I was so excited to perform for people who understand my dialect. It was a concert of me singing and playing at the same time. The repertoire includes operas, English and Taiwanese songs, and my own composition.
Arsace's Entrance Aria
1st Duet of Tosca and Cavaradossi
John Carter's Cantata
Tom Lehrer: Poisoning pigeons in the park, I got it from Agnes
Keeping Sol
Massage Session
Li-Po, singing poem 早發白帝城
Xiao, 上美的花, 永遠的故鄉
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Friday, September 23, 2011
L'occasione fa il ladro TONIGHT!
Our two weeks hard work for everyone finally comes to the stage! I am very grateful to be in this production working with people who love operas(not fee, just a little HONORARIUM). Everyone has to wear many hats in order to keep the show rolling. I certainly had lots of fun hearing wrong notes from everyone and I appreciated people who dared to make them loud enough to be heard. That's what won't happen in the performance. I admire the musicians who went through all the notes I gave at their very limited free time. The difference was enormous! It is thrilling to hear an orchestra playing fast steady repeating notes very quietly!
Here are the funny quotes I have for the musicians,
6. Listen to your colleagues carefully, but don’t rely on them for tempo nor your entrance. Get them from the baton.
7. For Fiati: Treat “>” as just a little kick of spice!
Here are the funny quotes I have for the musicians,
1. Every note(rest) is born equally meaningful and every note(rest) deserves great care.
2. “>” doesn’t mean just to put an accent. “>” means more expressive, more meat, more vibrato. Make them elegant!
3. Clean cut offs can bring out more drama.
4. When you have a tr~~, make an opera about it.
5. Don’t rush when it’s getting louder. Don’t slow down when it’s getting softer. Piano/forte only affects the volume, not tempo.
6. Listen to your colleagues carefully, but don’t rely on them for tempo nor your entrance. Get them from the baton.
8. For Archi: Sneak in your entrance.(No accents)
9. For Ob: make those triplets a tease to the tenor.
10. For Ob, Cl: piano(the light bulb on of Parmenione’s wicked plan to get the girl!)
11. For Cl, V1: grace notes starting on the beats and short (They are the tickles of Parmenione’s evil plan. His thought is “Such a beauty worthes every illegal move!”)
12. When in doubt, stare at Ü!
Oh! Well, time to get ready again.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Power outage
The longest 5 days in my life indeed~
For the past five days, J and I've been living without electricity entirely. Saving the battery of the cellphones for emergency only was rather challenging.The flood took more than Route 17, 434, and etc. Susquenhanna got expanded so much that plenty of properties were in water. 100+ lives in Petco were left behind. Rescue teams have been out everyday to check if there are more people trapped somewhere. The shelters around were completely full. On the second day after the huge rain, J and I walked around to see what has happened. We realized that we were blocked in the area because 434 got water on both east and west, and 17 became a river. 17 finally opened yesterday during our adventure. I once wondered why the posts of cables were set so closed to the ground and finally understood the power of flood. Yes, they got sunk into the ground. Later on we saw posts with regular height. And yes, the cables were broken because of the sunken posts, probably.
By living through this experience, I've noticed that unlike in Manhattan, people here were not taught well for preparation. Before Irene came, people were evacuated to safer places. In upstate New York, they were "rescued". As a Taiwanese person having several typhoons every year, we were taught to stuck some dry goods, flashlights, candles, matches, and etc. to prepare for the worst scenario possible. My dad even once thought about getting a tube just in case we were trapped in the house full of water. Luckily we never got flood in. It took several years for the power company in Kaohsiung to realize that they really shouldn't have put the machines which connect with the entire neighborhood in a basement.
One may think after 100 year flood in 2006, people would know better for Lee in 2011. It was shocking that not many business in the previous flooded areas got some sense of danger. I was in Town Square Mall on the way home before the outage. Barnes & Noble did close early. The rest of the stores were still planning on their regular hours without making anything higher up from the ground. Somehow, J's company still had the fantasy of having their facility open on Thur because they only made the voice message of "facility closed" in the morning. After all the roads and bridges got flooded, they finally announced the Fri off on Thur. NYSEG thought they could repair the power by 11am on Thur and they still thought they could repair it by 11pm on Thur. Eventually, they realized that the water wasn't going away and there was no way for them to do anything before the water's gone. This is the part that scares me. We weren't aware of how dangerous this could turn into. Maybe it was after Manhattan surviving Irene. People got relaxed? The media didn't care about upstate New York as much? Am I becoming ignorant?
I am glad that all my friends in the area are fine. For these past few days, I got a lot accomplished. It may be a good thing to give out electricity once in a while. All my guilty pleasure required electricity... J got parts of the house and the fridge organized and cleaned. He got to teach me how to play chess and I finally defeated him. Mwahahahaha with my nonsense moves. Squid has been a winner in the dark house. He loved chasing shadows made by the headlights.
Oh well, time to pack and go back to Manhattan~
For the past five days, J and I've been living without electricity entirely. Saving the battery of the cellphones for emergency only was rather challenging.The flood took more than Route 17, 434, and etc. Susquenhanna got expanded so much that plenty of properties were in water. 100+ lives in Petco were left behind. Rescue teams have been out everyday to check if there are more people trapped somewhere. The shelters around were completely full. On the second day after the huge rain, J and I walked around to see what has happened. We realized that we were blocked in the area because 434 got water on both east and west, and 17 became a river. 17 finally opened yesterday during our adventure. I once wondered why the posts of cables were set so closed to the ground and finally understood the power of flood. Yes, they got sunk into the ground. Later on we saw posts with regular height. And yes, the cables were broken because of the sunken posts, probably.
By living through this experience, I've noticed that unlike in Manhattan, people here were not taught well for preparation. Before Irene came, people were evacuated to safer places. In upstate New York, they were "rescued". As a Taiwanese person having several typhoons every year, we were taught to stuck some dry goods, flashlights, candles, matches, and etc. to prepare for the worst scenario possible. My dad even once thought about getting a tube just in case we were trapped in the house full of water. Luckily we never got flood in. It took several years for the power company in Kaohsiung to realize that they really shouldn't have put the machines which connect with the entire neighborhood in a basement.
One may think after 100 year flood in 2006, people would know better for Lee in 2011. It was shocking that not many business in the previous flooded areas got some sense of danger. I was in Town Square Mall on the way home before the outage. Barnes & Noble did close early. The rest of the stores were still planning on their regular hours without making anything higher up from the ground. Somehow, J's company still had the fantasy of having their facility open on Thur because they only made the voice message of "facility closed" in the morning. After all the roads and bridges got flooded, they finally announced the Fri off on Thur. NYSEG thought they could repair the power by 11am on Thur and they still thought they could repair it by 11pm on Thur. Eventually, they realized that the water wasn't going away and there was no way for them to do anything before the water's gone. This is the part that scares me. We weren't aware of how dangerous this could turn into. Maybe it was after Manhattan surviving Irene. People got relaxed? The media didn't care about upstate New York as much? Am I becoming ignorant?
I am glad that all my friends in the area are fine. For these past few days, I got a lot accomplished. It may be a good thing to give out electricity once in a while. All my guilty pleasure required electricity... J got parts of the house and the fridge organized and cleaned. He got to teach me how to play chess and I finally defeated him. Mwahahahaha with my nonsense moves. Squid has been a winner in the dark house. He loved chasing shadows made by the headlights.
Oh well, time to pack and go back to Manhattan~
Friday, September 2, 2011
Canada 2011~ 3 Home of mosquitoes, Jasper, Mount Edith~
The engine started and we left Hinton. Soon we got into the town of Jasper. We paid a visit to the info center. The lady there gave us some maps and told us where to hike. And then we planned to get some food and a hike before we get to our camp site. We must have waited for more than 1 hour to order and to get the food. The sandwiches were good and we got to just relax a bit.
Mount Edith has a short hiking trail. We drove there and started our adventure. The map says that we should definitely get there early or we will have difficulty finding a parking lot. It was true that the parking place was full. However, we got lucky by making one extra loop in the lot. After quickly parking in that available space, we walked into the woods.
I can't remember much but the grey sky, Angel glacier, pikas, marmots, and squirrels/chipmunks. I do remember getting bitten by the bugs. It was my first hike after the Catskill training Jared made me to do. Everything seemed to be tiring. My speed was not good and finally we made it to the end of the trail on the map. After we got to the top, there were smaller trails going to the summit. I told J just go ahead and I will be pacing myself toward that direction. If the weather gets worse, he will head back and I will meet him on the way down.
It was so windy that I felt like flying off the hill. Finally I saw Jared coming back and we decided to head down before the weather gets worse. On they way down, there were people who just wanted to get up. Good luck to them.
I can't remember much but the grey sky, Angel glacier, pikas, marmots, and squirrels/chipmunks. I do remember getting bitten by the bugs. It was my first hike after the Catskill training Jared made me to do. Everything seemed to be tiring. My speed was not good and finally we made it to the end of the trail on the map. After we got to the top, there were smaller trails going to the summit. I told J just go ahead and I will be pacing myself toward that direction. If the weather gets worse, he will head back and I will meet him on the way down.
It was so windy that I felt like flying off the hill. Finally I saw Jared coming back and we decided to head down before the weather gets worse. On they way down, there were people who just wanted to get up. Good luck to them.
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