Travelling? Paavo Järvi rolls his eyes when asked about this: "Every time I go through baggage control, I swear to myself: this is the last time. I will give up travelling. Never again." This is not only because, as a conductor who is in demand on three continents, he can be found at airports far more often than the average person. He is also apparently one of those people who the security authorities like to pull out of line for a detailed check. "They then say: We're looking for explosives. They've never found any, but they keep looking." The big question remains: "Why me?"
Actually, you would think that as a conductor, he should have fewer problems when travelling than other musicians. A cello needs its own seat, a tiny piece of ivory is enough for customs to confiscate a historical violin bow. Paavo Järvi's bag And if you don't declare an instrument as hand luggage in good time because the cargo hold is not a good place for valuable, temperature-sensitive and fragile objects, you may fall on deaf ears: This is what happened to our Creative Chair Bryce Dessner last year, whose electric guitar had to be checked in as cargo and was promptly left behind when changing planes in Barcelona. He then played on a replacement instrument.
But back to the big question: why did the security authorities target Paavo Järvi? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that, as a conductor, he is travelling with unusual pieces of luggage - which, unlike a violin case, are not immediately identifiable. His bag is heavier than others, "because scores weigh more than bricks". In addition, sheet music does not adhere to standard formats: Large-scale works simply have to be printed on large pages if the conductor wants to get by without a magnifying glass.
For Paavo Järvi, the solution to this problem has long been a sports bag. Recently, he has been travelling with a tailor-made deerskin travelling score bag, branded Cervo Volante - with space for sheet music, inside pockets for batons, iPad and headphones as well as storage space for a spare shirt. If necessary, he could get by with it for a day or two: This is also an important criterion, because the more you travel, the more often you experience Bryce Dessner.
Contemporary scores, which are often particularly large, don't always fit into the new bag. They end up in the suitcase anyway - at best as musical explosives that the security authorities are not the least bit interested in.
We use deepL.com for our translations into English.
