White Water Rafting & Raiders with the Philadelphia Orch

[Derek Reaban]

Last Wednesday started with a drive from Breckenridge to Buena Vista, Colorado for a half day white water rafting trip with Performance Tours on the Arkansas River. Our experienced guide, MB (Marybeth) was excellent and led the raft that I was in for both parts of our adventure. We had 14 family members on our trip, and began with the easier section of the river with my two nephews (6 & 9) and my niece (4). At the halfway point, we dropped off Grandma, my brother in law, and the 6 and 4 year olds and continued with the rest of the group to Browns Canyon.

The names of the rapids in this section of the river were great! Pinball, Zoom Flume, Indecision Rock, Widow-maker, Meat Grinder, and the Toilet Bowl. The water was flowing at 600 gallons per second (it was at 4,000 - 5,000 gps last time we did the tour in 1995), so the river was low in sections and made for some excellent technical maneuvers to get through many of the more challenging rapids. It was thrilling (although not quite as big in 1995) and everybody had a great time. We made it back to Performance Tours in Buena Vista by 5 PM with a tight schedule to make it to our next adventure.

After a quick stop in Breckenridge to change and have some dinner we drove to Vail for the Bravo!Vail Music Festival to hear the Philadelphia Orchestra doing Raiders of the Lost Ark along with the movie.

While I had been to the Gerald Ford Auditorium many years ago for a New York Phil concert, I think I just got very lucky with the seats that I purchased for this concert. We were in the front row on the right side of the auditorium, and my seat was perfectly aligned so that I could see the principal trumpet and most of the trombone section. Jeff Curnow covered the first half of the concert and had some really beautiful solos (the Indy theme) (what a great sound). I really enjoyed seeing Jeff sit back each time after he finished playing, and watching his expressions as he looked up at the movie screen with the rest of us. He clearly was having a good time. There was also a excellent tuba line in the first half that grabbed my attention.

At the break, Bob Earley (long time TH member and Philadelphia Orchestra trumpet player) found me in the audience and we had a really nice conversation. We talked about his time in Montreal with Jim Thompson and some shared experiences (when I was traveling on business to Montreal years ago) with concerts at the Notre Dame basilica and practicing at the Strathcona Music Building at McGill. He told me that getting to study with Armando Ghitalla as a student set him up for success in his career!

The second half of the concert was with David Bilger on principal and with my vantage point I was able to really focus on the prominent trumpet sections of the score since I could see David’s bell come up each time before he played. Wow! That’s quite challenging writing, especially the scene with Marion at the plane (fight scene with the mechanic) and the scene when Indy jumps on the truck to get the Ark back. Bob commented that the second half of the show was much more challenging than the first half, and he was certainly right. If you want a treat, look up those two scenes on Youtube and close your eyes to focus on the trumpet parts! It was just amazing to experience a live soundtrack with the Philadelphia Orchestra for a movie as familiar as Raiders.

Bob came out again after the concert and we had a chance to talk a little more. He mentioned that they had a single, short rehearsal the day of the concert to put everything together with the movie. I told Bob that I joked with my middle son as we got to the final credits when they showed “Music by the London Symphony” and said they forgot to cross that out and show “Music by the Philadelphia Orchestra”! Bob mentioned that when he was in school at Baldwin Wallace, he was several years behind Chuck Berginc who is principal trumpet with the Phoenix Symphony, so we have a shared acquaintance. Bob was looking forward to a day off on Thursday to try his hand at fly fishing (in a simply picture perfect part of the world).

This was just about as perfect as a day can get! Thank you Bob for making my first live experience hearing the Philadelphia Orchestra so magical. It was truly a great evening!

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Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Winds / Symphony of the Southwest

[Don Herman rev2]

Sounds like a great trip, glad you enjoyed it (and Colorado)!
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"After silence, that which best expresses the inexpressible, is music" - Aldous Huxley