English Blog

A Trip to France…. 4/3/13 April 3, 2013

After the concert on Beethoven’s piano concerto, youtube link http://youtu.be/8UvdTE1YEpw, I took a week off from Occidental College to fly to France! I have not done a real trip without performances for a long time, and it was so good to do. No worry to find a piano to practice, no worry to have memory […]

A Movie “Hava Nagira” 3/18/13 March 18, 2013

It is about recent 150 years of history in Jewish culture and community around the famous song “Hava Nagira”. It is documentary and very funny! Most everyone has heard this song in some occasions even non-Jewish people like me. The movie tells us the journey of Jewish people across the generations all over the world, especially settlers […]

Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58, with Pasadena Community Orchestra 3/10/13 March 10, 2013

I will be performing this beautiful concerto with Pasadena Community Orchestra on Friday March 15 at 8pm. The venue will be at First Church of the Nazarene, 3700 E. Sierra Madre Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91107. (www.pcomusic.org) Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58, was premiered in March of 1807 at a private concert […]

My 5th “Goldberg Variations” Performance 2/23/13 February 24, 2013

I performed Goldberg Variations for the 5th time this afternoon for Brand Library Music Series. I have to admit I still get pretty nervous before the performance of Goldberg. Mainly, I start thinking about “Memory Slip” even though I have done without any memory slip for the last 4 performances. Oh well, that is the […]

Bach and Beethoven, and new semester at school 1/30/13 January 30, 2013

I decided to bring back “J. S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations” in this spring, and have been reworking it. This time, I won’t use any pedal so I needed to rethink about the fingerings. Now I really enjoy playing Bach without pedal, and actually I can’t imagine to use it again. The sound is so pure and […]

LA Phil’s Chamber Music Concert “Robert and Clara Schumann” 1/30/13 January 30, 2013

We had a chamber music concert on the theme of “Robert and Clara Schumann’s music” on Tuesday January 29. It was a wonderful program to play and listen. I was on Clara’s Piano Trio. Other 3 pieces were Robert’s Piano Quintet, Op. 44 and Märchenbilder, Op. 113, and Clara’s Three Romances, Op. 22. Clara was known […]

Eotvos Festival in LA 1/20/13 January 30, 2013

Peter Eotvos (b. 1944) is a Hungarian composer, very well known in Europe, but not much in the US. So it was a great opportunity for us to hear his music in different settings. I went to his opera “Angeles in America”, premiered in Paris in 2004, and it was performed at LA Phil’s Green Umbrella […]

A Movie – Zero Dark Thirty 1/9/13 January 10, 2013

I have been meaning to watch this movie since the release in December. I saw it today. Kathryn Bigelow is the director. Do you remember her “The Hurt Locker”? She is very talented and has a intelligent-cool mind with a good business brain. The cast is amazing, no doubt! The story is to find Osama […]

A Movie “Barbara” 1/7/13 January 10, 2013

“Barbara” is the winner of the Best Director prize at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, the director Christian Petzold. The story is on the Cold War in East Germany, and the gifted actress Nina Hoss as a Berlin doctor, Barbara, banished to a rural East German hospital as punishment for applying for an exit visa. Hoss does  […]

LA Times Article “Roll over, Beethoven” by Rick Schultz and My experience with Non-Classic Music 1/6/13 January 6, 2013

It is so fun to know that the great classical musicians like pop and rock! LA Times asked 17 conductors, ages 26 to 71, what they like to listen in their free time. Most of 17 conductors answered their favorite pop, jazz and rock musicians. This article made me to think about my history in […]