Capital of Culture
13 January

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Well, the party has begun.

Liverpool is now Europe's official capital of culture for the next twelve months. We actually share the title with Stravanger in Norway but no-one is mentioning this locally and, in any case, the Norse are really not doing as much about it as we are, so there.

The official opening event on Friday was rather spectacular. In retrospect, I'm rather sad I didn't go but thoughts of an open air event in January, large crowds and Ringo Star singing on top of St George's Hall rather put me off. Ross's brother Sam went. We've yet to hear from him as to what he thought of it.

In the event, fireworks, light shows and aerial acrobatics seemed to have delighted all and sundry. Hats off also to whoever decided that the event should begin at 20:08 hrs. Nice touch.

Press coverage after event seemed to focus on crowd members talking about how Scousers really know how to throw a good party. Actually we don't. What we are really expert at is gate-crashing someone else's party and really messing it up.

You could tell therefore that we'd hired in some outsiders to organise the event for us. Luckily, whoever took the decision decided to hire someone good. This city is notorious for trying to do things like this on the cheap. With worldwide press coverage (guaranteed by the presence of Mr Star), the last thing we need was to look tacky.

My own Capital of Culture celebrations, of course, started just under a fortnight ago with the staged performance of Donizetti's Emilia di Liverpool.

I added another item into the mix with a visit to the Phil on Thursday night. Conducted by Vasily Petrenko, it was an excellent evening.

Where to start? The orchestra tore into Ravel's La Valse. It may have been a little unyielding but it was certainly exciting and colourful. Ilya Gringolts was our fiddlist in Prokofiev's second violin concerto (an odd and quirky work - I liked the first two movements and then couldn't get the hang of the last one) and then Korngold's splendid work. Sumptuous and magnificent are two words that come to mind. The whole show ended with Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. The audience erupted at the end. There were cheers and whistles and people standing. I was quite emotional.

I met up with Roland and Colin in the foyer. I also spent some time talking with Nigel, who is a partner of mine from some twenty years ago. There was some difficulty a long while back, so it is more than pleasant to be back on amicable speaking terms.

I arrived home after the performance and got out my Phil brochure immediately. There are some four more concerts that I shall try to attend later this season. All of them are conducted by Petrenko. He really has me buzzing once more to attend live orchestral music in this city.