on the trip, flights from Taipei to Hong Kong, Hong Kong to Dubai and then bus from Dubai to Abu Dhabi. The only solution is to go face down on the beach the next day. In fact it feels so good that all desire to explore outside the hotel evaporates in the clear sun and gentle breeze. Having not been well for most of the trip this finally feels like an opportunity to rest and recuperate. I tore myself away from the sparkling sea for the concert yesterday; the venue, the Emirates Palace Hotel, is obscene in its opulence. A rich men's playground complete with a concert hall that has acoustics remarkably akin to Brighton!

March 20 - Kate Birchall (violin) in Taipei

Tired and travel weary, the best option on arriving in Taipei was to head for the hot springs on the outskirts of the city. A couple of hours later we were relaxed and heavy-limbed, if slightly smelly, after mineral baths with varying temperatures, jacuzzis, a waterfall shower and a heated marble slab. Too tired even to head out of the hotel for food we take advantage of the Japanese buffet on the third floor. The next morning the view out of my window is unprepossessing, grey high rise with low cloud, not dissimilar to Manchester. Perfect day for the National Palace Museum full of treasures from the Forbidden City in Beijing. Glad that our touring schedule allows for these cultural connections!

March 19 - Thomas Eisner (violin) in Taipei

We have only 5 days to go now. Apart from the fascinating cultural experience of being in the far east and the many tourist sights it has been really interesting seeing how musically the tour has developed.

This is Vladimir Jurowski’s first time in the far east and also the longest tour that he and the orchestra have ever done together. What is absolutely clear at the end of each concert is the feeling that we have achieved something special. The audience’s refusal to stop applauding has Vladimir making repeated curtain calls which would continue all evening if it weren’t for Boris the leader’s initiative in leading the orchestra, this time off the platform!

The audience reaction has much to do with the excitement and intensity the playing, but  also high technical standard achieved. I put this down to Vladimir’s refusal to compromise. Of course it would have been so much easier to have just done the rehearsals in  London and then simply roll out average concerts night after night on tour. NO he doesn’t work like that and more importantly doesn’t want to. Instead before each concert we have at least an hour and a half “seating” rehearsal where he will often move whole string sections around the stage in order to balance the sound. For example we now have the basses behind us and cellos beside us which last night in Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique curiously reminded me of playing Eugene Onegin at Glyndebourne, the positioning being the same as in the opera pit. The results are really noticeable!

The other night soloist Nikolaj Znaider’s chin rest fell off in the middle of the Brahms concerto. After a lengthy 15 minutes' repair work he came back and completed the piece superbly. I think he felt so guilty at having held everyone up that he insisted on playing in the orchestra in the second half.
My colleague Yang Zhang  had the pleasure of sharing a desk with him. They seemed to have fun together. When he walked on stage every eye in the audience seemed to be on them but after a while he was just part of the orchestra playing Tchaikovsky.

Nikolaj Znaider and Yang Zhang (by Thomas Eisner)

This has been a great tour, a great orchestra led by a great conductor. I feel very proud!

March 18 - Fiona Highmas (violin) in Taipei

Taipei is sticky, 20 centigrade and rainy in a tropical fashion. The concert hall was huge and with a hugely appreciative packed house.  We had the added thrill of the soloist joining the second violin section for the second half of the concert to play the Tchaikovsky symphony incognito as one of us!

There doesn't seem an awful lot to see in the way of sight seeing musts except the museum which is apparently packed with fascinating artifacts.The city is huge, very built up, and with appalling-looking high-rise slums on the outskirts. The centre is strangely deserted with wide roads leading to more shopping malls. Need to check this out tomorrow.

Apart from that, the shopping malls, heavily air-conditioned and all with their obligatory "food courts" on the basement level seem to be where the orchestra seems to end up each day. at least that way there are supplies for a quick snack before, or after the concert! What a strange existence we do lead as touring musicians.

March 17 - Kate Birchall (violin) in Hong Kong

LPO goes colonial. Funny to see the orchestra change jeans and boots overnight for linens and sandals before stepping out into the gentle warmth and humidity of Hong Kong. A mad city and, in my opinion, best viewed from the Star ferry or the heights of Victoria Peak. Too many people and too much traffic make it an exhausting place to walk around. The outlying Lamma island made a welcome change with lush green vegetation and sandy beaches.

March 14 - Fiona Higham (violin) in Hong Kong

Having dropped the bags in our hotel here , we rushed out for a lunch in a Kowloon restaurant with fabulous views overlooking Hong Kong Harbour.

As all ten of us sat down to a veritable Chinese  banquet of Dim Sum , someone pointed out that around the table our group consisted of no less than EIGHT different nationalitiies:
Dutch, French, German,Hungarian , South African, Bulgarian,, Chinese and only two English ! How's that for a cosmopolitan organisation?

It must be said that although all of us did considerable justice to this huge lunch ordered expertly by violinist Yang Zhang, whom we were only to happy to allow to order for us all; Peter Schoemann (violinist and our co-leader) outdid everyone and ate us all under the table, to much good-humoured teasing. It's quite incredible that he is still slim!

After this very  jolly gathering, we headed off on the Star Ferry across the harbour to experience the bustling Central area first hand. It was almost overwhelming, with its teeming crowds, incessant noise and hectic traffic , and some of us began to feel very tired indeed after our early morning start today in Seoul. The stalwarts among us explored the hilly streets for a while longer , before heading wearily back to the ferry to collapse back at the hotel. This is a free day, but being also a travel day including a fairly long flight, it is easy to exhaust ourselves in enjoying this non-concert day!

If we can muster the energy, the plan is to meet later this evening for cocktails in the rooftop bar of The Peninsula Hotel, the very up- market neighbouring hotel to ours in Kowloon.

Tomorrow it's back to work with a morning rehearsal and evening concert in The Hong Kong Cultural centre. Hope the more jet-lagged amongst us get some sleep at last.

March 10 - Football match in Seoul

LPO_admin by text (using twitter.com)

Day 1: All arrived safely yesterday and in one piece. First event in the schedule was a very kind invitation from the Seoul Philharmonic to join them in a football match at the World Cup Stadium. Jet lag aside, it was a proud day for the LPO, who won the match. Final score 3-2. First concert tomorrow evening (Sejong Centre), so am sure celebrations will be kept to a minimum...

Full report (and more photos) by the Yonhap News Agency.

Featured below from left to right (in blue): Martin  Höhmamn (violin), Greg Walmsley (cello), Paul Beniston (trumpet), Simon Estell (contrabassoon).

and the brass fanfare from the stands (photo: David Whitehouse) with Anne McAneney (toy trumpet), David Hilton (trumpet) and Mark Templeton (trombone).

March 10 - from Kate Birchall (violin) in Seoul

We stumbled out of the hotel last night after 18 hours travelling into the back streets of Seoul near to Dongdaemun Market in search of food, only to be assailed by a chaotic profusion of neon lights and the all pervasive smell of Kimchi (cabbage pickled with garlic and chilli) and bad drains. Our goal was to find a place that didn't appear to be cooking the food in the street over an open brazier or washing the dishes with a hose pipe into the gutter. Eventually we settled on a place and after much pointing and gesticulating manage to order some food which arrives quickly, is hot and tasty... result!

March 10 - from Fiona Higham (violin) in Seoul

The flight over was fine but I did not sleep, consequently slept in until 11am today and totally missed breakfast !

I have been out and about exploring downtown Seoul today with Susanne Beer, and we had a moderately successful lunch in a Chinese restaurant. Eating out in Korea has been a very hit and miss experience in the past, so i was very apprehensive, but we managed somehow to find an edible meal.

Korean food is all very hot (chilli-wise) with this pickled cabbage in Chilli featuring large in most places and is and mostly un- recognisable to our western palates. The weather here is bright, quite sunny, if a bit hazy ( pollution?) and fairly cold. I think we are doing better than you at the moment, having seen the weather repots on BBC World predicting wild storms!

Well Goodbye from Korea for now. Tomorrow we start to work.

All opinions and comments are those of the named players, not necessarily shared by the London Philharmonic Orchestra!