It's "Day Zero" because the official Cleveland Orchestra tour hasn't really started yet. Still, some orchestra members left before the rest. A few were probably after some extra sightseeing time in Spain, but most of the early birds are trying to defeat jet lag.

Touring is tough on an orchestra. Being on a foreign stage (with unfamiliar acoustics) in a foreign city (with a possibly unfamiliar language) is stress enough already. Add a six-hour time shift, and the attendant loss of sleep, and it can almost be too much. This time the players will have Wednesday the 20th as a free day in Las Palmas, Canary Islands, to recover, but one more day to adjust still can make quite a difference.

For many orchestra veterans, it's just another tour, another job to be done. One member confided to me that he'd done this for over a quarter century, and he wouldn't miss it if the orchestra never traveled again. But for many, tours are a chance to sample new cuisines, experience different cultures, and see new sights. And if they seldom stay in one place very long, at least most of the hotel accommodations are thoroughly comfortable.

Though Europe is the birthplace of the orchestra's repertoire, and American culture is greatly derivative of Europe's, customs do differ. Hornist Richard Solis pointedly remarked on their different attitudes toward smoking as we waited around the baggage carousel in Madrid's airport. Like most European nations, Spain has few regulations, and tobacco use in public places is reminiscent of the US thirty years ago. There isn't much refuge for a nonsmoker in restaurants.

On the other hand, some orchestra players do indulge in tobacco, at least occasionally, and one of the perquisites of overseas visits is the chance to buy Cuban cigars, essentially unavailable in the US because of our country's embargo. They're easily found in Spain, and at about a quarter of the Canadian price. This year the orchestra's famous poker players (give 'em a free half-hour and they'll launch into a game) may well be surrounded by a "fragrant" blue wall of smoke. We'll see.

The Cleveland Orchestra has a well filled itinerary. Their first concert will be on Thursday the 21st, in Las Palmas. They'll play a second program in a second concert the following day, then it's on to the island of Tenerife for two more concerts in as many days. After one more day to relax in Tenerife, the whirlwind begins: three days of fly in, rehearse, play a concert, sleep, and grab a plane for the next city. They'll cover Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia that way. They'll get a day off after the Valencia concert. Finally, on the weekend of the 30th, they'll fly to Paris for two final concerts.

Oddly, Madrid's local "what's going on" tabloid, En Madrid, makes no mention of the concert on the 26th. It lists plenty of classical music from such ensembles as the Spanish National Orchestra, the Borodin Quartet, and Il Giardino Armonico -- but no Cleveland Orchestra.

Still, there's plenty of time to get the word out. And tomorrow the rest of the orchestra will catch up with the "pioneers" on the plane to Las Palmas for the real start of the Cleveland Orchestra's Winter 1999 tour.

David Roden
WKSU Assistant Program Director