C Bechstein Piano Recital

Yesterday was my free day as well due to no seminars/trainings. Went for a nice lunch at Bakerzin at United Square. First time tried the chicken curry with ciabatta bread (partly influenced after seeing AC100's chicken curry blog), the lemon grass flavour was pretty prominent in the curry which was moderately spicy..till now can feel its effect slightly in my stomach heh. Ordered a set with a beverage-strawberry violet and a Bailey's souffle :) Was very stuffed....

Then took a cab down to the Arts House at Old Parliament house, was a bit lost, and asked for directions. It was a complimentary piano recital sponsored by Cristofori music sch. And Ong Lip Tat was performing, with 3 other talented young pianists, on the C. Bechstein piano. Guess i got the tic as was at Bishan Junction 8 once and tinkled on the pianos for fun at Cristofori, and one of the staff offered me to try playing on the C. Bechstein piano, and i gotta write an 'autograph' or review on how i found playing on this brand of piano. Guess they contacted me via my hp and hence gave me a free concert ticket.

The layout of the performance place was pretty special. The grand piano was positioned in the middle of the hall, and ppl could sit rows on the left and right and above (circle seats) the piano. So everyone could have a comparably better view as compared to piano on the stage right in front. Lights were dimmed and there were 2 chandeliers and a spot light for the pianist. A little gal, and 2 boys played first. They were all good. The oldest boy/teenager was outstanding. Ong Lip Tat played 4 songs. Found the 1st one too easy sounding for a maestro to play, 2nd one abstract, 3rd had a nicer tune, 4th (title contained Espanol or Spain) was more with vigour and interesting as compared to the earlier 2 songs. Later on he did 2 'encore' pieces, one was his favourite by Bach...then the last item was a duet with the teenager Thomas. Tot the duet was the best performance. More interesting than his solo performances.

I guess i prefer to go for jazz concerts, despite being classically trained. Feel that jazz is even higher level because for classical music, u basically practise, memorize, and reiterate. But for jazz, you have to build your improvisation around the basic melody line/musical idea. In other words, u almost have to compose on the spot in your mind any melody building on the basic chords of the song. Meaning, you're really using your brain a lot. Of course, ppl can just practise a few motifs/sequences and re-use them, but other than that, the rest is purely free-flowing compositions on the spot. U have to be very musical in order to do it well.

I think some outstanding jazz pianists with good improvisations are Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett. My jazz friend likes Chick Corea too.  Included are also Hiromi Uehara which i mentioned in my earlier blogs, but hers is more fusion, but she's real good. My personal fav composers/artistes are Stan Getz and Antonio Carlos Jobim. Jazz Vocalists: Stacey Kent, Lisa Ono and Jane Monheit. Not particularly fazed by michael buble and diana krall dunno why...jamie cullum has a nice voice, but dun find his purely jazz also; like more catered to those ppl who are new to jazz and think wat he's singing is jazz...

Anyway, got to go to the Esplanade library to photostat a jazz score which i heard from Stacey Kent's CD- They Can't Take That Away From Me...didn't know it was composed by Gershwin.

After that went to HMV at Citi-link and found a karaoke DVD for the chinese duet song that my fiance and i should be singing. Xuan Zhe by Sally Yeh and George Lam...glad to have found it. Also bought an Antonio Carlos Jobim CD to play as background music during the dinner banquet =) Happy. Now have to hunt for my Libera-Sanctus CD that's used as my church march-in song....gotta tidy my room more :P

Oh yes, yesterday my piano student who's coming later for lessons just bought a Yamaha piano from where i was working. That's good.