In "Featured on the cover of Time" the other day, I mentioned that my son was about to leave for a week of performances in Japan. From Osaka comes this dispatch:
In Japan with Pavel Zlatarov (Sofia Philharmonic concertmaster) and Milena Zlatarova (Sofia Philharmonic principal violist) for two weeks of chamber concerts with local musicians in Osaka, Kyoto, and Kochi.
Arrived Friday, Aug. 19. Slept all afternoon. Hosts treated us to wonderful seafood dinner. Handled chopsticks bravely but with multiple attempts; proudly refused offer to use knife and fork instead. The organizer’s girlfriend was very surprised and became animated when she finally realized toward the end of the meal that she had been sitting across from a Bulgarian-speaking American. A walk through Osaka’s shopping district, a maze of pedestrian-only streets, many protected from the rain by arched awnings, revealed a vibrant nightlife replete with clubs and casinos, summer-end sales, and groups of teenagers looking like j-pop stars or anime heroes.
Saturday, Aug 20. Miyako picked us up at the hotel for the first rehearsals, at a small performance space a few metro stops away. We were relieved that the lighting was good and that there was a fine Steinway concert grand piano– two essential prerequisites for our work that are hard to come by in Bulgaria. (Actually Steinways are available, but good lighting is rare.) A play-through of Faure’s first piano quartet presented no problems–the pianist was very thoroughly prepared and played exquisitely. The first violinist for the Debussy quartet was also well-prepared and had clearly studied the work in some detail. She had just flown in from Kochi especially for this rehearsal–she flew back directly after it!
The pianist for the Brahms G minor piano quartet was technically flawless. She and her clarinetist colleague, with whom Milena rehearsed the Mozart Kagelstat trio, had driven to Osaka from Kochi (300 km, 5-hour drive each way).
In the evening I took the Zlatarovs to help me find a camera at an electronics mega-store. I didn’t get one because all of the menu options were only in Japanese. Pavel didn’t buy his father a watch because all of the cheaper ones looked…cheap. Milena spotted a suitcase that came folded up into a tiny package the size of a deck of cards (or of a pack of cigarettes)–I was amazed at this newest example of Japanese engineering at work and wanted to know how big that suitcase would be when you unfolded it like a reverse-oragami magic trick. “Oh," Milena realized, "it’s just a belt with a combination lock that wraps around a suitcase.” She really had me (and herself) going there….
Unlike Friday, on Saturday I slept through the night, getting in about ten hours. Still feeling exhausted though.
Sequel
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