The Concert: Sunday, June 4th, 2006

These postings are slightly out of order. I will post pics from week two of the holiday after the CD arrives from Canada!!!
I commented briefly on last weekend's concert, and now for more details...

One of my good friends, Cindy Wu, is a fabulous musician and all-round individual. I work out of her music studio (teaching violin) and she invited me to perform with her in a violin, voice, and guitar trio. For those who know me well, this was a big decision. Performing is a huge challenge for me, but Cindy is VERY convincing and I couldn't turn down her offer.

We played arranged versions of Dust in the Wind, You Raise Me Up, and a traditional Taiwanese folk song. I literally arrived back from my holiday and was given the music six days before showtime. We rehearsed three times (including the dress rehearsal) and I got quite comfortable with the pieces. Cindy, with her incredible connections, managed to find me a 10,000.00 USD violin to borrow for the night! Its sound was fantastic.

Let me tell you folks, I have NEVER felt excited to get on stage, but this performance was different. Cindy and I clicked as performers and in front of an audience of 700!!! (The place was completely packed, there were no seats and some people sat in the aisles!). Many of our students came, including some from my bushiban and all of my violin students. Vivian, Benson, Tom, Jachi, April, Dan, and a ton of Cindy's friends came too. Talk about support! It was also an honour to play with Mr. Huang who is a very well established guitar teacher in Kaohsiung.

For the encore, we performed a traditional Taiwanese folk song with a full guitar ensemble. It was pure magic!