"One thing at a time"

Blessed Parents enjoyed seeing the photo of Erik appearing on the front page this week.  It is true, this small town definitely has very little to report on Tuesdays. but I was still very happy for Erik to receive something special like this. He looks sharp at the piano.  I decided upload the photo of the paper as well as the link to the rest that appears on the page 5.   I asked Erik if anyone commented about the article in the paper. He quietly said, yeh, several people did. (silence). He is not chatty. But he managed to tell me the names of the teachers who commented and expressed excitement.  After this event was over with at last week, he put that piece of music aside. He is back at working on several pieces that he is working toward. It would be a while before he has accomplished piece like the recording on the previous blogpost . The video toward the lower section show a slide show with the background music of Erik's performance from the eve...

I have been terrible at keeping up with our blog entries. One big excuse is that I have been in school while continuing to work. Another big excuse is that Erik keeps us busy with his school events such as  quiz bowl tournament or other events that takes us out of town on the weekend. The school and my paper drove me like a slave driver this spring. Each week, I felt as though something or someone chased me. You can add the deadlines of April 15th for the federal tax filing, re-registering your high schooler for the next fall by march whatever (if we were late the registration fee jumps from 50 to $250)  and other routine things that every family encounters. I must admit, some weeks were stressful and all I could do was to look up and  take a deep breath and then sit back down. So here I am sitting down at the beginning of my summer semester.... . We had a wonderful break this past week. I actually did not have anything due last week. But Erik had a heavy research...

The year Pierre Rampal, the world renowned French Flutist turned the lights off his earthly room, I felt an incredibly deep sense of loss. My memory of seeing and hearing him perform at a recital in Japan somehow created a special sense of closeness to his SOUND and continued to inspire my interest in Flute for 30 yrs. Many other musicians I knew growing up passed on since and new professionals emerged along the way. But, there is something special about the connection you develop with musicians you have the honor of seeing and hearing them perform in person. The power of live inspiration for young students can not be underestimated. On Wednesday this week, another tremendous classical musical figure of this era slipped away leaving us immersed in the memory of the music and his personal history that impacted every generation since 1950's. I mourn the loss but I celebrate the music he adored. I can not imagine the loss the winners would inevitably sense at the award ceremony in...

Earlier in February, Erik and his quiz bowl team had a regional match. It was one of those double elimination match and his school team completed against several other team during the course of the event. They actually lost to one team on their initial round and I was thinking to myself that their day was over, without realizing that double elimination meant that they will have to lose twice before they will be determined to not to advance to the state competition. They won against all others and the last team against which they were completing against to determine the top of the region was the team they lost against on the initial round. After a tough competition they won. But, since they lost to it once and won once, they had to  continue on to another round to see which team wins twice! Erik's team did win earning the first spot. In their quiz bowl team, there are two senior students who are extremely intelligent. Erik is a sophomore who does not come anywhere near them in the...

I just completed uploading the second piece he played at the MTNA competition. Soar,, is the Japanese title of this piece. Erik worked hard at this piece. Interestingly, I played this piece in high school sometime, boy, mine did not have anywhere near this energy to make it soar. He actually makes quite a few mistakes but this was a good rehearsal and I decided to use it for here....he has developed this music over the course of months into much more "SOARING" piece that it initially was. We will continue to watch him grow, let his music continue to soar,,,,

神戸大学の工学部前身であった神戸高工開校とともに教鞭をもった祖父、大正１１年（１９２２）の話をよんでいた。　"埠頭を離れた、万歳の声が　鯨波のように起こる。楽隊のマーチが湧く。テープが切れる。００先生の顔も、同僚諸君の顔も、生徒諸君の顔を母や兄弟たちの顔も全てがだんだんに小さく、刻々にかすんで神戸の街とともに水平線の彼方に消えて行く。さらば六甲の海よ、瀬戸の海よ、なつかしの人々よ。故国を離れんとするにあたっての哀別の情と、万里の波濤を蹴って、未知の世界に旅線とする歓喜の念とに胸ふさがれながら、私は看板にたって、船尾遠く引いた航跡流にいつまでもいつまでも眺め入った。１９３１年、大正１１年。（”家、地震、台風”　田邊平学著。読売新聞社　昭和２９年。３４p） 。。。。同大学からは初の留学・洋行だったといい、授業を休んで全校で見送りだったと言う。同じ船で神戸小学校の芥川校長という方が出発なさったため、楽隊付きの小学児童の見送りも有り、埠頭は人の山だったと言う。いまでこそNaritaに御見送り、、などと言って家族全員、同僚などが足を運ぶ時代ではなくなっているが、この時代に海外に出て行った人の血はたしかに私の中に流れているらしい。私が日本を１９８７年に離れた日、母、弟、そして一番身近ないとこが見送りに成田に出向いてくれたのを思い出す。 祖父は３年後に初の洋行から、日本へ戻った。私はそういえば最初は８年も日本へは帰らなかった。 祖父が“我が足あと”となずけた日記のなかで触れる名前の中には、あっと思う名前が時々出て来る。江戸川乱歩の推理小説の会で会話したとか、トヨタ佐吉の息子さんの豊田喜一郎氏と研究の計画とグラントの話をしたとか。。。。。。大変興味深い 祖父は、二度目の洋行、を文部省のから命ぜられて昭和１６年、1941年にシベリア経由でドイツ入りをしている。東京から博多への道中、長崎医大学長角尾晋博士と一緒で、食堂車では状況を理解された角尾先生がお昼を御ちそうしてくださったなど。。。。”前回外遊時の知己と門出に同車”、、云々、ということで１９２２年にわたったときにどこかでかなり接触が有ったらしい事が伺えるが詳細はどこにもまだ出てこない。。。。。祖父は医学的な研究はしていなかったが、どのような知己だったのだろう。当時日本からドイツへ言った人間はあまり多く...

This afternoon, as I walked by the book shelf in the foyer, my eyes caught My Ultimate Favorite, Jean-Pierre Rampal's autobiography that I read yrs ago. I only heard him live once in my life, when I was 20 or 19, in Nagoya, Japan, his generous spirit impressed me. He died in 2000 at 78 and I thought the world turned lights off and everything went silent. The world is a good place thanks to all the musicians, well known or not, who enrich us and treat our soul with something no tangible elements could touch. anyhow, his book is hilarious and sometimes so deep and makes me want to tear up,,, I thought I would share one line from this book that always makes me smile, " I don't harbor regrets. I dont' wish I were twenty years old again. I don't want to be twenty -five again either, ,,,,I live for the next event, the next journey and the next meal".   And there is a part that made me cry when I read this book for the first time. "One's physical capabilitie...