NEW YORK _ Tine Thing Helseth, a 30-year-old Norwegian trumpeter, had just made her Carnegie Hall main stage debut with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Now she stood center stage, applause resounding around her, a surprise up her sleeve.
Instead of raising her trumpet for an encore, she started singing, no microphone, no accompaniment.
The song was the old standard "Smile." Helseth's delicate, disarming voice carried to every corner of the building.
"Smile, though your heart is aching ..."
A charming, unexpected moment, but maybe I shouldn't have been surprised.
Carnegie Hall has been in the business of these moments since 1891, when composer Tchaikovsky took to the stage to conduct his work on opening night.
Picture Antonin Dvorak unveiling his "New World Symphony" in 1893. Or the triumphant New York Philharmonic debut in 1943 of Leonard Bernstein as a last-minute fill-in conductor.
Gino Francesconi, the hall's director of archives, estimates that 50,000 performances have taken place in the building, which includes two smaller venues besides the main hall.
In fact, Francesconi said, "I think we've had more events here than any other theater on the planet."
That's a difficult assertion to nail down, but there's no doubt that long history, great acoustics and big names have imbued this address with a singular mystique.
When Benny Goodman wanted more respect for his big band in 1938, when the Weavers wanted the same for folk music in 1955, when Judy Garland staged her 1961 comeback, when the Beatles needed a venue for their first U.S. shows in 1964, all headed to Carnegie Hall.
And in 2009, when time came to assemble the first YouTube Symphony Orchestra after auditioning members from 30 countries, they gathered here.
