today, walter hall was hosting a special event for violists: heidi castleman masterclass. she teaches at juilliard and yes, i think it is quite exciting to play for a different teacher- you can take away so much with you, the inspiration, technical knowledge, a new emotional dimension, you name it. and i was confronted by a special person as well, just not as helpful, however impressive. walter hall is a busy place. and it's only a natural thing that students want to get in there to practice- it sounds good, it feels good and yes, there is shortage of space at busy times of the day in school. however, it is a performance hall and not a practice room, especially regarding the pianos. the piano technicians work very hard to keep the instruments to meet the heavy demands. they come way before the students, to yield to the kiddies who want to practice. and yes, they do go home after a day's work. and because many musical events take place in late evenings, it is important ...
tonight, dusk. hey blog, long time no see. i didnt have much thoughts that i wanted to write down. 2020 so far, has been mildly irritating, rather than truly provoking or even really enraging. but here we are. my granny's dying. tomorrow would be just about 4 weeks since she went into a local hospital with colitis. but with prolonged stay and consequent isolation from everything/everyone (she hardly speaks english), and covid-19 protocol making it impossible for any of us to really go in and see her, i feel that she's decided to curl her tails and get ready for the end. after all, from the autumn equinox, to the winter solstice, it's a long gradient of 'end.' there were much phone chasing, 3-way calls, the usual immigrant family logistics when navigating complicated settings. it was unpleasant. and that is okay. but somewhere during that time, she's turned a corner, and now she's slowly disappearing. she's out, and back to her home. and she is no lon...
in recent window gazing, i was left standing with a map in my hand, wanting to look for the girls, at the peak of their youth, at the cusp point, immortalized by two particular artists, millais and klimt. their girls are the youthful ones, have this same look of fleeting beauty, like early spring flower petals that has been surprised by the last frost- even more beautiful since when the frost melts away, their capillaries and cells would collapse from the previous expansion of water, leaving them eventually colorless, shapeless, a past. i used to have all these girls hanging up in my otherwise sterile dorm room. gazing at me as i gazed at them. http://www.millais.info/bridesmaida.htm http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Millais_-_Ophelia_(detail).jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dana%C3%AB_(Klimt_painting) all these passing beauty, in the richest colors of gold, midnight blue, amber, van dyck brown, winter green contrasting so sharply with their pale skin only accentuate...
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