Mark Nuccio, Associate Principal and E-Flat Clarinet, is looking forward to skiing. . . in June!

How long have you been with the New York Philharmonic?

A year and a half.

How many tours would you say you have done with the Orchestra?

So far, three tours: one European tour and two Spanish tours. This June's tour to South America will be my fourth.

What do you find hard about touring?

I do enjoy touring, but I suppose one challenge is having a family and being away from them - that's the foremost one. People don't think about that. They think it's just grand to tour. My wife is named Suzanne, and I have a 7-year-old son named Dominic and a 5-year-old daughter, Mikala. The other thing is that I make my own reeds. It's something I choose to do. For oboists and bassoonists, it is the usual thing, but for clarinetists it's very unusual. People don't realize how much time goes into making reeds. On the road, I don't have access to all my tools. So I have to plan way ahead in order to make enough good reeds to get through a tour.

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What do you like best about touring?

I like the food, and I like seeing lots of different places. I enjoy performing for new audiences and seeing different responses and different concert halls. I played and toured with the Pittsburgh Symphony for nine years, so I have been in most of the major halls before, but it's still fun to go back. There's a lot great history all over the world that I wouldn't get to see if I weren't in this job. I am very excited about it.

Is there anything about the upcoming tour that you are particularly looking forward to?

We may go skiing in Santiago! We are hoping for that. In the past, I went para-gliding in Austria. We looked up and saw some people jumping off a mountain and we said, We're going to do that! It was about 90 miles outside of Salzburg, a little mountain ski town where they filmed "The Sound of Music."

I try to find some interesting things to do in our spare time. This last tour, several of us rented a car and drove lots of different places instead of taking the orchestra bus everywhere. I'm from Colorado and there are several of us who ski, so we are going to try to work it out when we get to Chile. We have a day off in Rio, so some of us will probably fly to Santiago a day early for skiing.

On the first tour, I played golf with the guys. We went to about all the great golf courses in Europe. That's another thing I really look forward to on tours. But you still have to be prepared for your music! You have to conserve energy when traveling. People don't realize you can't just go out all day long and then be prepared to play your best that night.