Lesson with Xuereb

We arrived at his doorstep at exactly 10am, as agreed.

Monsieur Xuereb, with his usual slight smile, opened the door to greet us.

I handed him the tarts we bought for him as a thanking gift, and he kept on saying, "No, no... you shouldn't do that. It's ok..."

So we started to play Paul's piece, with Xuereb standing behind us, reading our music, since we didn't have the full score for him to read.

It seems that he liked our playing, he kept on saying it was beautiful, and then gave us some tips here and there. When I say "some", it doesn't mean it only helped a little. In fact, those are GREAT tips!

He especially made lots of violistic comments to HP, and directed her to a more viola-like playing, rather than her usual violinistic approach.

He also gave us some tips about playing contemporary music. For instance, he told us harmonics should always sound loud and clear in contemporary music ---- which is pretty much a subconscious knowledge but often ignored.

After the lesson, Xuereb told us that we could keep in touch and he might be able to hook us up in some summer festivals in Europe that provide scholarships. He said it would be interesting to have people from America ---- yeah well.... geographically, it's correct. Haha!

It was a delightful lesson. I hope HP will remember and apply the tips she learned today, it's not an everyday opportunity to listen to tips descended directly from Primrose to his student!

Merci beaucoup, Monsieur Xuereb!

Ensemble Alternance/ March 29 incident

It's very rare to see foreign artists to perform in our school, but last night, the opportunity came.

Ensemble Alternance from France came to perform in Queens College at 7.30pm.

I didn't know about this event at all at first, since I do not usually read the school calendar.

When I was heading out of the school, a guy with some thick accent came up to me to ask for direction to LeFrak. Then I saw a couple of other men, speaking French, holding instruments, followed him into the hall. I thought it was a jazz band from Europe, but later I checked the calendar and found out that it was a new music ensemble from France.

So HP and me decided to give it a try, since new music performance is not so frequently happening in my school, except the percussion concerts or Nota Bene performances.

What they played were new ---- and I mean NEW ---- works from the new generation of French composers. They played 3 works, which I had no idea about the titles, but I could certainly memorize the names for you: Gerard Pesson, Mark Andre, and Phillipe Schoeller.

These composers all intend to deconstruct the way of composition, and create a new sound out of ordinary instrumental idiomatics ----- you might say, "Oh well, who doesn't?". But this is not the point, the result is more important!

What they created was a kind of sound which they describe as "Saw dust".

Pesson's work was the most obvious example of "saw dust". He doesn't have very loud passages (if there were a passage), instead, he made the instruments creating snowflakes of sounds within a pointilistic texture.

My personal favourite would be the Andre and the Schoeller. They gave my nerves more impact than Pesson's work.

The musicians were great. HP and me went up to the violist, Pierre-Henri Xuereb, to ask for a class for our Paul Chihara Duo Concertante. Monsieur Xuereb agreed happily and we'll be meeting him in his hotel tomorrow at 10am! He heard Paul's name and exclaimed, "Paul Chihara! Of course! Redwood for viola and percussion!" Wow!

One thing that worths a mention is Monsieur Xuereb was a student of William Primrose. Ooh~~~ :o

I will write about the lesson after it happened.


March 29th Incident

HP went to Manhattan for a lesson today and I was all alone @ home. It's a rare oppotunity to be by myself and do what I feel like doing totally. I did a lot of practising (much more than anytime since I studied here), and I thought of watching a movie before 6pm, cuz that would be half price.

4:15pm show, I thought trailers would take 20 minutes or so. So I took a bus around 4:30pm, thinking that it would take 5 minutes to get there as usual.

WRONG!!

I was DEAD WRONG

It didn't happen that way!! First of all, the Q88 that I took was packed with people that I had to cross the border line. Then, more passengers means more stops. It took me about 10 minutes to get there.

WORST THING: After running a short distance from the bus stop, the lady in the box office told me that I was late for 20 minutes.

FUCK ME!!!

So I cursed that exact two words while walking my ass to Starbucks nearby, and bought a bottle of Strawberry Frapuccino, which is a coffee-free drink. Surprisingly, I found out that it's cheaper to buy such Starbucks product in Starbucks itself rather than the grocery store near my place! It's like 20 cents less.

Anyway, that drink was bought to comfort myself ---- even just a little ---- over the feeling of loss that I didn't get to watch "V for Vendetta".

FUCK ME!!! More practice then...

Take a break...

OK!! End of 3rd show!! Now I can have a break with Miss Saigon!!
I hope I won't hear the stupid melodies in my sleep!!

HP got back today from Taiwan, rough plane ride for her. Only went back a few days and came back... But still, she made a pretty good dinner, she's awesome~~

Had a rehearsal after Miss Saigon at home with Georgina, an oboist from MSM. Me, DI and DJ are going to play for her recital in Rose Hall. She's sounded beautiful. Mozart's Concertino for Oboe, oh yeah~~

The Da Vinci Code

Reading "The Da Vinci Code" these days... such an awesome book!
Page-by-page, chapter-by-chapter, I couldn't stop and it's very addictive!
Now, regardless if the incident about Christ's marriage is true, there are some other valuable things in this book.
One point that Dan Brown made in the book I couldn't agree more: History is always a one-sided account.
He quoted Napoleon's statement: What is history, but a fable agreed upon?
Using Sir Leigh Teabing's mouth, Dan Brown suggested that history is always written by the winners. "When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books----books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe."
How true this is!
History from thousands of years ago is too far away for us to reach, and it's difficult for us to discover the "truth". But if we look at 20th century's history of China, you could see how many different accounts have been made upon a single topic by both sides of the Strait.
Every time I walk in to a Chinese bookstore in Flushing, I will find so many political history books that are written by either Mainlander or Taiwanese, both condemning each other's deeds.
If a person weren't born in a place where he can find books from both sides, meaning Mainland or Taiwan, his mind will be filled with one-sided account made by writers of his side without even having the chance to compare and contrast. How sad would that be!
That is how political authorities control the people's thinking, and it happens everywhere in the world.
This is also a topic that Gao Xing Jian --- the author of Soul Mountain and the first Chinese ever who received a Nobel literature prize --- wrote in his Nobel speech. He stronly condemns political control in literature, that made this beautiful art form into a tool for their political propaganda.
As common people, we would never know the ultimate truth behind what we read and hear. But at least, we should be aware of such things, and always be curious (if not skeptical) about everything. A curiosity that brings more knowledge.

Miss Saigon

I received a voice from Jeff Samaha --- the director of Ridge Chorale --- one day, telling me that Geoffrey Hull, my trumpeter friend whom I played for his final recital, recommended me to play in this gig, the legendary musical, Miss Saigon.

Pay isn't too well, 50 bucks per service (same as for concert), but hell, why not? It's a whole new experience for me, also it's a legendary musical! So I took this gig.

Surprisingly, Jeff sent me the first violin part. Bigger surprise was, there is only one player for each part, so I am playing by myself! There are some nice solos in there.

The part isn't too hard to play, only a few spots which imitates the repetitive sound of gamelan that needs extra care.

Tonight was the first dress rehearsal, at last I can roughly see the show with the lightings and costumes! I have to confess that the second scene, "The Heat is On in Saigon", was my favourite. The chicks in there were wearing bikinis that's why! Haha! But luckily I didn't miss any of my notes.

The rehearsals were quite long, usually 4 hours. As for tonight, it started at 8pm, and they original wanted to let us go at around 10:30pm, but due to some technical difficulties, it ran till, 11-ish. I was hungry and tired like mad! Too bad I went there by somebody else's car, otherwise I would have had leave the place for very good reason ---- time's up baby!

Tomorrow will be the last dress rehearsal, and day after tomorrow.... not the end of the world....will be the first show!

The the last show will be on April 1st. You can check the show time on my MySpace site.

All the best

Today is V's operation day, she came up to give me a hug yesterday and told me that she doesn't care anymore.

I hope she is alright, and I hope the Good Man up there will look after her during the whole process!

All the best to you V! You will be fine! I'm sure you won't pass out suddenly after you came back from your operation, how great would that be?

Leave some comments!

Some of you who had been following my blog --- for whatever reasons --- might find that you can't leave comments to me unless you're a member of Blogspot. I've changed the settings, so, by all means, leave me some words before you log off after reading my crap.

My Friend Muneyoshi

There is this interesting guy that I knew from PMF 2002.

Great violinist. Great person.

He won the first prize in ToHo (his undergrad school, one of the best music schools in Japan).

Muneyoshi is his name.

I think we started our friendship by talking about Roby Lakatos. We were discussing about how he did all the crazy techniques on the violin. Since then we kept in touch on and off, but we never lose touch.

When I first got here in NY, I got a call from him, saying that he wanted to come for audition and needed a place to stay.

Since then, we were very much in touch again.

Now he is doing his grad studies in Eastman with Kopelman, and he comes down once in a while to crash into my sofa. We don't talk much, unless necessary, but still, you feel that he is your friend. We still talk about transcendental violin technique, one of his favourite things. We could discuss it till dawn, no problem.

Muneyoshi's a funny character under his quiet looks. He is up for anything, you could ask him to go to the supermarket with you and he would be totally interested and ended up discovering some interesting stuff that you could spend hours to laugh about. (Remember your Chinese sexual elixir Mune? Haha!!)

I brought him to Forest Hills Park that day, cuz I told him that place looked like the backdrop of Miyazaki Hayao's "Kiki's Special Delivery Service". He was so happy and explored that place with me for about an hour.

I hope Muneyoshi could come more often, and we could check more weird stuff --- something that New York is never lack of --- in the future! And I wish he could event some crazy motherfuckin' technique on the violin too!

Orion in Action again

What more could you ask for when you can see Orion in Alice Tully Hall FOR FREE??!

They said the program is too modern and people don't dig them, that's why they're givin' out tickets... So that tells a lot about general New York audiences. But I am just wondering what would happen if we move this concert downtown in the Lower East Side?

The turn out was quite pathetic on March 15th, almost half of the seats downstairs are empty. Muneyoshi and me was sitting right in the middle of row X, good view! He got the tickets half an hour before the concert. But I was late spending too much time in getting my air ticket to LA. Again I have to apologize to Muneyoshi for waiting for me.

I overheard the Ellen Zwillich String Quartet from the speaker in the Tully lobby, Danny was the first violinist. It's a beautiful piece with no titles for each movement, only metronome markings. According to Danny, this is the easy-listening piece of the night.

The rest of the program proved him right because the Schulhoff Sextet that consisted of Clancy Newman (cello) and Huang Hsin-Yun (viola) together with the Orion, seems to be a hardcore piece. With fast movements and original ideas of each section, it's a great piece filled with creativity and energy throughout. The precious thing was, Orion and the other two additional members were able to grasp the audiences' attention without making anybody kicking their front seats.

After the intermission, it was the Orion alone again, closing up the night with a not-so-easy-listening Mendelssohn F minor Quartet. It's lacking of Mendelssohn's usual "happy" and "light-hearted" elements. Instead, it was filled with melancholy and grief in the most part. But why not? Great music is great music, stereotyping doesn't work for any composers!

V

V fell ill again yesterday. Like what happened a few times before. She was raced to the hospital again.

This time it's the chamber orchestra rehearsal. She demanded the music to be stopped because she couldn't bear it.

I feel bad for her.

Such a nice person, but with such a health condition.

Hope she'll get well soon. And I further hope that she could be cured of this problem somehow.

Disaster's back!!!

Warning!!!

Big asteroid with the size as big as Texas is falling from the ninth galaxy!!!

RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!!!!!!!!!

If you're brave enough, go drill a hole on it and nuke it!!!!!!!!

Bartok on the challenge!

I dunno why, some people just keep armoring themselves everyday. As a teacher, when a student ask you a question, why not just answer them? Why do you have to think the student is challenging you? Aren't you happy that students ask questions? They're supposed to ask and you're suppose to answer willingly --- and, with a delighted heart. That's what this teaching business is all about right? If a student is asking you something ridiculous, yes, he or she is definitely challenging you. But come on man, let's face it! It's just a very usual question... If one constantly thinks his/her students are challenging him/her, then there is a big possibility that he/she has no security inside. If you have enough self confidence, you won't see every single thing as a challenge against you. It's very unhealthy to be like that... sigh*

Now here comes the REAL challenge! Bartok tonight!

Dong's concert consists of the Romanian Folk Dances by Bartok, it's an arrangement for string orchestra by somebody (lazy to check the name). And there are lots of solo parts for the concertmaster --- in tonight's case, ME. I haven't had the chance to really practice it, so today I'm gonna ditch Nota Bene to practice it before I out myself into shame on the stage, haha!

I have to pull of this semi-concerto!!!

Kjell

Let me tell you about my dear teacher, Kjell.

Some people would say he is my ex-teacher, but for a Chinese, we say "一日為師, 終生為父", which means "Teacher for one day, father for the whole life." For me, this Chinese proverb is not only a philosophy, but it happens in real life ---- Kjell IS STILL my teacher, and he always will be.

For me Kjell is the closest idea of "teacher" in an Oriental concept: He is strict, looks very serious, but yet caring and full of love towards student.

Since I studied with him, he never gave up asking about my progress every time I see him, even until now, it is the same. Every time he is in NY, he would call me and meet up with me for a meal ---- a meal that he insists paying for his student. My progress in violin playing is always his first thing to ask about. He even wants to see my lesson every time he gets here! Too bad he never had the chance to do so.

Understanding a student's financial situation is also a big part of his goodness too. Since I studied with him, he never complained that my violin or bow is not good enough. When I told him people said that I should change my violin, and that I have outgrown it, he asked me not to listen to those people, "It's a trap," he said.

Kjell and me are both super jazz lovers, he used to bring me some jazz CDs and asked me to burn them for my own collection, "Don't go buy them, it's a waste of money, safe your money for some good use!"

Kjell is such a person, kind-hearted and caring. And he is always trying very hard to set me a good role model, no matter as a musician or a man. He is a father figure to me!

Together with my current teacher Danny, Kjell is one of my best 2 teachers I ever had!

Dirty little secrets...

Watched a movie yesterday, it's called Adaptation, starring Nicolas Cage AND Nicolas Cage and Merryl Streep.

For me, it's not a story about adapting a novel into a movie screenplay. It's more about the two sides of a human being ---- the bright side (positive) and the darker side (negative). People who shows his bright side in normal days and kept his darker side to himself, we call them "good people"; people who does vice versa, "bad people". But this movie doesn't differentiate good and evil for you, instead, it let's YOU justify it.

Perhaps there is no absolution.

Merryl Streep acted as a successful journalist who wrote a breathtaking novel that was so beautiful and full of love. Nicolas Cage, while trying to adapt her novel into a screenplay, almost fell in love with her, idealizing her image as a human being with a divine soul and a love supreme in her heart. But only when his twin brother (I would be very happy to see him as his other side of his personality) suggested him to tail her that they found out that her life is full of lies, regrets, infidelity, and drugs. She even wanted to kill the brothers for knowing her dirty little secrets. Not so much a saint huh?

As a matter of fact, I believe, all of us have some dirty little secrets that we do not like to share with most people. And when it is not our business to expose them, we should let them be.

If you have a deep hatred or grudge towards somebody, stand in front of him and scold him face to face if you dare. Why bother to be like a sneaky little rat? Leave a comment here if you dare to! Coward!