Archive for January, 2010
A Movie – The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus 1/11/10
Monday, January 11th, 2010The title is telling us what kind of movie it might be! It is a colorful, psychological, Monty-Python-like, imaginative–movie. It is sometime like “Wizard of Oz”, sometime “Alice the Wonderland”. If you like cartoon “Lio” on paper you would like it! The character acted by Heath Ledger is again a very difficult role. The music is very effective in this fantasy world. And the combination of Man-made set and the digitally created one is good! I truly enjoyed it.
Piano Recital at William Andrew Clark Library 1/10/10
Monday, January 11th, 2010Committee of Professional Women for Los Angeles Philharmonic had a 45th Anniversary Celebration yesterday, Saturday 1/9, and I was invited to play my piano recital at William Andrew Clark Library at UCLA (please see photos in Photo Section on this homepage). Los Angeles is a very big city, and there are so many wonderful venues for concerts. It was the first time to visit this beautiful and historical library for me, and simply I fell in love with this concert room. Mr. Clark was a founder of LA Phil so this venue was a perfect selection for this celebration.
I have performed for different committees of Los Angeles Philharmonic, and it has been my pleasure to play for them and to meet those wonderful people who support music with their hearts. I had a great time performing in this beautiful music room, and communicating with the audience through music yesterday. Mr. Clark was a big music lover, and this was his passion to have this wonderful music room in his estate. I performed; Granados-Valses poeticos, Piazzolla-contrabajissimo, Mompou-tres canciones y danzas, Rachmaninov-Op. 23 #2 and #5, and Op. 32 #5, Kapustin-Toccatina, Gershwin-Rhapsody in Blue. As always I shared interesting anecdotes with the audience between playing.
I am so fortunate to get those wonderful opportunities to perform. Thank you for inviting me to be a part of this celebration!!
Happy New Year! 1/7/10
Thursday, January 7th, 2010It has been already a week past since 2010 started! Again,
Happy New Year! It is a tiger year in our Japanese calender. How is your new year going?? I spent for 5days in Indiana visiting my husband’s family in December (We came back just in time to celebrate New Years’ Eve. Huh– there was a bottle of chilled champagne in the fridge!). It is good to feel COLD once in a while. Living in California is just great, but I sometime miss 4 seasons. Japan has it, and we live according to the seasons. The food is different in each season as well.
My playing-with-different-cellists life is over now after yesterday. I played with Brook Speltz (Curtis graduate 08′) in December. He surely sounded wonderful, technically strong and musically convincing, and I had a great time playing with him. He is seeking the chamber music opportunities in his future. I am focusing on my solo program which is coming up VERY soon! I will perform my favorite composers and pieces on Saturday 9th for LA Phil’s Committee members. I will repeat this program for more occasions in this spring. It seems busy, but very productive spring is ahead of me. There are many music waiting on my piano to be practiced!
