Emil de Cou is Associate Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra

Labor Day is the NSO's final outdoor concert of the summer and the last of our three on the West Lawn of the US Capitol.  Performing outdoors in the DC Area is always a roll of the musical dice since storms can (and do) pop up without notice.  But we were virtually guaranteed that this summer’s Labor Day Sunday (September 6) would offer picture perfect weather with the National Weather Service and all of the television weather reporters saying that we would have clear skies through the following weekend. 

Emil and Gus Mitchell (trombone)

To the Capitol I go and onto our rehearsal with the NSO and the US Army Chorus in our program of anniversaries.   Gypsyturned 50, South Pacific 60 and Gone with the Wind 70, but most important of all, Abraham Lincoln 200!   All went as planned and the pieces sounded wonderful in the best outdoor concert venue in the world.  Like many in the NSO I too make a pilgrimage to that temple of transportation Union Station - and down into the temple of all-you-can-eat eateries, the food court!  Coming out in a post sushi stupor we noticed the skies behind the Capitol were now pitch black.  Thank you for that, Adam Caskey. 

The Capitol before the Concert

Then the rain started - everyone got soaking wet including our brave audience who had begun to assemble hours before the scheduled concert start time.  After a command central meeting in a tent (my mind wandered back to that famous picture of Lincoln at Antietam!), we decided on a one hour concert of the best from the program.  We made it though the musical selections and John Williams film scores during which we remembered our late friend Erich Kunzel.  Murry Sidlin, former NSO assistant conductor and now dean of the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music at Catholic University, read the words of Lincoln movingly as we played the famous Copland score.  And then the wind shifted and into the shell the rain came.  Musicians protected their instruments from the downpour and I told the audience that we had to take a short break (I thought that they were going to storm the stage because they thought that we might not come back).   

It was a dark and stormy night at the US Capitol

So more emergency meetings and it was decided that, once again, the US Army (chorus) was going to save the day!  The men of the chorus, under the expert direction of Captain Scott McKenzie, performed a cappella for 20 plus minutes through one tune after another - all from memory.  I sat on stage behind them watching the rain and our glorious capitol dome as happy, and wet, as could be.  It turned out in a funny way, to be one of the most memorable Labor Day Concerts I have done.

Emil and Captain Scott McKenzie after the concert

Then back inside for the opening concert of the season, the Kennedy Center Open House with the NSO this time joined by two French Canadian actors from L'Arsenel to perform their extended version of  Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns.  The stage was setup with two large multi colored beach umbrellas turned on their sides, two folding ladders behind them, and several stuffed animals behind their makeshift stage.  It all had the look of a vaudeville show crossed with the messiest child's bedroom in the world.  

Emil and the NSO staff play with Carnival props while the crew sets the stage.  From left: Karyn Garvin, Patricia O’Kelly, Emil de Cou, and Stephanie Astilla

The orchestra is small for this piece so we were half way up stage leaving a great deal of room for the actors who sang, jumped, whistled (a loud police whistle that made me jump more than once), and pantomimed their way through a magical childlike rendition of the Saint-Saëns' imagined circus.  The small children were especially beguiled.  During the most famous number "The Swan" which featured a lyrical Glenn Garlick on cello and our two pianists, Lisa Emenheiser and Audrey Andrist, I went into the house to listen and see what it all looked like.  The stage lights turned to blue and the actors, lifting a sheet between the ladders, transformed the stage into a magical moonlit pond.  They then became a white and black swan courting on this pretend water - with only socks on their arms and a feathered fan as their body to cover their faces.  At the end they embrace (as much as swans can embrace, I suppose) and then came a line of black and white feathered chicks over the final arpeggio of the movement.  Watching it from my vantage point behind the "water" during the performance, I was struck at how very beautiful this simple music is but also how stagecraft as old as the first days of theater is still so effective, more so than the most elaborate of flying scenery.   

Emil with our actors and some props

Concert Hall chicks

Off into the Grand Foyer to meet and greet my miniature audience - something that makes me so happy.  Along with a very generous History of the National Symphony Orchestra book giveaway I signed photos and violin shaped fans.  I met not just our young audience members but also out of state visitors, subscribers, music teachers, and first time Kennedy Center concertgoers.  

Emil and a young fan

With various friends

With two gentlemen from China

Since my first Open House in 2002 I have always felt that this inspired idea is one of the most important events at the Kennedy Center.  Every nook of that great building is open and alive with theater, dance, music, and art of all every kind.  The halls are packed with families and what my teacher Leonard Bernstein liked to call "extraordinary ordinary people."   Which is to say, us.  Families, singles, young, old, Washingtonians, Americans, people of the world, coming together for an afternoon of what makes life more livable, a celebration of man's most precious creation.  The Arts.  And what a celebration it was.