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When we attend a symphony orchestra concert, the "shape" of the music we hear is often sculpted by the hands of not just the musicians but also the conductor, too. Sometimes we find ourselves mimicking the conductor's gestures in our own inspired enjoyment but it's also rather fascinating to think about just how much influence these gestures have.

And it's not just in the hands--it's communication that involves the whole body. At the end of our concerts, I'll occasionally hear people commenting that it seemed like Adam was dancing on the podium and if you saw the view from our side, you'd see a giant smile on his face, too--but if you felt a sense of dancing, well, didn't the music feel like a dance at the time? We hope so :) So what goes into shaping a piece for performance?

In rehearsal, we'll occasionally stop and take some time to understand the shape of a given passage by using some form of description, often through verbal descriptions of visual elements and sometimes through abstract concepts. Or, we could also find an understanding by evoking sentiments from our common personal experiences, too. From there we can usually fine-tune the sound that we eventually hope to communicate by watching Maestro Stern's movements. It's much easier and more natural than saying "play this at this volume and taper it at this rate until you end at this volume."

Sometimes, though, this is also the most efficient way: during the rehearsals of our last concert, during the Sibelius, we thought about swiming in gravy to help turn a visually frantic passage of sixteenth notes on paper into what we hoped to be a thick and hearty sound and for this concert we're imagining the heave of a hammer as we pay Aaron Copland's "John Henry." On the other end, a few rehearsals ago we spent extensive time with more technical instructions to properly convey the style of Haydn's Symphony No. 96. "These quarter notes should be played as eighth notes," and so we were pencilling tails onto certain quarter notes in our parts, and later on we would pencil-in the word  "bell" to describe their distinct taper of sound during a passage of half notes.

It's all in the character of the piece, maybe even the moment, but if you watch the conductor closely, you'll see these expressed in motion, motion translating into sound, and all of these forms of communication happen without uttering a word. We invite you to do this at our next concert, to not only hear the difference between "heavy" and "light" playing, or even long and short notes, but to see it.

To go along with that, here's an in-depth article by The New York Times on the various styles of conducting: The Maestro's Mojo.

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You can get tickets for our upcoming concert, where you'll hear Haydn's Symphony No. 96 and Aaron Copland's "John Henry" (among others), by clicking here!

In reviewing the music for tomorrow's concert, it's very easy to remember the day in October when we opened our folders to see the next concert's music, because many of the parts in the Sibelius were dark--dark with ink from all of the notes, rests, accidentals, you name it I'm sure it was in there. It was a bit intimidating for the first read-through, but as the rehearsals progressed, even by the third rehearsal, I think it was easy to sense a bit of excitement forming, which happens quite frequently as we learn and shape each piece. Images of gravy and Finnish bassists (to name a few) were tossed around to help refine the sound and at last week's rehearsal, we finally put all of the pieces together.

We rehearsed the Arutunian Trumpet Concerto with Don Bushell Concerto Competition winner Raymond DeLeon and during the rests we could only smile as we enjoyed superb playing. I'm sure the smiles were appreciative of his talent, but it would probably also be safe to say there was an element of "oh have we got something fun for you!" in there as well.

Also worth noting: you'll be hearing a piece being played for the first time by composer Karl Nord. Yes, this concert will have a world premiere! I could describe it but that would spoil the surprise, yes?

Flowing gravy. A warm, hearty yet moving fluid is probably one way to imagine what originally appeared to be a flurry of sixteenth notes that we saw during that first rehearsal. It was a chaotic mix of ingredients that steadily mixed itself into a warmed and wonderful sound that we hope you'll hear tomorrow. It's one of those pieces that is hard to describe without a few abstract concepts (the gravy is starting to make me hungry), but throw in a few images of Finland, close your eyes for a bit and see if you can summon a bit of synaesthesia and visualize the blue or maybe even purple in the sound and perhaps everything will come together just nicely. It was an experience for us to learn and we hope that it'll be an experience for you as well, no matter which route of enjoyment you wish to take (which is just one of the beautiful things about the arts!).

As with all of our concerts:

• Parking is free at the Meany Hall garage (the entrance is roughly at the intersection of NE 41st St. and 15th Ave. NE).
• Youth age 16 or younger attend free! Print a voucher for them here.
• Spend some time with Maestro Stern at the post-concert discussion to hear stories and ask questions--just gather at the front, near the stage!

And now, a few things particular to this concert:

• We're excited to have this concert as a part of our LivingSocial offering earlier this year. For those of you bringing your LivingSocial vouchers, look for a dedicated line.
• Will call tickets will be at the normal spot as well as "day of" ticket sales.
• If you plan on using the 520 floating bridge, it will be closed on that weekend so please plan accordingly.
• The clocks will spring ahead on this weekend as well! It's Daylight Saving Time!

From the initial chaos has come a really wonderful sound during the rehearsals and we hope you'll join us tomorrow to get swept away in the music! Here's a little bit more about the upcoming concert:

We are 8 days into the new year, 7 days until our next concert where we play Beethoven's 6th Symphony as well as works by Malloy Miller, Richard Strauss, and George Frederic Handel--appropriately his "Music for the Royal Fireworks." The first half of the program will feature our wonderful percussion, brass, and woodwind sections, in very exciting pieces. Perhaps the best way to learn about the interesting nuts and bolts behind these pieces would be to take a look at maestro Adam Stern discussing them in the video podcast. Just navigate to the "video" link at the menu bar at the top of this page.

Something we're also very excited about this year is that we've once again offered tickets at a deal-of-the-day website, this time through LivingSocial. It ran for a few days, and we can only say thank you to all that responded. It was overwhelmingly positive and we can't wait to see everyone on the 15th. We're hoping to apply the lessons we learned from last year's enthusiastic response and try to smooth things out at the front end. Look for people handling the LivingSocial parts, other people will be handling will call, and yet others that will be handling regular ticket sales for those that decide to join us at the time (and there's still time!), and above all of this we'll have people ready to greet and help direct you to the appropriate area as well. While we're hoping the increased number of people at the front will help things flow more smoothly, we still encourage getting to Meany Hall slightly earlier in anticipation of what we hope to be a larger audience.

We've made a few changes at the beginning of this calendar year, but there are a few things that haven't changed:

• Parking is free at the Meany Hall underground parking garage!
• Youth age 16 or younger can attend free of charge--just print the voucher available here.
• At the end of the concert, stick around for a discussion with our very own Maestro Stern! 

There's one rehearsal to go for us and only details are left and by the time we see you we hope to have another program that mixes the familiar with the not-so-familiar. With the fireworks to start the year, we hope to end the concert with a piece that, well, could very well be a piece points us forward toward spring (and our next concert).

From all of us at the Seattle Philharmonic, we'd like to wish you a happy start to your 2012 and we can't wait to see you!