Archive for February, 2010
Movie-The Ghost Writer 2/27/10
Saturday, February 27th, 2010It is Roman Polansky’s new suspense movie. It is pretty good, especially the actors and actresses have done a great job! I like Ewan McGregor’s slightly nervous, but brave writer in this movie. He was good in the movie “The Men Who Stare At Goats”, and hisrole is similar in this movie. The movie is full of beautiful scenery and twists! The ending is not convincing to me, but the story is so twisty that we get involved deeply. Pierce Brosnan is no longer James Bond, but he is a wonderful charactor actor.
My Faculty Recital at Occidental College 2/26/10
Friday, February 26th, 2010My Faculty Recital at Occidental College
I had my annual faculty recital on Tuesday 23 at Occidental College. I repeated the program from January ’s performance at Clarke Library. It is always so nice to play at our own schools! And I was glad to see students and friends in the audience! I enjoy playing my current repertoire a lot, my love of Spanish and South American music, jazz-classic synthesis pieces, and Russian Romantic music and etc–. Also I am very excited to perform Bach D Minor keyboard concerto later in this spring! Well– of course it is different than this recital program, but I always love to play his music. Yes, it is Bach! To celebrate Chopin and Schumann for their centennial year I will perform cello-piano repertoire by those birthday boys in this spring as well.
It is still a big challenge for me (after so many years!!) to play an entire recital by memory, but I like to keep doing it. I remember Earl Wild once said he keeps practicing for 4 hours a day to keep his fingers moving ( unfortunately he passed away last year). I heard his recital in LA when he was in late 80s. It was a great concert! It is something we can look for in our entire lives to get better on our instruments. It will come only after we keep doing it!
Spring is approaching! Our friend Dove mama has laid her eggs already in her spring house in our backyard. She usually gives birth to 4 or 5 sets of dove babies in each spring! Have a nice weekend!
Trombone Day! 2/8/10
Monday, February 15th, 2010Congratulations for all of trombone players at “Trombone Day” at CSU-Fullerton on Saturday 6, February! It was a great day! And Big Congratulations for Prof. Bob Sanders! He is the one who has worked hard to organize this wonderful event. I believe I was only non-trombone player that day! Piano is not an ensemble instrument (we do piano duet and 4 hands!), but we can collaborate with many different musicians. The truth is we don’t have “Piano Ensemble” with 20 pianists! It is so nice to see so many of same instrumentalists get together in a good supportive spirit. It seemed like “Brotherhood” to me.
I performed with John Rojak, who is a member of American Brass Quintet, and active in NY area. He was the featured artist. I had a great time getting know him, rehearsing, and performing with him. As I said “Trombone Day” was a big success all of the activities, concerts, ensemble rehearsals, lecture, panel discussion– went so well. It was a full energy day despite of heavy rain and flood (the concert hall was heavily flooded.). I was even more honored to be at the party hosted by another great trombone player, Andy Malloy, on Sunday. Great Music, Nice People, and Lots of FUN!
Movie-Avator 2/2/10
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010This movie is an opposite of the movie I saw little bit ago. Avator is the story of fantasy depicted in the real world. Dr. Parnassus was the real story depicted in the fantasy world. I enjoyed Avator more than I thought. The picture is impressive with 3D and beautiful, but the story is pretty simple. I suppose they made it simple purposely to feature the picture, and for any age and for any people in any countries. And it is a typical Hollywood movie that we know from the very beginning who is bad and who is good. Compare to the great 3D, like “Terminator” in the Universal Studio 3D is not always great in Avator. I sometime took off the glasses to see the difference, and I could not tell the dimensions sometimes–.
Anyway it is a wonderful entertaining movie for everyone!
