I spent Thursday and Friday at the e.g. conference in Monterey, California, which was incrediblly inspiring. I feel really lucky to have been a part of it.
Each day, the roughly 300 attendees were given the opportunity to hear hours and hours of presentations by talented people who have done incredible things. While I found the content of the presentations to be fascinating, what I really loved was that everyone involved was doing something driven by passion, and while there were many paths to the discovery of a particular passion, they had all figured it out (some were born into it, and some only discovered it after having gone through meandering paths of adventure in other fields).
There was, however, one thing that stood out, and not in a good way: classical music.
Music at conferences like TED and e.g. are often based in the avant-garde and experimental, which can, of course, be interesting and thought-provoking. Classical instruments like the piano, violin and cello are usually part of some kind of crossover performance. The musicians are often quite talented, and the audience loves this stuff. During the 2 days I was at e.g., there were exactly two purely-classical performances, which starkly contrasted in quality when compared to the other presentations. The first was a short solo piano piece that wasn’t very well prepared, and the second, a Brahms piano trio that was pretty much sight read on stage. After the piano trio sight-reading performance, something incredible happened: the crowd gave a standing ovation! I was thoroughly confused and disappointed. If this same performance had taken place in a concert hall, all of the musicians in the audience would have walked out.
Curators at conferences like e.g. and TED need to feature classical performances that are as high in caliber as the rest of the presentations—or, leave them out entirely.
I had an incredible (and unusual) experience tonight at Davies Symphony Hall, where I went to see the San Francisco Symphony play Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 (one of my favorite pieces of orchestral music). I’ve seen it performed live a few times; each time, it’s moved me to tears.
Mahler’s 9th symphony ends in adagio—in the softest of fragmented whimpers—and as the last few notes whispered into existence, I suddenly had a moment of incredible clarity. All of my senses converged into absolute sharpness; I could see, vividly, every detail of the orchestra—the position of every stand, chair, instrument, player—and hear every tiny little creak of audience members trying not to move in their seats. Every bit of my brain was oscillating in perfect harmony, and I finally truly understood the meaning of the word, clarity.
It only lasted a few seconds, but was a moment I will remember for a lifetime. Thank you, MTT and the members of the San Francisco Symphony, for the wonderful performance.
As a side note, I now wonder if some people are able to achieve this sort of clarity during their normal, day-to-day lives. I can only imagine…
Chee-Yun and Alisa are in town to play Beethoven Triple Concerto with the SF Symphony. The music world is tiny; I’m not even really a part of it, but it’s always fun to hang out and catch up.
Tickets for tonight and tomorrow night are still available — highly recommended! Photos follow… (read more »)
3D test (anaglyph — requires red/cyan glasses) of Quartetto Sugoi in low light using dual Sony CX550V camcorders zoomed in a bit, perhaps, to 40mm (35mm equivalent) or so. Camera sync is approx 16ms apart, which is why there is ghosting when objects move. Video targets large displays (30″+ ideal).
Due to tolerances in manufacturing, it is nearly impossible to get two of these cameras to align perfectly, resulting in the need for rotational geometry correction in post, which may also account for further image degradation (in addition to the low light noise, that is).
Music: Mendelssohn String Quartet No. 6, excerpt from first movement (thanks, Quartetto Sugoi!)
A short from the St. Lawrence String Quartet’s 2010 Summer Chamber Music Seminar at Stanford University. I only shot a little video during the 10-day seminar because I was focused on shooting stills, but I had enough to mash it together into this little piece.
St. Lawrence String Quartet Seminar 2010 group photo (zoom in for more fun)
I posted a bunch of photos from the SLSQ Chamber Music Seminar 2010 over on Facebook (public link). If you’re not on Facebook, you can see all of the photos here in this journal entry (apologies: it’s bandwidth-intensive!). You can also download hi-res versions of the group photos (click on the image you want and then select “O” for original image).
Special thanks to the other members of my group, Alex Li and Heidi Hau, and to all of the coaches and folks who made the seminar possible. See you next year! (read more »)
I went to see György Ligeti’s opera, Le Grand Macabre, last night at Avery Fisher hall in Lincoln Center. The New York Philharmonic and a talented cast of singers performed the fully-staged performance, with Alan Gilbert conducting.
My mother told me that the staging was controversial because it was so avant-garde, but I’m not sure an opera completed in the mid 70s and revised in 1996 could be staged in a way that wasn’t avant-garde. (read more »)
Here are some photos from tonight’s Stanford Chamber Chorale concert. Had a great time up there! Special thanks to Brad and Susan (and parents!), Tiffany Shih, Scott St. John, Geoff Nuttall, and Pam, for coming. :)
Andrew Lan and me. We’ve been playing together for 17 years!
It’s rare that surprise birthday parties actually work
Happy surprise birthday party, Warren! Not many people get to play with Livia and the SLSQ on their birthday — must have been the best gift ever. ;) (read more »)
At the all-Hayden concert at Stanford today, Warren gave me a copy of the August 2009 issue of The Strad magazine, which features the St. Lawrence String Quartet on its cover. Congratulations, guys!
The concert was incredible. I had never heard Op. 54 No. 2 (in C major) before. I loved all of it, but the Adagio parts (2nd movement and 2 parts of the Finale) were incredibly moving. I was totally floored.
Geoff became a normal person again after the show, and after I recovered from my disbelief at his talent, I took him to the airport. Their schedule is crazy.
I had an interesting morning accompanying Vienna Teng to KFOG for her 8am interview and live performance on the air. Director Ang Lee was on immediately preceding Vienna, and when he was finished with his interview, we were introduced to him in the hallway.
“It’s a Taiwan morning,” he said, after we introduced ourselves as having Taiwanese roots. (read more »)
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