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The 2010 Marlboro Season

About myself, Bach, Blog, Marlboro Music / Koji Otsuki

(Originally posted on August 19, 2010) The 2010 Marlboro season has ended. This morning, for the first time in 8+ weeks, I woke up in a room that was not Random North 7. I’m no longer in Marlboro— and I don’t even want to think what that means to me. I know, I’ll just have to face the harsh reality. This season was a difficult one for me. Not only that I had heavier loads this year as head librarian, but also that especially earlier I had been always physically exhausted, probably because of the lifestyle-shift from inactive and calm one in the plaster cast before the season to very […]

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The first day-off of the season

About myself, Blog, Marlboro Music / Koji Otsuki

(Originally posted on June 29, 2010) What season, you ask? It’s the festival season. I’m here in southern Vermont, working for the Marlboro Music Festival as a music librarian. This is my 12th summer working for the festival, and my 7th summer as a full-season staffer. Even while I was in Japan studying Bach, I worked on the festival’s scheduling database… I can say I maintain a good relationship with the organization, and it is a relationship I cherish very much. I’ve been driving to Marlboro in recent years. And when I drive into South Road for the first time each year, I usually get excited or relieved that I

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So I broke my wrist

About myself, Blog, Random Thoughts / Koji Otsuki

(Originally posted on June 9, 2010) It has been 40 days since I broke my left wrist. My plaster cast is near completion of its purpose. Am I looking forward to going out of the cast? Absolutely. But the crazy part is that I think I may miss it a little bit. I broke my wrist when I tripped over the arm of a floor jack, shortly after I removed the muffler from my car. My friend Banri took me to the ER, and on that day, my ordinary yet out-of-the-ordinary life of the present began. Early on, it had been an emotional roller coaster ride, with strong physical and

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Why a Bach cantata ensemble needs a conductor

Bach, Early Music, Essays / Koji Otsuki

(Originally posted on April 18, 2010) In December 2001, I was in Brussels visiting my good oboist friend Katy. Thanks to her, I was able to sneak into the Flemish side of the conservatory and observe some of Mr. Sigiswald Kuijken’s baroque violin lessons. In between those lessons he taught (all in different languages), he came to me and asked a few questions. When he asked me what my goal was, I told him that I wanted to organize my own Bach ensemble and direct Bach cantatas regularly. “Well, then you must be a violinist, and that explains why you are here,” and he went on, “who do you study

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My buddy Dave

Essays, Random Thoughts / Koji Otsuki

(Originally posted on April 16, 2010) Today’s Dave’s birthday. Thought I’d write about Dave, my oldest friend in the States I’m still very close to. He now lives in a town in Kentucky across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. Ever since he left Philadelphia for Cincinnati about 10 years ago, we had been far away from each other… but now that I’m also in the Midwest, I can get to him in just a bit more than a couple of hours driving! I always try to stop over at his place briefly on the way back from my road trips to the East. He called me ‘Koji-man’ when we first

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Car Talk

Essays, Random Thoughts / Koji Otsuki

(Originally posted on April 14, 2010) If something, a tool, an instrument or a machine, fails to work, I always try to make it work by fixing it or by finding a work-around. It can be a challenge, but usually the process is fun. You gather the information, and you diagnose the problem. You see if you have the tools to fix it, and and if you do, you try to fix it. It is important to realize how much you can and can’t do on your own, and sometimes you’d better get a professional help… but like a puzzle, the bigger the challenge is, the greater the triumphant feeling

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Donovan McNabb, my quarterback

Essays, Football, Random Thoughts / Koji Otsuki

(Originally posted on April 4, 2010) A few hours ago my buddy Dave from Cincinnati called me with the news that Donovan McNabb just got traded to the Washington Redskins. At 9:30 PM the Eagles head coach Andy Reid held a press conference to publicly announce the trade. You’ve got to be kidding me. There are two different emotions going around in my mind. One is about Donovan’s destination. Why to the ‘Skins, one of the Eagles’ conference rival teams..!?!?!? I really do understand the business side of this. The Eagles truly wanted him to go to the place he preferred. I bet the ‘Skins gave the best trade offer

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Dare I talk about politics?

Essays, Random Thoughts / Koji Otsuki

(Originally posted in March, 2010) US House of Representatives has passed the US Senate version of the healthcare reform bill, and the President has signed the bill into law. If you are happy about it, I’m happy about it too! If you are unhappy about it because it isn’t good enough — I don’t know if we ever get to a single-payer universal healthcare system (Medicare for all) in our lifetime, but it is a first decisive step toward the right direction. Perhaps in the future, hopefully soon, we’ll get the coveted public option. And if you are raged about the passage of the bill, it is you I’d really

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Spring has come— fishing season is here!

About myself, Blog, Fishing / Koji Otsuki

(Originally posted in March, 2010) This week has been IU’s spring break week. I’ve been taking advantage of this unusually mild weather lately and have gone fishing a few times already this week. I don’t remember going fishing during the spring break in the past, so I suppose we are lucky this year to have had a few warm days before the break that raised the water temperature for some good fishing this week! There are many different kinds of fishing — the kind I like is fresh water fishing using artificial baits. I really love lure fishing for bass and fly fishing for trout! For some reason I don’t

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Appreciating 1/6-comma — Temperament Part III

1件のコメント / Early Music, Essays / Koji Otsuki

(Originally posted in March, 2010) By now we hopefully understand that the Pythagorean temperament is really a stack of pure perfect 5ths (Pythagorean 5ths) and can bring out melodic beauty, and the temperament based on the narrow 5ths, each tampered by a quarter of a syntonic comma (mean-tone 5ths), can bring out chordal beauty. Then what about those so-called well-temperaments like Kirnberger, Werckmeister, Vallotti and Young? What is the 1/6-comma mean-tone that we hear about lately? How different is that from the Vallotti or the Young temperaments? Before we get to the discussion of 1/6-Pythagorean-comma systems vs. 1/6-comma mean-tone, let’s take a look at the 1/4-comma systems. Among those well-temperaments,

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