Bone Marrow Bank Charity Concert - Conducting an Orchestra

The Amami Orchestra came straight off Beethoven in December and dove into Chopin the entire month of January to prepare for a charity benefit concert held on Saturday, January 28th for the Kagoshima Bone Marrow Bank. 

Conducting the first half? Me.

Talk about nerve wracking. 

Still, it was a good chance for me to put everything I learned in my years as an orchestra musician to good use. In addition to the first movement of Chopin's Piano Concerto no. 1 (featuring Amami's resident concert pianist Yuta Tanaka), I was also tasked with conducting Puccini's famous aria from his opera Gianni Schicci, "O Mio Babbino Caro" (featuring Kagoshima soprano Kashiko Nakamura). 

In rehearsal with Nakamura-san, Friday evening before the concert. She was very energetic and provided a lot of help shaping phrasing and emotion of the aria. Afterwards, some of us went out to dinner at a local restaurant. Because the buses stop running at 7 pm, I stayed in Tatsugo, a town north of Naze, with another orchestra member.

Conducting the Chopin in concert on Saturday. Watch the performance below! It's not perfect by any means, but for an amateur debut I'm pretty happy with it. 

After my turn on the podium was over, I had to run backstage and switch out my baton for my cello, since I was playing in the second half. The orchestra accompanied the Amami Childrens' Choir in several songs, and all of the kids did a wonderful job! Nakamura-san returned to sing, and Tanaka-san accompanied on piano.



I won't take the podium again for a while, but until then, I'll continue to hone my conducting skills as the orchestra tackles some great repertoire for string orchestra, including Elgar's Serenade for Strings and Arensky's Variations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky.

Amami Orchestra - Beethoven's Ninth

On Sunday, the 11th of December 2016, Amami Orchestra performed the third and fourth movements of Beethoven's Symphony no. 9, aka the famous "Ode to Joy" melody. Beethoven's 9th occupies a unique place in Japanese culture. There are a few theories for why this particular symphony is ubiquitously performed every December all throughout the country, but regardless of the real reason, this piece is a Christmastime tradition as much as caroling is in the west. Osaka even has a special concert in which a chorus of 10,000 amateurs perform with a professional orchestra.

Amami Orchestra performs Beethoven's Ninth under the baton of Maestro Sakamoto

The Amami Orchestra performance was the product of many months of hard work by everyone involved. Here's how my particular part of the journey went.

July 

Before departing for Japan, I had emailed the Amami Orchestra to let them know I was interested in joining. From their website, I found out that a performance of Beethoven's Ninth (affectionately known as "daiku" in Japan, lit. "the ninth") was planned for December, so as a good music graduate I printed off the cello part and started learning it.

You can't practice cello on a plane,
but you can stare intently at sheet
music learn your part.

I couldn't bring my cello with me to Japan so I had to do what I could without an instrument. But within a week of arriving on Amami, I was invited to an orchestra lunch in Naze where I met the members and was lent an instrument. It felt good to have that familiar wooden frame under my fingers again.

August

Sectional rehearsals for the fourth movement are held for cellos and basses. For those unfamiliar, the entire symphony is actually comprised of four distinct parts, called "movements." Only the fourth movement contains the famous Ode to Joy melody, but the other three are no less unique.

The first movement of the piece begins like the rumble of a world coming into being, the stirrings of the "primordial soup of creation" as one of my professors at school put it. The second is a whirlwind of rhythmic chaos that pushes ever on. The third is a calm respite of two intertwined song-like melodies.

But in the fourth Beethoven does something rather creative: not only does he feature a chorus and vocal soloists, but also makes a callback to each of the previous three movements in turn. The fourth opens with a powerful declamation from the cellos and basses, but then! The rumbling of the first movement. The primordial soup makes an appearance, only to be denied by another operatic declamation by the lower strings. Next! The rhythmic pulsing of the second movement. Again denied. Then, the wind instruments sing a short phrase from the third movement. Denied. Finally, the Ode to Joy theme is heard for the first time in the wind instruments, but what's this? The lower strings give a forceful, final "no!" before easing into the first full statement of the famous melody.

This crazy narrative is very difficult for the lower strings because we are very exposed, so it takes everyone working together in unison to deliver the punches that Beethoven writes.

You can't tell in this photo, but I'm repping my UCI music tshirt.
Yes, all of the regular orchestra cellists are women!

September

Orchestra rehearsals proceed under the baton of Ebara-sensei - horn player, conductor, and UC Berkeley PhD graduate who arrived on Amami earlier in April. There are no oboe players or bassoon players living on Amami, so we have to do without them for now.

I also conduct the orchestra for the first time!

Rehearsing with Ebara-sensei

Good thing I brought my baton.

October/November

Maestro Sakamoto Masahiko (Sakamoto being the family name) is our conductor for the performance. Unfortunately Ebara-sensei to had leave Amami so we had to continue without his guidance.

On the 13th Sakamoto-sensei visited Amami and we had our first rehearsal with the chorus! Before coming to Japan my only firsthand experience of Beethoven's ninth was the aforementioned opening of the fourth movement, which was part of the audition repertoire for UCI Symphony in college. So rehearsing with a full choir (of Japanese people singing in German, no less - talk about cultural exchange!) was nothing short of amazing.

The 23rd was a national holiday, so I didn't have to work and could go to a special weekday rehearsal. I spent two whole hours conducting a small group through the first 18 measures of the third movement (to put that in context, that's about 1 minute of music). We don't usually get a chance to do such detailed work but today was all about exploring how changes in bow speed and placement help create phrasing. I'm really proud of the progress everyone made!!

The players who usually come to Wednesday rehearsal had to put up with my
amateur conducting for the whole day...

Then, the 27th was our last rehearsal with Sakamoto-sensei before performance weekend. He was very happy with the opening of the third movement so I guess I must have done something right??

Sensei spent a bit of time with the chorus working on enunciation
and pronunciation for the German text. A lot of sounds in German
are difficult for English speakers, let along Japanese speakers who
almost never have to make such hard consonants.

December

IT'S HERE. Concert weekend! I bussed up to Naze on Friday evening for rehearsal. Because Amami does not have players for all the necessary orchestral parts, we called in reinforcements from Kagoshima and Tokyo, among other places. One of the two oboe players is Chiho, who until April was living on Amami as a music teacher and is friends with all the ALTs. Ebara-sensei also returned to play horn! We finished at around 9:30pm and went to a restaurant to hear traditional island music (shima-uta) performed live and to share a meal.

Island food! Tonkotsu, sashimi, pickled papaya, shrimp, and a whole
bunch of other delicious things that I can't identify, but ate anyway.

Our shima-uta performers for the evening. 

Saturday was another full day of rehearsal. All of our reinforcement players, except for two soloists arrived. After months without having double reeds or a horn section, it was really nice to play alongside those sound colors again. (If you who are reading this are currently in a symphony orchestra, please don't take those playing opportunities for granted!) The two soloists who were here (soprano and tenor) were fantastic and professional.

Sunday was an early start since we had to have a final dress rehearsal with all four soloists before performing. The doors opened at 2 pm and the first half of the concert began at 3 with several Amami-born soloists, a flautist, pianist, and clarinetist, playing solo/chamber work from Mozart, Chopin, and Brahms. The Mozart and Brahms were accompanied by the wonderful Tanaka Yuta. 

After that it was time for Beethoven!

Violas and cellos. Our support cellist is a third-year music
major in Nagoya, who has family on Amami. Photo by Seido

Chiho (center) playing second oboe. Photo by Seido

There were hiccups in the performance, but nothing major, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Afterwards, the audience was invited to sing part of the finale as an encore, and the children's song "furusato." It was a really amazing sea of sound to be a part of, nearly 100 instruments and 1000+ voices raised in a hymn of universal brotherhood. 

Thanks to Seido, Ching, and Megan for coming to the concert!

Of course, no big event in Japan is complete without an equally big afterparty. We went to Amakan, a large party venue, and ate and drank to our heart's content.

Amakan. Sakamoto-sensei, the four soloists, and
several others gave speeches!

L-R: Hayashi-san (chorus alto), me (cello),
Sakamoto-sensei (conductor), Fukushima-san (chorus alto).

Parties like this often conclude with a big shout of "BANZAI!" but not this one. It was only appropriate to end this celebration with three big shouts of friendship, of "FREUDE!" I don't know if I'll be around for the next time "Daiku" is performed here, so I'll be sure to treasure my memories of this performance.

_____________

Many of these photos were lifted straight from the Amami Orchestra blog! If you can read Japanese (or are willing to put up with google translate), you can read the Daiku-related entries here.

An article was also written for the Amami newspaper. Check it out here.

My friend Tsundie did camera work for the concert and also keeps a blog. His entry can be found here.

Day 7: Music-Making with the Amami Orchestra

For lunch with the Amami orchestra today, FJ-san picked me up at 10:30, and we drove to Naze (an area of Amami city, in the northern half of the island). His English is good, so on the way, we talked about various things and we taught each other some of our respective languages. The lunch was at Yagijima Hotel (Goat island), which actually keeps some goats in a small enclosure outside of the hotel, across the parking lot. I first met SA-san, whose English, along with FJ-san’s, is the best in the orchestra. She introduced me to the principal of the cello section. I was allowed to borrow an absent orchestra member's cello for the time being because its owner is not currently playing with the group. 

Lunch consisted of a small appetizer (pictured), salad, soup, a main course (fish, shrimp, vegetables, bacon-wrapped something), and dessert (fruit and a small piece of cheesecake) – all for 2000 yen! Portions were small, but it was delicious. Before the meal, I and a couple other newer members introduced themselves. I gave a longer jikoshoukai (self introduction) than I was used to – I said my name, my job/school, where I come from, and what my studies were in college. While people were eating, members would play various fun pieces in chamber-sized groups. At the request of the other members, I played first (Bach solo cello suite no.1, prelude) and sight-read many things with the others (I Dreamed a Dream from Les Miserables, Habanera from Carmen, the Mission Impossible theme, the Jurassic Park theme, some traditional island songs, the Addams family theme, a Mozart horn quintet, a Joe Hisaishi piece, etc.). The violins played a selection from Pirates of the Caribbean, and a viola duet played karaoke "Let it Go."

Before leaving the city, FJ-san showed me the orchestra’s usual rehearsal spaces in Naze, On the drive back, we stopped to see a mangrove forest (pictured). Mangroves are plants that grow in brackish water (a mix of freshwater and seawater). A nearby establishment offers tour-it-yourself canoe rentals that you can use to admire the greenery up close. 

When we arrived back in Koniya, FJ-san invited me to his house, where I met his wife (piano teacher and amateur soprano) and the local eikaiwa (English conversation school) teacher who stopped by to say hello. They showed me a DVD of Amami Orchestra from 2014 performing the fourth movement of Beethoven’s ninth, under the baton of a conductor from Tokyo. (I was told that the given the amateur level of Amami orchestra, they had some backup from more experienced players from the Kagoshima mainland.)

Before long one of Koniya HS's students showed up for his piano lesson, but it sort of turned into an impromptu cello lesson instead. One of the nice things about arriving during summer vacation is the chance to meet a few students outside of the classroom, which makes eventual interactions inside the classroom a tad less awkward. 

Anyway, even though the overall level of the Amami orchestra is not very high, I'm going to have fun making music with them as they attempt to tackle the third and fourth movements of the beast that is Beethoven's ninth.