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.

Minato Matsuri - Koniya's local festival

On Friday, August 19 I had just finished cooking dinner when I heard the unmistakable sound of Shima Uta, traditional island songs, emanating from the nearby park. I ate as quickly as I could and headed over, where I found a stage, several stands of matsuri food, and the source of the music.

A shima uta performance, featuring a singer (main singer in the middle and a second singer on the left) and a shamisen player (seated, right). 

The final performance of the night was an island dance, similar to the ones we participated in during the Amami matsuri. 

The next morning I headed down to the park by Umi no Eki, where a sumo tournament was being held for boys representing their schools from all around Setouchi to compete against each other. A sumo ring is a raised, square-shaped mound of dirt on which a round rope ring is secured. Sumo rings often have a wooden roof-like structure built above them. Judges in white are stationed on all four sides of the mound, and from time to time toss some salt to ritually purify the ring. Nathaniel, Setouchi's ALT was roped into competing as well...

Nat (right) lost both bouts, but fought admirably.

First up were the middle schoolers. Two wrestlers entered the ring from opposite sides (referred to as "east" and "west") and got ready on their marks. They would then both stand down before getting ready again, and at this point the bout was on. The loser is the first wrestler to touch any part of his body other than the soles of his feet to the ground, or to step out of the rope ring. When a winner is determined, the loser steps off, and the winner crouches by the ringside, waits for the judges to point in his direction, before stepping off himself. Matches are quick, often as fast as 15 seconds.

Next were the high schoolers (and Nat). Nat got a special round of applause for his bravery (wearing nothing but a sumo mawashi takes guts) acknowledging his participation as a foreigner in Japan's national sport.

In the afternoon, the Minato Matsuri parade was held. Various local groups dressed in matching outfits and performed a dance around the two main streets of Koniya. I ran into the Koniya High School group, comprised of both students and teachers, who asked me to join them! I didn't know the dance, so a few of the students taught me quickly before the parade started.

It took a full 2 hours to make one full loop, but in true Japanese fashion, a water/snack/beer break was announced every 30 minutes over the same city-wide PA loudspeaker system that played the music we danced to. To give an idea of just how slowly we were moving, it takes maybe 20 minutes to walk the loop at a normal pace. Those water breaks were a welcome relief under the hot sun.

After the parade I ran into a friend and some former ALTs who were back on Amami for vacation, so we went to a nearby sushi place for dinner. Then, it was off to the park from yesterday for more singing and festival food! Nat got swarmed with his students, and I stuffed my face with kakigori and the freshest yakitori I've ever had.

We both had to call an early night, as he was to participate in the next day's boat race while I had to leave early in the morning to fly to Kagoshima for a business trip.

Local pastimes: traditional fabric and ...shrimp fishing?

Thursday, August 11 was Mountain Day, a new national holiday. I had the day off so I decided to explore town and see what was on the second floor of Umi no Eki (Seaside station). Turns out there is a small tsumugi shop, run by a kind lady who I ended up chatting with for the better part of an hour.

Tsumugi is a traditional handwoven silk fabric from Amami Oshima. The threads are hand-dyed alternately in a dye made from boiled tree roots and a mud dye before being woven on a traditional loom. Going back and forth between the two dyes 40 times (with dry time in between) yields brown thread, while a whopping 80 times yields black. The shop owner let me try my hand a weaving for a little bit!

The loom as viewed from the weaver's perspective. The weaver sits on the wooden bar (visible in the foreground). She presses on the foot pedals to raise every other warp thread up, and sends a shuttle across. A switch of the pedals in turn switches which warp threads are up, and the shuttle is sent back through. The weaver uses a wooden bar to pack the threads into place before repeating the process. 

Another view of the weaver's area.

Afterwards, the shop owner invited me to go to rowing practice with her friends (all 50 and older) by the pier on the west side of town. Being seriously out of shape, I could barely keep up with all these older folks who could go for a couple laps no problem. Like most Japanese social gatherings, the members brought snacks to share, and they graciously pushed several pieces of watermelon into my hands.


On Saturday, August 13, I was invited by a friend (who owns and is the sole chef for a restaurant in town specializing in local island fare) to go shrimp fishing with him and other restaurant regulars. He drove me and a few others to a small river in the nearby town of Katoku, which was completely unmarked (the fishing spot, not the town) save for a locked shack on the side of the road. We cut down a few bamboo stalks to serve as fishing poles before heading to the water. After attaching some fishing line and bait to the poles, we went at it.

The fishing (or should I say "shrimping") spot

The total catch! I contributed a measly two shrimp.

Later that evening, after we'd all had a chance to wash up and dry off, we were asked to the restaurant to enjoy the catch as part of dinner. For only 1000 yen (about $10) we had shrimp cooked two ways, Italian-style (right) and tossed in salt (left), along with rice, taro, fried egg with a house special sauce, miso soup, rice, chicken and eggplant, beef and goya, and some mango for dessert.

I went home very happy.

Guest Blog! Amami Matsuri Weekend according to Becca

This guest entry is by Becca Simas, an ALT from America who just finished her tenure in Naze on Amami Oshima island. She kept her own blog, so please check it out! beccamayhem.wordpress.com/

______________________

Thanks for having me as a guest on your blog, Maranda! I had a lot of fun writing about life as an Amami Oshima ALT for a year, and I am happy you are keeping up the island spirit and doing it too!

I was really excited for my last weekend on Amami because it was our Matsuri! So many people told me I shouldn’t miss it, so I came back after I climbed Fuji for one last hurrah on Amami with everyone before I returned home to America.

On Friday night, Dina dressed Carson, me, and herself in our yukata so we could go walk down to the bridge and watch the fireworks. It was my first time wearing my yukata that Ching forced me to buy in Kyoto. (Hi Ching!)

Left to right: Becca, Carson, Dina

People were saving their spots along the bridge with tarps for weeks leading up to the fireworks, and Seido even reserved us a prime spot. (Thanks, Seido!) Before the fireworks started, I walked around all of the food stalls and ran into a bunch of my students dressed in yukuta too.

Sadly, this is one of the few pictures I took of the fireworks. Because as soon as they started (quite literally) it started POURING. I jinxed everyone when I said “oh, it’s just a little island rainstorm…this will pass in 10 minutes.”

Nope. It continued to pour with no relief. And just like that, the fireworks were canceled, and our yukatas were drenched!

I will admit, I was really bummed I missed the epic fireworks show. I missed it last summer because I hadn’t arrived in Japan yet, but we made the most of it by going out to eat at one of Carson’s favorite places and then singing the rain away at karaoke!

Saturday Night

I guess if any night of Matsuri had to be rained out though, I’m glad it was Friday night. Saturday night was hachigatsu odori, where people from all of the different villages on Amami gather and dance in a circle in the middle of the street for two hours straight.

It was incredible to watch so many people come out to celebrate their culture. Everyone’s energy and intensity seemed to increase as the night progressed and they did the same dance over and over again. (This is also probably because of beer and shochu.) Megan was asked to dance in one of the circles and I invited myself too, but the dance was so hard! I never caught on even after going around in a circle for like three times.

Perhaps my favorite part of the night was just before 10 and everyone started their last dance, some of us were pulled into a really rowdy group of dancers. They were throwing water, banging on makeshift drums, and screaming “odori! odori!” I immediately matched their rowdiness and went crazy with them. It was a blast!

Witnessing so many people show their Amami pride made me so grateful to have been a part of this culture for a year, but also a little sad that I would be leaving it all behind on Monday. But I’ll save that story for my own blog….

Rain or shine, I am really glad I stayed for one last weekend.

Amami Matsuri weekend, part 1 - Fireworks in the rain

I was alone in the office yet again this morning, but at lunchtime, Carson (my predecessor) visited the school to take me to lunch at a lovely café called Bossanova. The décor was a mixture between French, American, and Japanese, and it had a quaint atmosphere that made me feel like I was in an old European home and not on a rural, tropical Japanese island. I had the house special: the “Siciliano,” a salad-like dish with lettuce, tomatoes, ground beef, egg, corn, and butter rice, all topped with mayo.

After work, Nat drove Carson and me up to Naze for the Amami matsuri (summer festival). I met the other Amami ALTs: Megan, Dina, Ching, and Jacob. Becca, Jacob’s predecessor, was also there, so it was a rare occurrence for so many ALTs to be in the same place at once. Check out Becca’s JET blog at beccamayhem.wordpress.com. Nat went to find parking (difficult with everyone coming into the city from all over the island) while Carson and I went to Dina’s to help them get dressed in yukata (summer kimono). Dina has some mad yukata-fitting skills, so she dressed herself, Carson, and Becca. We made our way to the waterfront, where the fireworks were scheduled to begin at 8 pm. The sky was dark, but the streets were lit by lanterns and the light of festival vendors selling food, shaved ice, and toys. Carson and I each got some yakitori and fried squid. In addition, she got an ear of corn while I got yakisoba. 

The fireworks began while we were still in line, but unluckily for everyone, it began to rain! It began as a small drizzle, but I now know that when it drizzles on Amami, it will either stop or POUR. Well, it poured. Hard. Usually, fireworks will continue if the rain isn’t too bad, and I guess the firework-setters were optimistic that the weather would change, since the show continued for a while despite the downpour. Carson and I got separated and wound up with each other’s food, and I found three other ALTs with whom I huddled under shared umbrellas on the bridge, enjoying the fireworks (which we could see through one of our clear umbrellas) as best we could while simultaneously shivering as we got more and more drenched. 

After maybe five minutes of this, we decided to make for shelter, since it didn’t look like the rain was letting up at all, and other people on the bridge were already in the middle of a mass exodus towards the city center. The firework-setters apparently were of the same mind, because the show was cancelled soon after we decided to leave. Eventually the four of us entered a Family Mart convenience store for a few minutes of shelter before walking back to Dina’s place in the unrelenting rain. At this point everyone was drenched from head to toe and no taxis would take us, so we walked for a while.

After getting changed and waiting for the rain to lighten up from a heavy downpour to a light shower, we met up with the others at a restaurant called Tsubohachi for some food, since Carson and I were in the minority of our group who decided to buy food before the show. Eager to make the most of the night we sang karaoke for two hours. I didn’t drink, and neither did Nat (he was to drive back to Koniya tonight and join us again tomorrow) but the others had a handful (or two) of beers each. Becca was by far the best of all of us – she could sing every song at the top of her lungs and not lose her voice! Sugoi (amazing)!! Jacob and Megan sang a few songs in Japanese, and everyone partook in Adele and Disney favorites. To commemorate Becca and Carson’s last karaoke in Japan, we ended with “Hello, Goodbye” by the Beatles and “The Scientist” by Coldplay, and tried with varying degrees of success to blink back our tears. 

It was 2 am by the time we finished singing, so Ching, Carson, and I stayed at Megan’s place for the night to prepare for another day of festive activities tomorrow. Carson was exhausted and passed out on the couch, while I, with nothing but hard wood floors back in my Koniya apartment, had my first proper Japanese sleep on a futon and tatami since arriving.

Week 2: Alone in the office

Monday: Until 8/17, I only have to go to school between 10 am and 3 pm since it’s currently summer vacation. There are no students except those who show up for soccer, baseball, etc. practice. I spent the day working with my supervisor to book tickets for my first business trip to Kagoshima City. New and returning prefectural ALTs go to the prefectural office once a year for a contract signing ceremony held towards the end of August. New ALTs also attend a Japanese language and culture training camp.

Travel is done through the town’s travel agency, located inside Umi no Eki (seaside station). Also located inside are a few snack stands where you can buy food goodies unique to Setouchi: among the offerings are seaweed, brown sugar candy, mango sauce, and pickled papayas. The station has a small restaurant and stand that sells sashimi, but they were closed today.

Before heading out to the travel agency, the landlord of my apartment came to school to collect my deposit, key money, and rent for the last few days of July. "Key money" is a strange thing that Japan does, where new tenants give a gift of money to the landlord upon moving in.

Today was Nat’s birthday, so we had a birthday party with the Eikaiwa (English conversation) members to celebrate. Some Koniya HS students came and made him a Pokemon cake, and another member made a giant hamburger that was easily 6” in diameter!

Tuesday: After work today (which consisted of me studying Japanese), Nat showed me a ramen place not far from my apartment, where I ate the most delicious chashu ramen I’ve ever had. We went to the convenience store for ice cream and ate it by Umi no Eki, near the only Pokestop and pokemon gym in Koniya. Pokemon GO is quite big in Japan, but less so in Koniya since there are few people and only a small town in which to play.

We then went to a real-life gym to play badminton. Nat knows all of the regulars, and among them are middle school and high school students, and some other Koniya citizens. There was no AC inside, and combined with the 30°C heat and unrelenting humidity, you’re literally dripping with sweat after about 10 minutes of light playing. The sweat towel is your best friend, but as soon as you wipe some away, more appears, so you could call it a futile exercise. I ran out of water after about an hour, so I went home first.

I’ve been taking cold showers ever since I arrived in Koniya, but they never felt as good as the one I took tonight.

Wednesday: Most of the teachers are on summer vacation, so for the better part of the day I was alone in the teachers’ room studying Japanese. At 3 pm, I went up to the music room (across the school and on the fourth floor – getting up there is quite a bit of exercise) to practice cello. Yesterday I obtained permission from H-sensei, the music teacher, to use the room after school so I could prepare my part for Amami Orchestra’s upcoming performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony (mvmts 3 and 4) in December. The cello I’ve generously been allowed to use is a well-set-up beginner’s cello, so it’s not nearly as responsive as the instruments I have owned in the past, especially in the upper reaches of the A string, fourth position and above. Even so, it’s decent and will serve me well during my time on Amami.

I went out to the town’s only Pokestop to restock on my virtual pokemon-catching supplies and while I was there I met a few other people playing. They were also young adults who landed a job in town. Together we marveled at the level 20 player controlling the gym (the game’s only been out for 1 week in Japan!) One girl knew a bit of English and could help me out when I didn’t understand a question directed at me, but I managed to get through an extremely simple conversation with the help of gestures and google translate. (Baby steps…!)

Next post(s): Amami summer festival!!