Photo by Cathy Brubaker

A row of wardrobe trunks in the basement of Orchestra Hall before the concert Saturday night waiting for the musicians to finish packing. They will be loaded up by the stagehands after the concert and taken to the airport.
​photo by David Sanders

​By Susan Synnestvedt

I get very stressed about what to pack for a tour.  I don’t enjoy shopping, especially where I don’t speak the language (which is any Asian country!) so feel I have to bring everything I might need for the upcoming 3-week odyssey.  I obsess over which coat, shoes, party dresses, and toiletries to pack.  The concert clothes are easy. Management provides each Musician with half of a double wardrobe trunk, a wheeled armoire for two divided in the middle and with individual locked access, which our Stage Crew transports to each concert hall.  So, concert clothes and shoes go into the trunk. But there’s space left for other things, so we cram in whatever else could be useful on the tour: food, books, an extra coat, boots, etc. This tour starts in humid, balmy Taipei, Taiwan, where the highs might be in the 70s (if we’re lucky!), and ends in frigid Seoul, Korea, which should feel like home.
 
I start packing at least a week before a tour. I put things into a suitcase as I think of them, to be transported to the hall and into my trunk. I also start a carry-on bag for things I will need during the long trip: contact solution, medications, reading material, and the like.  As a violinist with a finicky, troublesome neck, I’ve found that bringing my own memory foam pillow is very important. I have to bring a suitcase that’s large enough to fit my pillow and some clothes, but not so heavy that I can’t manage it!
 
Donors and Board Members of the CSO often travel along with us on a Patrons Tour, although on a somewhat different itinerary and in separate hotels. These generous Patrons attend select tour concerts and often want to celebrate with Members of the Orchestra afterwards. Sometimes they want only a small group of Musicians to join them for an intimate dinner, and other times they invite the whole Orchestra for a big reception.  Not wanting to wear concert clothes (boring!), I usually pack a couple nice cocktail dresses. I’ve been given inside information that Maestro Muti will be giving a party after the last tour concert in Korea. Maestro often ends a tour with a special dinner for the Musicians and CSO staff, which is always bellissimo! At the end of our 2012 tour of Russia and Italy, Maestro Muti gave a dinner in his hometown of Ravenna that lasted until two in the morning (most of us only slept a few hours before our return to the States)!
 
Until I board the plane at O’Hare, I will be thinking and re-thinking my tour needs. But once the flight takes off, I will relax and enjoy the start of another exciting CSO tour!

photo by Sue Synnestvedt

It takes a village to prepare the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to go on tour. On Jan. 11, the orchestra will embark on its 59th international tour and its 10th with Maestro Muti, with stops in Taipei, Taiwan; Tokyo, Japan; Shanghai and Beijing, China, and Seoul, South Korea.
Transporting 166 people and 20 tons of cargo to Asia is a time-consuming process that requires intense organization. Vanessa Moss, CSO vice president of orchestra and building operations, schedules the tours years in advance with Maestro Muti and the artistic planning team.
Once the itinerary and dates are set, it falls to Heidi Lukas, CSO director of operations, and the rest of the operations staff to settle the many details — from visas to cargo manifests — that going on tour entails: “My job on tour is to make it possible so the musicians don’t have to worry about anything except playing at the highest level.”

Getting everyone’s gear to Asia also requires a lot of advance planning and permissions. Jeff Stang, CSO production manager, makes sure the carnet, or customs list, is accurate. “There’s a lot of detail work that goes into that, making sure that we have the appropriate documentation in the carnet, with information about the musicians’ instruments and what they are putting in cargo vs. what they are hand-carrying on the plane,” Lukas said.

When the orchestra returns to the States, members must comply with U.S. Customs restrictions on endangered materials, such as ivory, tortoise-shell or rosewood. Many instruments have parts made from these restricted items, so Stang works closely with the musicians to get detailed documentation of these items and to secure a separate customs permit.

Once everything has been cleared, Lukas works closely with Kelly Kerins, the CSO’s stage manager since 1999, to ensure the cargo’s seamless transfer to Asia. “I oversee and work with crew on stage logistics, supervise [with the CSO stagehands] loading and unloading trucks, palletizing at airports and participating in customs clearance,” Kerins said. “We deal with storage of cargo in all venues and all stage set-ups.”

For this tour, the itinerary presents even more challenges for the stage crew. Kerins explained the complicated process: “The cargo is flown to Taipei. We break pallets in Taipei, clear customs and load trucks. The trucks are unloaded at the venue, then reloaded at the venue after residency, and the process is then reversed at the airport in Taipei. We repeat this in Japan, China and Korea. So it is flown from the U.S. to Taiwan, Taiwan to Japan, Japan to China, China to Korea, and Korea back to the U.S. The cargo must be broken down from air cargo pallets, cleared through customs, loaded onto trucks, and trucked to each venue each time.”

Further complicating the process is the necessity of flying the cargo to each city. “When we tour Europe, we might have one flight and then we can truck the cargo around from there,” Lukas said. “But the cargo has to fly everywhere in Asia, so the crew is going to the airport and palletizing the cargo and getting it ready to be flown. It’s going through customs again — it’s lot more time- and worry-intensive than just trucking it around Europe.”

Lukas and the operations team have learned to anticipate needs and do as much as possible in advance. While on tour, the CSO almost always brings its own equipment and doesn’t rely on renting or borrowing instruments on site. “If we need a celeste, for example, for a piece, we take it on tour. The only thing we don’t bring is a piano,” Lukas said. “Other than chairs and stands, we pretty much bring anything else we need.”

Along with the cargo, the orchestra always has a doctor on the tour staff. “I do think it surprises people that we take a doctor with us, that seems unusual maybe, but it’s really important, and I’ve seen the value of having a doctor there time after time,” Lukas said.

For the operations department, touring is an exhausting experience, but when the final product is presented on stage, all the preparations and precautions fade into the background. “I think it’s really amazing to see the audiences and their reaction to the orchestra,” Lukas said. “They are so thrilled to be able to hear them live, and the wonderfully warm welcome and appreciation that the orchestra is given from these audiences is incredible to experience.”

Lukas knows she and her team have succeeded when the only thing the audience notices is the music: “A lot of the time, no one sees what the operations team is up to, so when I hear the concert, it makes me so happy. I feel like a small part of the on-stage product, even though I’m not actually performing.”

Maggie Berndt is a Chicago-based arts writer.

Read the article on CSO Sound and Stories.