Portland Youth Philharmonic: Tour Log

Sunday, July 8

National Chaing Kai-Shek Concert Hall, Concert #3

Tonight is concert night and we all had fun posing in front of the concert hall. The hall is very beautiful and the musicans are really enjoying the posh interior!

Larry Johnson, Assistant Director for PYP, told the musicans that this concert hall was the "Stradivairis of Concert Halls". He went on to say that the Chaing Kai-Shek was one of the top five halls in the world! The concert was uplifting and inspiring! Three encores and a standing ovation was a testament that the musicans were extremely well received by the audience. The overall feeling from the PYP musicans that this was an "amazing experience". Many felt they put on their best concert of the year! Bravo!

Concert #3

The visit to Taipei was very fruitful for some of us – especially our happy percussionists when they found good bargains on gongs and other instruments they can't find in the US. The audience in Tainan was a much bigger crowd than I had anticipated (almost full on the floor and some balcony). The chairman of Chi-Mei Museum (the Taiwanese Mr. Gates) stayed for the entire performance and I was quite amazed how refine the Bartok performance was given the fact that we hadn't touched it for a while and the kids were quite tired. After the enthusiastic audiences in both Kaohsiung and Tainan, Taipei seemed like an easier place to conquer although to do well in the country's best concert hall definitely produced a greater pressure for all of us.

The halls we played in so far had way better acoustics than the Schnitz, but Taipei National Concert Hall was even better than the other two. It has such a lively acoustics that our musicians didn't quite know how to adjust first. The hall was like a Stradivari violin in the way that one has to find just the right adjustment to enjoy the full acoustical benefit. We had a hard dress rehearsal as musicians started to make lots of silly mistakes, but everyone did a fine job at the performance. We had about 1250 audiences - quite good for a visiting group yet the number was just part of the story because I had never seen the usually reserved audiences became so involved with the performance. After we performed two encores and the audiences still didn't want to leave. I received comments that judging by the level of the performance and behavior of our musicians, the "Youth" really didn't apply in our name other than the actual age of the musicians. This probably is the best compliment we can hope for. I can't believe we are leaving Taiwan so soon, but I am glad the kids had a great time so far. —Ms. Chen

Day 10, Concert #3

Friday-Saturday, July 6 & 7

Back to Taipei City

Friday was our travel day and we made the five hour bus ride back to Taipei. We were all in good spirits as we arrived at the China Youth Corps. Saturday we started off by touring the National Place Museum and going to the top of the world's tallest building, Taipei 101. This Museum houses the rarest of Asian antiquities dating back to 2000 B.C.E. (Yes, that's over 4000 years ago!) We then stopped by the Martyrs' Shrine to observe the changing of the guard. The changing occurs every hour on the hour and the guard stands at attention for the hour, in the very hot, humid sun while attired in full wool uniforms. The changing is quite a site to see. Afterward we had lunch as a group.

Thursday, July 5

Tainan

Our second concert day on July 5 in Tainan, Taiwan started with a tour of the Chi Mei Museum in Tainan. Chi Mei Museum is open to the pubic and was started by the a local businessman Chairman Chi Mei. The museum accomodates western arts, antiquities, natural history along with arms and armor. The Chairman loves the arts and has a diverse collection of musical instruments. This museum has become the largest collector of rare violins in the world and houses nearly 300 rare volins including 20 of the most precious in the world. Stradivari, Amati and also Guarnei are in the collection. The members of the tour were treated by the opportunity to see, in a very private showing, not open to the public, these rare instruments close up. The violins in this photo are valued in the multiple millions each! These are 400 to 500 years old and there are only 4 to 5 of each these left in with world. As a special treat, many of our orchestra members were allowed to PLAY these instruments for a few minutes. This was a life experience that will never be forgotten! Just seeing the faces of the members of our group as they played these rare instruments was an experience I too will not forget! At the conclusion, the Chairman spoke to our group and told them "money doesn't matter, power doesn't matter, the arts matter" and told us "the world needs another Mozart." He then played a Taiwan folk tune on one of his Stradivari's and received a standing ovation by us!

Concert #2

Wednesday, July 4

Chih-Teh Concert Hall

We started Independence Day at the Confucius Temple along with the giant Dragon & Tiger Pagodas on Lotus Lake.

Conductor Mei-Ann Chen told the kids during rehearsal that she grew up and went to High School only blocks away from this hall. She said that she would practice conducting on the way to school and that she dreamed of one day conducting an orchestra here! She concluded her talk with by saying "dream big". We did a fine job at the Chih-Teh Hall in Kaohsuing. Copland, Saint-Saens & Bernstein were represented well. The audience was treated to four encores!

Concert #1

Today was a very special day – July 4th in my hometown with my "musical babies". I need to thank Diane for her her ingenious idea and for making this happen. For me, having PYP performed on the same stage where I used to perform during my childhood was an incredible way to begin our performances in this tour. Here I was with one of the best American youth orchestras introducing important American works to an audience who are mostly not familiar with classical music. I couldn't believe when the reserved audience became so enthusiastic at the end that we had to play two encores for them. It was getting very late and I had to get the musicians off the stage by having Brandon (our concertmaster) leave the stage with me. I am so proud of every single musician – I hope you all could be here to witness this amazing transformation of our musicians. The good acoustics brought the best playing out of everyone and I must admit our performance was not far from commercial recording quality.

Ann, Nic, and Scott spent many hours moving the instruments and setting up the stage so the musicians could visit several sites in Kaohsiung before the dress rehearsal. It is amazing how much the staff, parents, and even people who we didn't meet until our arrival in Taiwan are willing to go the extra miles to make this tour the most memorable one for our musicians. To all the parents – we are taking very good care of your "babies." Don't be surprised if they come back with many Chinese vocabularies, especially the ones on my bus. —Ms. Chen

Tuesday, July 3

Beach Time

We made a trip to Kenting to enjoy the beaches and ocean! 95 degrees and a wee bit of humidity made the ocean feel very, very good!

Monday, July 2

Night Market

We concluded the evening with a tour of the night market. Tons of small shops with every imaginable item. What the photos do not capture is the heat, humidity and the smell in the air.

The Buffet

Dinner is not just an ordinary event. We were treated by a huge buffet by the City Council of Kaohsiung. City Officials came and presented gifts to our delegation and we presented gifts from Oregon. No one left hungry!

Press Conference

After the temple, we were off to Shute High School for rehearsal and a press conference. We were greeted by local city officials who hosted many of our dinners.

From the podium

We had our first rehearsal in the facility of the high school (from Portland's sister city) that came to visit during Rose festival every year. The most extraordinary thing actually happened during the break where our musicians tried to interact with the students of the school. Because of the language barrier, our musicians communicated by using their limited Chinese vocabularies and other creative ways. It was a fascinating experience to witness how the students from two very different cultures reacted to each other – the beginning of East Meets West adventure for everyone involved! Another quite memorable part of the rehearsal was when we were rehearsing Bernstein's West Side Story. It was a team effort that we replaced the "Mambo" calls with "Taiwan Nihao" (meaning Hi, Taiwan). I think the Taiwanese audiences will be quite surprised by this!

The press conference on Monday brought reporters from several important papers and therefore we were on many papers today. 2000 tickets were out for a hall of 1500, so it's likely we will have many standing room only at the concert. I am having a great time – not only my students get to experience many things for the first time in their life, I also get to share with them many precious childhood memory (favorite snacks, stories...etc.). —Ms. Chen

Purifying the mind at Fo Guang Shan Temple

Monday, July 2 we started our day at the Fo Guang Shan Temple. This is a Buddhist monastery that houses over 1,300 monks. The site is incredibly peaceful and grand. The Temple grounds holds over 14,000 Buddha statues. The goal of this monastery is to "purify human minds through Buddhist practice". We all were allowed to meditate for part of the tour. So, for part of the day we could purify our minds!

Dinner for 100 please

Our harbor cruise ended the evening with a dinner along the waterfront. The harbor is filled with small dining venues. This was the main course, followed by cheese cake, and then french fries to conclude!

Sunday, July 1

Kaohsiung

We arrived on Sunday morning, July 1 in Taipei. After a quick run through customs, we were off in air conditioned tour coaches for our five hour ride to Kaoshiung. Kaohsiung is Taiwan's second largest city. It hosts a population of 1.5 million people. Kaoshsiung is a harbor city and most all the activities are centered around that.

Seeing Kaohsiung

The group was treated to real "Chinese" lunch in Kaoshiung. After checking into our Hotel, we went for a harbor cruise and then off to dinner. One of the most amazing sites are all the scooters! The island has 20 million inhabitants and they own 10 million scooters! A vespa man's dream!