 |
 |
| Make a Smilebox slideshow |
His songs, too, convey so many messages for children, including that “sayonara” is not an end but a beginning. One, entitled “Yugata [Evening] Quintet,” is used for his theme song on public TV. “You gotta music” is not actually poor English but a pun on “yugata,” so it means “evening music.”
Since it took me nearly 25 hours to learn the meaning of and memorize the 5 songs we performed, while listening to them every day on my iPod while I was walking and riding the subway or bus, the tunes are firmly imbedded in my brain. Because of that, and the help of numbers of friends who helped me understand not just the words but the underlying meaning of what we were singing, I thoroughly enjoyed the two performances.
We were encouraged to move naturally with the music, and I’ve never seen the chorus loosen up so much. Of course, standing just a few feet away from the audience (although we’re usually behind the orchestra on risers or even up in the balcony near the organ, this time we were right at the front of the stage) and having the accompaniment of children running around and crying or shouting made the atmosphere extraordinarily different from what we’re used to when we perform classical music.
The program was oriented towards children as well, opening up to an cartoon illustration of
an orchestra with all the instruments labeled. I heard that, after the concert, members of the Sapporo Symphony were in the lobby with their instruments, allowing children to touch and explore them - sticking their heads inside the tuba or watching in awe at how far a trombone could slide.
However, it was Akira-san himself who made it so much fun for everyone. His love of music was so apparent and so contagious that everyone felt like singing and playing! (I’m sure this is true even of the members of the orchestra, although their faces were so solemn compared with those of the young people in the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra with whom we performed last month.)
During rehearsal, Akira-san really helped us to get a feel of the music with his gestures and expressions as well as his words. In one song, for example, he wanted the suspense sustained throughout the piece until it reached the conclusion, and he illustrated with Tony’s song from West Side Story: “Could be . . . who knows? . . .”
On the day of the concert, we had about 2 hours between the 1:30 and 4:30 performances, and I was feeling so tired around 3:30 that I thought I’d never make it through the second time without forgetting the words. However, once on stage, I was totally energized by the music, the enthusiastic audience, and, of course, Akira-san himself.
By the time we performed the encore, Matsuken Samba II, a unique piece with Japanese words by Ken Mastudaira, all the singers were totally into it, as can be seen in the photo. OLÉ!
During his speech, Akira-san told us that he feels a true affinity with us and, for me, the feeling is mutual. I truly hope to have the opportunity to perform with him again. The world needs more musicians like him who have such a positive effect on all those around him.
Postlude: One of my private students took her nephew to the concert and, of course, enjoyed it. Since I had told her that I wasn't able to memorize the first encore and was only going to mouth the words, she told me that her nephew was checking my mouth closely with opera glasses during the encore and couldn't tell that I wasn't actually singing the words. Guess I'm pretty good at faking it!
More to come soon on my extraordinary experience in singing in Mahler's Symphony #2 with the Pacific Music Festival orchestra conducted by the superb Maestro Christoph Eschenbach, the festival's former artistic director (1991, 1993-98).My father is a office worker. My mother is a homemaker.
My father is engineer. My father is working on telephone company.
My father is office worker. My mother is Yakult lady.
My house is cleaning shop.
My mother is a nerse.
My father is the Ground Self-Defense Forse.
My father is a professor of biology.
My father is teacher. My mother's job is part time.
My mother work in hospital as nursing assistant.
My father is a taxi driver. My mother is a hotel worker.
My father is carpenter.
My parents work each other. NTT. Seikyo.
My father is Tochikaokutsyosashi.
My father is a hight school teacher. My mother is midwife.
My mother:s workshop is Kanpo drugstore.
My father works in Sapporo city ward office. My mother is a housewife.
My father is driver.
My father is a official civil.My father and my mother work Hotel in Furano.
My father work factory.
My father works at city hall. My mother is homeworker.
My father is a car engineer.
My father is a bussinessman.
My father is a public employee. My mother is a librarian.
My father's work is covering buildings and stations with tiles. My mother is home keeper.
My father is a doctor. My mother was a nurse.
My parents's job is agriculture.
My father is an architect. My mother was kindergarten teacher.
Parents manage to jazz bar.
My father is a junior high school teacher. My mother was a elementary school teacher.
My father is a veterinarian. My mother was a nusery school teacher.
My father manage gardening shop. My mother teach mathematics for school child.
My father is cook.
My father works in factory. My mother works a part time job.
My mother is office worker.
My father works in bank.
My father is a lab technician.
My father sells car. My mother is housewife.
My father is plumber.
My father makes cakes. My mother and sister work for hospital.
My father has his own soba restaurant. My mother is good at cooking, too.
My father is a carpenter. My mother works in a factory which makes clothes.
My parents own outdoor school. This shool is teaching outdoor sports and outdoor life, for example, canoeing, rafting, etc.
My father is a taxi driver. My sister is a nurse.
My father is an architect. My mother is full-time housewife.
My father job is peace keep of Japan. My mother is homekeeping.
My father sales office computer.
My father is a official. My mother is sado teacher.
My parents are drunker, always drinking. My eldely brother is gambler.
My father was a headmaster of a junior high school. He is sick and receiving treatment and resting at home. My mother is a housewife.
My father is a fireman. My mother works part-time.
My mother is long-distance bus tiket publisher, and my older sister is insurance saleswoman.
My father is a bus driver. My mother works in an office.
My father is a public official. He works for a hospital. My mother is a dancing instructor.
My father is a teacher of elementary school. My mother works part-time at a supermarket.
My father manages a shoes store with my mother.
My father is a head of kindergarten. My other is a housewife.
My father is a vice-principal.
My father is postman. My mother work at kingdum teacher.
My parents are both junior high school teachers.
My mother is a kindergarten teacher and works almost every day.
My father is an instructor at a driving school. My mother is a cosmetician in a cosmetic company.
My father works at the bank. My mother is a housewife.
My father is electrical engineer. My mother is homemaker.
I went with a friend who has a membership, and filled up his basket with cheese and corn bread mix and Perrier. (Of course, I paid.) I also found a huge bag of mixed frozen fruit (mangoes, papaya, pineapple, and strawberries) that I could barely squeeze into my freezer.
Of course, then I wanted to make smoothies. I’ve missed them so much, although they’ve just started getting popular in Japan. So I just had to buy a juicer. Juicers have also only recently gotten popular in Japan, so I was surprised at the variety I had to choose from, but got a fairly inexpensive, standard model, which is actually a simple blender.
I figured making a smoothie would be a cinch - just throw in some frozen fruit and a bit of low-fat yogurt, and mix. Well, it tasted all right, but it wasn't smooth!
Later I tried one that included a cup of vanilla soy milk, a cup and a half of the frozen fruit, and a half a banana. The texture and sweetness were for that were just about right.
Also, I figured out that it works better to put the milk in first and the pieces of fruit in one at a time. I knew there was some reason for the cylinder in the middle with the hole in the cover! I'm kind of a slow learner when it comes to anything involving ”cooking.“
There are some recipes in Japanese that came with the juicer, and I suppose I could check those out. I notice they have Chinese characters for something like “angle ice,” which I think means ice cubes, although frozen fruit seems to do quite well. Eventually I might add some sort of nutritious powder or the like so that the smoothie could even be considered a meal.
Advice or RECIPES for smoothies are welcome!
About 3 hours ago, I learned that another of my private students passed away. I have lost two students in less than a month to cancer.Polar bears are in trouble if McCain gets elected president. His choice for a running mate, Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska for a year and a half (and, before that, mayor of a town of 9,000 people - not exactly the greatest experience for running a country) sued the Bush administration for listing polar bears as an endangered species because she was worried it would interfere with more oil drilling in Alaska. Read the article, “Who Is Sarah Palin?” by Move On.
Is this the person Americans want to be one heartbeat away from the presidency?
Posts
All Comments
