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I’m still here!

Bach, Blog, Marlboro Music, Random /

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 didn’t write during this past summer and in the fall this year (2013) was definitely my exhaustion at Marlboro Music Festival— it was the busiest summer I ever had.  Having no true days off for 8+ weeks, and getting no fishing (to me a real therapeutic activity) during the festival season for 7 weeks, seriously […]

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Gamut Bach Ensemble

Bach, Music /

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 perhaps it was beyond my plausible ideal…  In some sections I had those players whom I’d pick for my fantasy Bach ensemble!  And despite my shortcomings as a director, we as a team did put together a successful and memorable concert.  I believe I had learned and grown as an organizer and conductor through the

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The Compleat Violoncellist

1件のコメント / Bach, Blog, Football, Music /

My fixation on the cello playing stems from my fascination with basso continuo. It’s not that continuo part is extremely important in baroque music — of course it is — but what fascinates me most is how continuo playing can dictate the outcome of a whole performance.  The leader of the continuo group is like the quarterback of the offensive side of a football team; not only that he/she can drive the whole ensemble forward, but also that he/she can make the soloist(s) perform so much better, in the same way a good QB can make the offensive skill position players play lights-out. My mentor Hidemi Suzuki is, by far,

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The 2010 Marlboro Season

About myself, Bach, Blog, Marlboro Music /

(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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Appreciating 1/6-comma — Temperament Part III

1件のコメント / Early Music, Essays /

(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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Why Bach?

1件のコメント / Bach, Blog /

(Originally posted in January 2010) Sometimes people ask me why I’m so into Bach.  They don’t just ask me that when I first tell them I love Bach; they ask me after they realize, following some one-on-one chat with me, that I have made some sacrifices for Bach study, and that Bach literally changed my life.  When they realize that my “I love Bach” is a bit different from your “I love Beethoven (and such),” they ask me why I’m so obsessed with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. The reasons are manifold.  And perhaps most of them are something we all share — the same reasons why you love

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Do you like Bach?

About myself, Bach, Blog, Music /

(Originally posted in January 2010) Sometimes this happens to be the first question I ask upon meeting someone new.  I ask this to a stranger hoping that I don’t have to engage in a small talk which I’m utterly bad at.  And I ask myself: what are the odds they say no to that question…?  I really don’t get to meet people from outside the music field anyway.  They all should have something to say about Bach.  What a nice way to skip the small talk and get straight to the substantial conversation! You do not find many musicians who are into fishing or football.  No, not soccer, I mean

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25 random things about me (2nd version)

About myself, Blog /

(Originally posted on my facebook page in 2009) 1. I was born with hypopituitarism (pituitary dwarfism), and used to self-inject HGH (human growth hormone) into my thighs everyday growing up. 2. Because of my hormone situation, I was still a soprano when I was 20 years old. I never really experienced adolescence in the way normal kids do. I might still be in pubertal stage without the surge in hormone production. 3. My dad, a limnologist and a retired environmental chemistry professor, is now an amateur beekeeper, and my mom is a potter and a calligrapher. 4. My sister and I once had chipmunks as pets. 5. I think cilantro

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