Working with Helmut was a pleasure. We started at 4:30 pm and spent about 1.5 hours going through every measure, taking care to understand all the notes, rhythms, sentiments, gestures, executions, etc. He was also very humorous and very patient. This man had been working all afternoon, meeting with all the musicians and groups involved in ‘zwei Gefühle…’, Musik mit Leonardo. I believe his lunch was a croissant and a tea that Yukiko Takagi (the pianist playing in the piece) brought in at around 4:45 pm. Afterwards, Steve Olsen came in and offered to get the maestro some sushi from Whole Foods. Helmut was delighted and smiled, responding, “You have sushi here?” You should have seen the cheer on his face.
Of course, now I know how everything is supposed to go… so I have a lot of work to do now. Oh boy.
