March 22, 2010 Concert at YST

The gamelan concert at YST went well........it was sooooo fun!!! :) Here are just some pictures. :)

The Audience :)


Me on the bonang; Javanese gamelan


Javanese gamelan; Last piece


Blocking for Tari Karonsih (Javanese) before the concert

With our dance teacher Nunuk (right) and dancer Ferninda (center)

Me stressing out on the wayang gender Bali with Jan


Rehearsing the Balinese gamelan before the concert
Our amazing guru for Balinese gamelan, Pak I Dewa Ketut Alit, is on the right in green

Helena and I "messing around" with the Steinway grand, which was in a corner of the hall, at the end of the concert :)

Name in Arabic :)

Benjamin, a piano student of mine, went to Egypt recently, and he very thoughtfully brought back this key-chain for me. :) It has my name in Arabic. I thought it's pretty cool, so I thought I would share it. :) i wonder if it sounds the same in Arabic. It is very sweet of Benjamin to remember to get me a meaningful oleh-oleh. I appreciate it lots! I am now hanging the key-chain on my bag. Thank you Benjamin. :)

Gamelan Concert March 22, 2010 :)

Nodame Cantabile :)

Since it is my week of break this week, I went to watch the Nodame Cantabile movie yesterday. This was my first time watching Nodame Cantabile, in that I haven't watched the popular series before. It was cute! I found it amazing how the movie was so true to its manga feel.........I felt that I was totally absorbed "reading" a manga, but in a movie format! ;) Of course I love the music in there too.....so many beautiful masterpieces from the classical western music repertoire! The piano music in there is performed by Lang Lang.

I must admit I do identify with the vivid imagination of Nodame character, though hopefully, I am not as nutsy because life is not an anime after all. ;) At the end of Nodame's playing of Alla Turca by Mozart, pearls were coming out of the piano and happy cartoon characters were dancing/marching in time together in exuberance.....I could sooo totally see that as I was teaching that piece to a student recently, though not in those exact pictorial forms. I must admit I naturally do translate things, not limited to music, pictorially in my mind, and tend to go off at tangents/be "distracted" in my own world......or as a friend of mine say, I have a vivid imagination. After seeing Nodame, it makes me wonder if other musicians do that too. Or is it just a made-up anime characteristic after all.....but art emulates life ya? ;) Ha! So I am not alone in my "nuttiness". ;) I love the curry incident in there......so funny!!! ;) Maybe I find that especially most amusing because, unlike Nodame, I am a super-neat person. Plus, the words, germs, death, etc, put in by the animator, makes the situation super-cute.....Haha ;)

I love how the movie gives a little informative historic background background/introduction to the music being performed, which I imagine, makes the music all the more interesting for those not into classical western music. So to all classical western music fans out there, it's a must-watch movie!!! :)