Today was the big day: our first concert at the Seoul Arts Center! A massive 2,500-seat hall… and honestly, I was nervous. The orchestra had just landed, this was one of the most important concerts of the whole tour, we hadn’t played the programme in two and a half weeks, and we only had 90 minutes of rehearsal in the hall. “No stress,” right?
To make things even more exciting, it was pouring outside. The result: total traffic chaos and a bus full of musicians arriving late. Yet everyone stayed remarkably calm and focused. And once we started playing, the hall’s gorgeous acoustics did their magic — all the tension simply melted away.
Before the concert, there was a reception at the Belgian Embassy with our general manager Bob Permentier and head of artistic planning Ronan Tighe. Even a former minister and several dignitaries had travelled to Seoul for this debut of the Belgian National Orchestra in Korea.
And the concert itself: Mozart sounded fresh and sparkling, Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto shone thanks to the brilliant HaeSun Paik, and Brahms’s First Symphony showed the orchestra at its very best: warm, powerful, and bursting with energy.
During the encore — Sibelius’ Valse triste — the hall was so silent you could have heard a pin drop 😅. And then came the cheers, applause, and standing ovations. I had to go back on stage five times! In the end, I grabbed Alexei, our concertmaster, by the arm so we could take the final bow together. (And yes, I made a hand-heart gesture to the audience… only to find out later that in Korea, they use a different gesture for that. Oops 😂)
In short: a fantastic debut night. The orchestra is glowing with pride, and I’m still buzzing with adrenaline in bed. Brahms 1 is looping in my head… tonight’s dreams are going to be wild!
Antony
