What do we think of this one so far?  I expect the CH-haters are in full voice at TOP.  I'm enjoying it all anyway.  Looks like a well-attended performance too.

I don't think much of the Suzy Klein guests and chat in between the pieces. Rather embarrassingly they don't seem to know much about them.  Fumbling for words and description and trying to pass the subject to each other....."erm....I don't know......." 

I was only able to catch the second half. I enjoyed the new jazz piece very much, and I've always liked An American in Paris.

I seem to remember Hazlewood doing Gershwin last year (or the year before?) and I was very unimpressed. But tonight's effort sounded good to me, So either he's got better or I've got more tolerant 

I have to admit that I only dipped in for a couple of minutes. My Man's gone now - the orchestral arrangement was quite disgusting and I'm afraid I found Jason Yarde's "improvisation" uneconomical, indulgent and FLAT (in pitch). Later on I heard the 2nd movement of the Ebony concerto, where the tenor sax player for some reason chose to play with a very slow and FLAT vibrato. Yuk! I love these pieces but, more often than not, hate how they're performed these days.

And the sort of moment Wright-thinking has all but expelled from evening concert broadcasts, Mills. I caught up with some of this late last night having recorded the TV broadcast. OK, the frilly shirt's probably a mistake, but all in all CH didn't seem to be out of his depth, and individual stylistic strictures aside, the Stravinsky and Bernstein works weren't bad at all (although the final section of the Stravinsky, which can make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck - Dankworth, anybody? - was allowed to go for nothing). I'll need to go back to the Simcock piece, though: not fair to judge a new work on a single hearing (viewing).

Arena tickets 598 and 599 - that'll teach me to be playing in St James's park until 40 minutes before a prom!

The Stravinsky is an odd one - seeing a big band with solo clarinet, I expect something more like a big band with solo clarinet! 

The Simcock sounds like something that I'd need to have on in the background a few times for it to click.  I wonder how it compares to other attempts at orchestral Jazz - Kenton, Brubeck?

Lead trumpet did not have a good gig.  Somewhat odd to see her using toy trumpets for high notes too - aren't the BBCCO used to playing jazz?

And although I don't listen to the broadcasts, there was a lot of stage shifting, so they have to cover the time somehow.

NB

I don't want to read it at all, Milly.  I don't like CH's style or his clothes so I didn't watch it on TV (actually that's not strictly true - the reason I didn't watch it on TV was much simpler; I prefer the radio for all concerts).  I don't see the point of tuning in just to get fuel for complaints - isn't that the Mary Whitehouse way?  I gave it a go via the radio but the Yarde & Simcock stuff sounded very dull to me so I switched to the old comedies on BBC7.  I was working, anyway, so I can get the day off to travel down for Boulez on Friday.  I do wish conductors would stick to conducting - especially when, like CH, their utterances sound like yer schoolteacher trying to be trendy - but I managed to filter out the waffle.  In the end, though, the music didn't hold my interest long enough.

(scurries off to have a look, wearing sunglasses to avoid being mistaken for Charles Hazlewood) You're right, Ruth, the knee-jerkers seem to have lost interest after a couple of pages, they must have found some other splutterworthy event to moan about.