价日。。。Christmas Eve

This blog is dedicated to the Crown Plaza, for their hospitality this past Christmas Eve. I was not a guest at the hotel, but a guest musician for the Christmas Festivities. With my usual cohorts, Fu and Philip, we performed for three separate functions then raced to the MGM to close their show. Preceded by few drawn out rehearsals, it was a quite busy day. After the whole thing was over, it still didn't feel like Christmas. Maybe that's because I live in China. Maybe it's because they call Christmas: French Epicurian Holiday. Well, anyway, here's some pictures from this crazy day. enjoy!

The Tree Made of Rolls

<--It's us! Philip! -->

Now, to end this blog and blogs to come: some of my favorite Chinese dishes! Today, a delightful, breaded, deep-fried, pork-stuffed, eggplant dish prepared in the manner of Sichuan-style fish. It's... 鱼香茄饼（yu xiang qie bing). This is a picture from a restaurant in between my home and school. A must eat if you visit Chengdu.

圣诞快乐中国 Merry Christmas China! & 乐山大佛 Leshan Giant Buddha

China's Sichuan province is famous for many things, but Le Shan's Giant Buddha may be the most spectacular. This past weekend I had a chance to visit this mountain city to play a gig. Although we did not have a chance to climb the peak to see the 500 ft. Buddha, this blog gives me a chance to show some of my pictures when I visited it in May 2005. The gig itself went off without a hitch. This gig was one of the, as termed by Josh Katz, many Lao Wai (老外) gigs that we play.

As Christmas approaches, there have been many more opportunites for shows. As it looks now, I won't enjoy the traditional relaxing time with my family. Instead I'll be caught up in the rush of playing 3-5 shows each day moving from hotel to bar to real estate gig.

I think it is interesting that a lot of the young Chinese population is beginning to celebrate Christmas. In most big chain stores, you can find the aisles packed with tinsel, fake christmas trees and all kinds of tacky ornaments. On the way to dinner with one of my students, he was asking me how I celebrate Christmas in America. I told him that most Americans families come together and celebrate their own Christmas traditions (decorate the tree, hang lights, go to church etc.) Christmas in China is basically a largely commericial holiday. It gives stores a chance to attract people with special decorations, hotels and restaurants to have special food and parties.

Merry Christmas!

The Band

The much anticipated "Relish" party.

萨克斯管独奏，合奏音乐会 - Prof. Li's Saxophone Orchestra Concert

November 29th marked the return of Sichuan Conservatory of Music (四川音乐学研) saxophone professor, Li Yusheng's Saxophone Orchestra. The concert was held in the SCCM's Xinhua Concert Hall (新华音乐厅) and also featured Mr. Li's students, Master degree student, Mei Song (梅松） and high school senior Han Xiao (韩笑）。 I was also very proud of six of my students who participated in the Saxophone Orchestra.

梅松 - Feld Soprano Sonata

As a member of the 2007 SCCM Saxophone Orchestra, I was happy to see the improvement of the group. The ensemble is now made of of all students of SCCM, as opposed to the previous ensemble made up mainly of teachers and graduates. The concert opened with Han Xiao playing Bach's Cello Suite #1 in G Major on Alto Saxophone. Next, Mei Song perfomed the ever-difficult Sonata for Soprano Saxophone by Jindrich Feld. He finished the first half of the concert with Combelle's lyrical Concert Piece #1. After a long intermission, Han Xiao opened with Pierre Max Dubois's First Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra; memorized. The rest of the program belonged to the SCCM Saxophone Orchestra: Giuseppe Giordani's , sections from Carmen; Bizet and a rousing encore of the Ouverture from Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro.

韩笑 - Dubois Concerto Mvt. III

Overall, this was a very enjoyable concert as all of the saxophonists played at a very high level. I was especially impressed with the soloists, Congratulations!

Success!

Last night, Nov. 22nd, was my faculty concert at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music. After months of preparation, in a flash it was over! The venue, Nie Er Concert Hall, was very nice. It's a smaller than SCCM's Xiao Yinyue Ting, but the sound was quite nice. I opted to put the piano at small stick rather than full due to the the low ceiling.

The Concert was a success! I was pleased to see an almost full attendance with many of my friends, colleagues and students. Thank you all for coming! Musically, I was also very pleased. Besides sweaty profusely from the spotlights, I felt very comfortable. Also, I want to send a special thank you to my wonderful pianist, Xiong Liang. 都谢谢！

Now, I am thinking about my next concert in the Spring. Who knows....saxophone w/erhu, souna, guzheng...the possibilities are endless! Once again, thank you all who attended last night. It was you who inspired my performance. Those of you who missed it, I plan to post videos as soon as they are available to me.

Come One, Come All! 不见不散！！！

The Offical Concert Poster

The Offical Program

萨 克 斯 中音萨克斯独奏 (1973) 伯哈德 海顿
Solo for Alto Saxophone and Piano Bernhard Heiden (1910--2000)


圣安东尼奥—奏鸣曲 （1995） 约翰 哈宾森
San Antonio - Sonata for Alto Saxophone John Harbison
I. 召唤 The Summons (b.1938）
II. 成排起舞 Line Dance
III. 成队起舞 Couples Dance


迈 (1978) 洛亚 罗达
Mai Ryo Noda
(b.1948)


绒毛小鸟奏鸣曲（1995） 塔卡施 犹史马蔟
Fuzzy Bird Sonata Takashi Yoshimatsu
I.跑，小鸟 Run, Bird (b.1953)
II.唱，小鸟 Sing, Bird
III.飞，小鸟 Fly, Bird


嬉游曲 （1964） 罗杰 布崔
Divertimento Roger Boutry
I.不太快的快板 Allegro ma non troppo (b.1932)
II.慢板 Andante
III.急板 Presto

黄龙溪 - Huang Long Xi

Nimen hao! (hello all) First of all, my apologies on this delayed blog post. The end of October and beginning of November have been quite busy for me (plus my internet was down for a while). These days, I have been preparing my students for the midterm exam, playing gigs, learning Chinese and preparing for my recital on top of all that. The SCCM saxophone midterm exam was last Wednesday. Luckily, only 2nd, 3rd and 4th year students were required to play. That meant I only had to hear about seventy scales and etudes. Most of them played quite well. I was pleased to hear a good balance of Ferling, Lacour (progressive etudes) and Mule (18 etudes) Etudes. The Thursday and Friday after the exam were teacher work days and sport competitions for the students. I thought this would be a good chance to see a little more of old Chengdu. My friend, cellist and teacher, Karen Liu accompanied me to the ancient town of Huang Long Xi on the Friday.

After a breakfast of baozi and milk tea, Karen and I hopped the 12:30 8 元(about $1) bus from the Xinnanmen station to Huang Long Xi. The bus was packed as I assumed other teachers and students were taking advantage of this little holiday. In about 50 minutes, we arrived and were immediately greeted by merchants selling flower wreaths to worn on the head (a local custom to take the tourist's money I suppose). After a million '不要!'s (don't want) we continued to the main entrance. My first impression, was that Huang Long Xi looked similar to many of the ancient towns I had been to before. However, there were definitely some specialties which made it unique. For example, every shop sold these corn husks with smoked beans inside. They were terrible. We did pick up some mint candy and sesame pastry which was pretty good.


The reason Huang Long Xi was so popular was due to the temple street. Supposedly there were three temples on one street. This was something I had to see. Sure enough! Smack in the middle of town, there was a street with one big and two small temples. The big one was special because it had a Banya tree. According to the sign the tree was over 6000 years old. I would have posted pictures, but after taking many videos my camera's battery ran out. Learned my lesson. The other interesting place was an ancient Chinese courthouse complete with gallows, guillatine and pictures of when they made a movie there. Someone there said that almost 200 films have been made there!

Huang Long Xi is located at the juncture of the Jin and Luxi rivers. Although the water isn't that clean, you can still take boat rides at your own risk. The town is said to be about 1700 years old, which to American standards is pretty amazing. After a few hours of exploring the winding streets we were hungry. The whole time there we saw and smelled all kinds of interesting foods. The speciaties there were dried seafood and tofu. Because we were planning a big dinner, we chose only the seafood for lunch. They prepare the little dried seasoned shrimp, crabs and fish by deep frying them, then dusting them with more salt and spices. The flavor was pretty good, but it was kind of strange eating the whole crab, shell and all.

Scotty Wright: My Hero

These past couple weeks, I've had a chance to spend some time with an incredible musician, teacher and person in general...Scotty Wright. A couple weeks back, I had heard news of an American jazz singer in Chengdu, playing at local 5-star hotel the Shangri-La. As the music communitiy is quite small here, it wasn't long before I met him at a jam session at local ex-pat hotspot Cafe Paname. The jazz group Bossma was backing him up as he tore it up for a full house. I was really impressed at his versatility and endless energy. It's amazing how much better you play when there's someone there who you can feed off of.

Since that gig, we got a chance to play together at the Shangri-La for an Oktoberfest celebration. They actually booked a German oom-pah band from Hong Kong, but they had some visa troubles. Enter: us! The gig was four sets of music for the outdoor section of the hotel's Irish bar: Mooney's. The place was complete with ten course buffet, pretzel trees and an endless supply of "real" German beer. The band was Scotty, myself, Ma Jun (Machine) on drums and a guitarist, whom I cannot remember his name at this moment. In the above video, we are deep in one of our many blues jams. To tell you the truth, Scotty and I were a little worried about the musical content, as we had never played with the two locals before. However, all four sets went off without a hitch. I've found that anywhere you go, if you get four random professional musicians together, they can not only make a show, but it can be a lot of fun!

After about three hours of playing, I had to fun to my night gig at the Music House. By that point I was a little tired, but definitely warmed up to play some real jazz. Scotty showed up later to jam with our two jazz singers: Chi Chi and Fei Fei (they love double names in China). He once again brought down the house with his unique vocal talents and taught us all something in the process. Beam us up Scotty! (ok that was lame)


If you have a chance, check Scotty out!