Mid-June to Mid-August, 2018 Marlboro Music School and Festival – Marlboro, VT Doing what I do every summer. October 2018 Visiting Professorship at Aichi University of the Arts – Aichi, Japan I’ll be joining during the month of October the string faculty members at this school to teach some Bach. December 12 (Wed), 2018… Read More Upcoming stuff, 2nd half of 2018
Since I left the Midwest and moved back to Philadelphia a couple of years ago, I haven’t made music with any period instrumentalists here. In early January this year, I debuted my violoncello da spalla, beautifully built by Dmitry Badiarov, in a concert of Bach cantata BWV 41 with the period instruments, but that was… Read More Bach Methodology
It’s been more than a half year since I posted the previous blog entry… I don’t know how I let the time get away like this. I still have much to say, and I still love to write when I have the time that I can somehow justify spending for blogging. One big reason I… Read More I’m still here!
Today was the last day of the semester for me at Temple. It’s that time again— time to shake hands with some of those students, saying good luck. I’m usually very proud of my students leaving my classes as better musicians. I wish if I could keep track of their progress, each one of them.… Read More For my (past) conducting students
Fairly recently, I had an opportunity to play the prelude from Bach’s cello suite VI on the violoncello da spalla to a small crowd in a modest suburban church. The pressure was almost non-existent; I’d played some cello duets there in the past and I was already familiar with this sanctuary. Not many classically trained… Read More Selfish self-deprecation
The last time I fly-fished was probably in 2009— it’s been too long. I do bass fishing every year, but fly fishing has been quite elusive for me. One thing I’m excited about this summer is that I’ll be free from the pressure that hindered me from fly fishing in recent years and that I… Read More Tenkara
She is here. She is here, just sitting right next to me. Next to me, in the cozy flowing air. We exchange neither words nor glances— we are just sharing the moment without being a party of two. Physical proximity is the only thing that seems relevant, and yet, the proximity can’t be more irrelevant.… Read More Looking back at Marlboro Music 2012
Writing blogs is, for me, like yapping away with someone. It is storytelling. It is sometimes recording of my own critical thinking, but more often than not, it is a good distraction from unwanted thoughts. It had been procrastination. I just went through a phase where I needed to face those unwanted thoughts and do… Read More I’m back.
The people in my circle think that I’m opinionated. Well, my circle is very small— it really means something when someone tells you in your face that you are opinionated. Not good. I may seem like a dogmatic, inflexible, arrogant, pompous, stubborn and perhaps even prejudiced son of a gun. And I shouldn’t even deny… Read More I’m opinionated
In March 2005, I organized a Bach ensemble and performed 4 cantatas in a concert in Tokyo. It was a group consists of the supportive and willing members of Bach Collegium Japan and my friends from Geidai (Tokyo University of the Arts)— I can say it was an ideal ensemble in the realistic realm, or… Read More Gamut Bach Ensemble
