In April, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra kicked off a two week tour of Europe from Spain to Austria to the Netherlands and England.

Mariss Jansons and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra made Pittsburgh proud as they wowed international audiences.

OnQ contributor and station manager of WQED FM 89.3, Jim Cunningham, took a video camera to Europe and covered the tour for OnQ.

His stories are the only ones you'll see on local television.

Well, tonight we kick off a three part series on the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's European tour and first up, Valencia, Spain.

Bringing old world music to the 22nd century.

I'm Jim Cunningham with the Pittsburgh Symphony in Valencia, Spain.

The Mellon Financial European Tour 2003 began on the Mediterranean in Valencia.

After 20 hours of round the clock traveling.

The orchestra settled down for their first rehearsal in the Palau de la musica in Valencia.

After rehearsal, the musicians went hunting for souvenirs in Old Valencia, where you can buy shaving brushes, castanets, fans suitable for your next bullfight, or a shawl for your senorita.

Spanish leather makes for great shoes, which caught the eye of principal bassoon Nancy Goeres and principal clarinet Michael Rusnak.

We are in Valencia, the wonderful country of Spain, where one must always notice the shoes that the women are wearing.

So yesterday I found the perfect pair of Spanish shoes.

So here they are.

Pretty, huh?

Now, let me just explain one thing.

Nancy is like a homing pigeon.

In Pittsburgh, she can't find Boulevard of the Allies.

Fort Pitt Tunnel has no idea.

But you drop her anywhere in Spain, and she will be able to find a pair of shoes like that.

Instantly, it was really quite remarkable.

If you look in the background here, you can see the concert hall where we're going to play our concert tonight.

And it's a beautiful hall, beautiful facility, beautiful day, and we're having a good time.

We're looking forward to the concert tonight.

When in Spain, lunch includes jambon.

Spanish ham proudly displayed with the hoof still attached.

Violinist Claudia Mahave discussed the menu with the manager and learned that the Spanish pig enjoys a special diet of acorns.

They're both pigs and this is aged.

This one is not aged.

And they.

They only feed them this dried fruit.

But it is ham, Claudia?

It is ham.

And this is called servo negro.

Like like black pig.

Just just because it's dried in a different way.

So that's it.

Bye.

Double bassist Jim Krummenacher began touring with the Pittsburgh Symphony by bus in 1956.

Jim joined a group of musicians who took in the Museo Bellas Artes in Valencia with sculpture and paintings from Spanish artists.

Wonderful, wonderful Spanish artists that we'd never heard of.

You know, we have Murillo and the ones are the ones we know in Madrid.

But these artists were very, very marvelous and we hadn't heard of them.

So it was it was good to see them.

Some of the sculpture is outside the museum, just off the Plaza of the Virgin, with its fountain and pigeons, next to the Valencia Cathedral.

The mimes.

We see street musicians and mimes, and they have quite a bit of originality.

And this lady, we never saw her blink her eyes in five minutes, and she was all dressed in silver, a silver makeup really like a statue.

And when you toss a coin, she would make a very a great bow with a great flourish and then go back to her solemn stance.

And we were walking in the aquarium.

Principal English horn Harold Smoliar brought his daughter Laurel on this tour.

They visited the just opened City of Arts and Sciences, designed by Valencia born architect Santiago Calatrava.

An opera house under construction and the largest aquarium in Europe.

Gardens and science center were Alfred Einstein entertained tourists and students.

Harold and Laurel also visited the Old city in Valencia, where we saw the cathedral.

Its claim to fame is that it has the Holy Grail.

Supposedly.

Supposedly.

As the guidebook says, at least it's a very old cup, whether or not it's the Holy Grail.

-I would guess thats what that is.

I would go with that too.

The Pittsburgh Symphony's opening concert brought Bravos from a full house of Spanish music lovers at the Palau de la musica Early the next morning, Spanier took the orchestra inland to Madrid.

Minutes after arrival, Horn Robert Lauver was rehearsing in the Melia Castella Hotel.

The neighbors were not happy.

I request corner rooms playing a loud instrument, and sometimes it works out that I get a corner room, and I feel a little less self-conscious about disturbing the neighbors when I start to practice.

But this time I'm in a corner room, and five minutes into my warm up, I get a phone call from some nice lady who had just had a red eye flight and needed some sleep.

So I'm now trying to get away with practicing with a practice mute in, which considerably softens the sound of the instrument.

The two Pittsburgh Symphony concerts in Madrid included Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, which brought together two Spanish choirs singing the Psalms in Hebrew.

Choir director Jordi Casas had never prepared the Bernstein before, but he loves the jazzy American Bernstein rhythm.

Was it difficult for the singers to get on to the jazzy rhythms of Bernstein?

No no, no.

Our our culture is also with the jazz, and for us it's not difficult, is interesting and is special.

But not but not difficult.

Lunchtime in Madrid includes a stop for ice cream.

To get around this busy city, you need a map and some careful study.

Always exciting being on tour, but by the same token, it's sort of in business as usual, which is actually good news.

Plenty of sunshine, sunshine and cars.

Bumper to bumper traffic jams with blaring horns last past ten at night in Madrid.

The city never sleeps, with concerts starting at 10:30.

Backstage, the musicians warm up for the concert.

With the last note scheduled for after midnight.

Cellist Misha Istomin ordered a triple espresso.

Now we can do our work.

Solo sometimes, but today it will be a trio.

The Pittsburgh Symphony's final Madrid concert with Beethoven, Bernstein and Ravel ended at 12:30 in the morning in the National Auditorium, with the audience cheering an encore of Massenet's El CID, bringing smiles from Mariss Jansons and Bravos from the Spaniards.

I'm Jim Cunningham for OnQ with the Pittsburgh Symphony and Mariss Jansons in Madrid, Spain.

And tomorrow night we continue our three part series as Jim Cunningham accompanies the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra to Vienna, Austria.

And on Wednesday, Jim will complete his series of reports as the last leg of the tour takes the Pittsburgh to Amsterdam in London.

Some great scenery and music coming up in the next two days.