40th Anniversary Report: Waiting for the Big Show

It's a beautiful morning in London today.  The temperature is 61, the sun is shining, no rain is predicted for a change and the high should be 70.  Reality hits tomorrow when we return to the sultry Midwest.

We picked up our tickets for the JACK Quartet concert yesterday at Wigmore Hall.  The Hall is gorgeous.  It holds 550; there are 149 tickets left for the concert.  This morning's Guardian has a nice preview here of the concert..  Hopefully, that will sell the other 149 so we can boast of a sell-out performance.

Also, in today's Chamber Musician Today, there's a very interesting (but lengthy) article on the history of the string quartet, starting with Haydn and ending with JACK's performance of an Aaron Cassidy quartet.  What's there not for a proud father to like in an article which starts out like this:

 Steps to the most interesting encounter to ever happen:

1.      - Make herbal resurrection remedy

2.       -Bring Haydn back from the dead

3.       -Buy him a new coat, dust off his wig, introduce him to the idea of cars

4.       -Take him to a JACK Quartet performance

5.       -Have him listen to one of Aaron Cassidy’s string quartets

6.       -Watch what happens

On the agenda today are at least an attempt at following The route set out by Roger Ebert and Daniel Curley in The Perfect London Walk..  I promised the Curley daughters, and also Roger Ebert himself at his most recent Ebertfest that I would check out the walk.  Then dinner at 6:00 at the Wigmore Restaurant and concert at 7:30.