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he stood twenty feet from me, conducted a movement of Mahler’s Symphony 5.
 

tonight was a TSO’s one of late night concert series featuring Mahler’s Symphony 5 as part of the Toronto Luminato festival with a 10:30pm start time. and this was my first time to see the concert conducted by current Music director Peter Oundjian -he will become the Music Director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in 2012.
once I watched a documentary film called ‘Five Days in September’ a couple of years ago. the orchestra had financial problems before Oundjian came. he rushes around from television to radio interviews, to orchestra rehearsals. his energy is so impressive.
tonight i came to the concert to see Mr. Oundjian and himself.
so we booked front row tickets, right wing of the stage. i know it isn’t the best seats for classical music concert, but my point was different. we could see the conductor’s right hand side of face from only 20 ft away which was singularly exciting to me. he was like the captain of the ship sailing ocean of classical symphony and his face told his crew, the orchestra they were still in serious trouble. he was keeping that tension for whole two hours. then suddenly his face brightened. the journey is over. he flashed us a huge smile, full of visible relief.