Everything was fine until the missile landed at the airport.

Do I have your attention now? More about that in a bit.

May picked up where April left off, with another outstanding week in Las Palmas. This time, we had an all-orchestral program that truly tested the musicians in three stylistically different works. With the memories of an outstanding Bruckner’s Fourth, we dove into Brahms, Cruixent, and Tchaikovsky with fervor and energy.

Sometimes I look at my calendar and say to myself, “What was I thinking?” What might appear simple and straightforward can turn into something unusual and not quite so understandable.

It has been a very busy first half of 2025 as orchestras kindly continued to mark my eightieth birthday. With projects piling up, I wondered if this end-of-season push might be too taxing.

To paraphrase John Oliver, “It has been a busy month.”

After the relatively quiet February, March came in like a lion and never let up. When I looked at my calendar, it appeared somewhat normal, but that might have been more in line with a time when I was a younger man. It was a lot to pack in, and I shall try and summarize as succinctly as possible.

Sometimes a month can go by with just a little musical activity but can still be packed full with events of interest. Actually, I need to go back to the final week of January because I did not have time to write about the conclusion of the Asian trip last time. Here is the summary:

An engagement in Hiroshima followed my concerts in Osaka. The Hiroshima Symphony is another fine orchestra with great energy and wonderful discipline. Since we had success working together three years ago on Mahler 6, the orchestra asked for another symphony by the Austrian master. This time, we settled on Mahler’s First Symphony, and it was clear from the first rehearsal that we were going to achieve great things.

I could spend this entire essay writing about an incredible trip to Thailand and Bali—the floating market, the train market, the monkey reserve, a royal wedding, and so much more—but I will let Cindy share a few photos and leave the rest up to your imagination.

January saw me back on the podium in three cities, each in Japan. The programs were varied in content but all dispatched with expertise by the orchestras I led. Since 1983, I have been coming to Tokyo on a regular basis to work with the NHK. On this visit, I led the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, one of the eleven professional ensembles that exist here.