It did not start out well.

Upon arrival in Lyon, we were preparing for a concert at Côte St. André, our annual pilgrimage to the birthplace of Hector Berlioz. The program was a bit unusual in that it contained two rarities by the festival’s namesake, plus the Beethoven Ninth.

I had never heard of, much less conducted, either the Scène Héroïque or the Death of Sardanapalus. After studying them, it was pretty clear why. These works are both for chorus, soloists and orchestra. One of them contains music that would later be used in Roméo et Juliette. But neither is truly representative of the French master’s style.

I could get used to this non-conducting thing. That might be good news for some out there. It was truly a break from an exhausting regimen from the past season. A couple people asked me if I was retiring. Not yet, all you hopeful baton twirlers.

The second part of the respite was filled with travel and some adventure. Neither Cindy nor I had ever been on a cruise ship. To rectify this, we went to Alaska, the only state I had never been to in the U.S. Completing the cycle was not the intention, but seeing this part of the world was.

At the time, when I first announced that I would spend my summers away from the podium, no one believed me. How would it be possible for someone who has devoted his life to waving his arms to actually halt for nine weeks? Well, halfway into it, I can attest that it has not been difficult at all.

However, the first part of the rest period involved a surgical procedure, which went well but confined me to the house for a week and a half. What to do? There were a couple projects that I could take care of, one related to business and the other purely for pleasure. Let’s start with the latter.

A long season has come to a close. With three weeks of performances left, I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Not that I did not enjoy the overwhelming majority of work, but it became clear that a recharging of the batteries was needed.

Earlier in the year I made a well-considered decision to give myself more time off. Although 70 years old is apparently young for a conductor, the rigors of travel, learning and relearning a great deal of music, and having other items on the agenda made it mandatory to give both mind and body some rest from the demanding schedule I have maintained. More about this a bit later.

It is not out of the question to describe this past month as gigantic. Over the course of four weeks, all the major works were at least an hour long. With two Mahler symphonies, Asrael by Suk and a concert performance of Tosca, I was ready for a bit of a break.

Things started off calmly enough. On what appeared to be his first visit with the ONL, Josh Bell performed and triumphed as usual. We have been working together since he was sixteen years old, so a lot of repertoire has passed between us. This time it was something new, Bruch’s Scottish Fantasie, a work which does not come up very often these days.

Just when I think that there are no new worlds for me to work in, up pop a couple that are really off the beaten track.

The violinist Vadim Repin had asked if I would participate in his Trans-Siberian Art Festival. The project began last year, and the idea was to make the Siberian part of Russia a true destination for artists and events. Concerts take place in several different cities, utilizing the orchestras from those areas, and chamber music programs are offered as well.

If the frying pan, fire analogy ever existed, it certainly applied to the first part of March. Having successfully navigated my way through the six Tchaikovsky symphonies in three weeks, it was back to Lyon for the four by Brahms over a two-week period. Even though these works are regular repertoire, two of them were first meetings between the ONL and me.

The idea for this mini-festival was to focus on three elements for each concert. The symphonies were played in chronological order, something we could not do with Tchaikovsky in Detroit. But rather than an all-Brahms program, each concert also included a Russian concerto and opened with a short, relatively calm, American piece.

It was Tchaikovsky month at the DSO. Considering that most of the time, temperatures outside were in the single digits, it seemed appropriate to bring warmth to those who attended the six programs and 12 performances that took place.

February is a difficult month for the arts in Detroit. Many of our regular donors, subscribers and patrons are in warmer climes down south or on the slopes out west. This means that we need to come up with something just a bit different in order to fill the house downtown. So two years ago, we did an experiment and put Beethoven on the docket. It did even better than we all thought possible.

Nothing like jumping right into it for the New Year. A week of concerts in Detroit followed by three in Lyon. And a season announcement as well.

It was time for the DSO to begin its neighborhood series, where we hit the suburbs and play for audiences that either can’t get downtown or might even be experiencing an orchestra for the first time. We now have eight partner venues, ranging from auditoriums to places of worship. Each presents its own problems regarding set up of the orchestra, and in a couple of them, the positioning of the ensemble is a bit of a challenge. Nevertheless, we are bringing the DSO to a wider audience and these programs have been wildly successful, with full houses across the board. They also give us the opportunity to explore a more intimate repertoire than is heard at Orchestra Hall.

The Old Year went quietly, including a couple weeks off before starting the new one with a lot of work. But there still is plenty to catch up on.

December began in Lyon with the OLN. The first of two weeks of concerts featured French premieres of three pieces by Mason Bates, one of our two resident composers. Having gone through several American works over the past three years, the orchestra was comfortable with Mason’s stylistic musings.