phew, what a weekend.
taken at the MIAC show at the international centre in sauga on sunday and monday
this weekend was hectic, but so fun. i was asked to play synths for a composition being played in a Special Gala Concert at the Living Arts Centre in Missisauga. it was a night to celebrate the dipomatic relations between japan and canada, as well as pay tribute to the great Canadian jazz pianist, Oscar Peterson. anyway, it was nice getting a chance to play with professional musicians (mark kelso - drums, the madawaska string quartet - strings) as well as Francis Li (the composer of the piece.) The piece, Winter Colours, had a kind of europop feel to it, which i thought sounded pretty cool. different, but cool. and it was fun to play - which made it even better. :)
the first half was mainly compositions from Yamaha students (from Canada, Japan and the US) as well as other musicians/pianists from around the Toronto area, but the second half was just...WOW. i met the jazz pianist, Hiromi Uehara, back in 1996 when we were both part of the Yamaha National JOC concert held at the Glenn Gould theatre in TO. she was amazing and blew me away then, but this weekend she made me wanna quit piano altogether. geeeez. so amazing. her style has definitely progressed and developed over the years and...wow. "Hiromi fuses jazz and classical with traditional Japanese music, and injects an element of techno funk with frequent helpings of electronic keyboards. Somehow, she makes it all jell—brilliantly." couldn't have said it any better. the cool thing is that she immediately recognized me as "Liz's sister". :P (apparently we look like twins?) and after telling her bassist, Tony Grey (who was also amazing), that Liz was a Berklee graduate from the same year as them, he realized that he knew her too, from being in some brazilian harmonies class together at berklee. haha. such famous, talented people knowing my sister! wooot! go liz! :D small world. crazy berklee kids. ;)
after the gala concert on saturday, i also played in 4 other mini concerts at the MIAC show held at the international centre on sunday and monday...and it was pretty great getting to talk to some of the other musicians that were there as well as seeing some people from the Yamaha Canada Music Head Office - they actually remembered me! i didn't even think that they knew who i was. :)
anyway, there was one thing that i learned in a big way this weekend:
the music world is frickin big. i knew it was big, but it is so much bigger than i originally thought. as with everything, connections are key.
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