Life around here has been busy, to say the least. Last week was bookended with concerts and had *lots* going on in between. This post definitely fulfills the "do-re-mi" portion of my blog (and my heart):
Monday: Chopin concert. Friday: Little Shop of Horrors.
When grad school ended, I somehow thought my life would suddenly be much freer/lighter/better. I was looking forward to moments of boredom and returning to my Cultural Saturdays. However, life is never what we expect, and my life has managed to remain quite busy. In February, I worked three out of four weekends, and things have just been generally hectic. I am happy to say that I have absolutely no plans tonight or tomorrow, and it's the first time this has happened since I've returned from Winter Break. Needless to say, I'll be taking some much-needed R&R this weekend! But might I add... I'm a MASTER who will be taking R&R! That's right. My "pending" has been removed, all of my credits and my massive portfolio were approved, and I am now a "graduate" on the official school records. Officially, I am a Master of Education in Teaching English as a Second Language, and I am perfectly fine with anyone who feels the need to refer to me as "Master" in the coming weeks. Hehe. A whole lot of blood, sweat, and tears (emphasis on TEARS!) went into that program, and it feels so good to have finally finished the program.
My roommate made me a diploma. And I think it's way prettier than an actual graduation would be <3
Last week, amongst the chaos that is my schedule and my life, I took time on Monday night to attend a Chopin concert that was presented by the Myanmar Music Festival (which I recently "liked" on Facebook and look forward to more events) and the Polish Embassy, who is celebrating the recent reopening in Myanmar after years of being closed. Before the concert, I met with a few friends at Myanmar Plaza, which is across the street from the venue. Myanmar Plaza is a big shopping mall, and they have recently opened a food court upstairs. You have to load money onto this card and then you can debit said money at the different food stands. My favorite place here is called Sprouts. They serve a lot of vegetarian meals and is generally very healthy. I bought some vegetarian chili (delicious!) and had some fresh fruit, yogurt, and granola for dessert. The soda water had to be purchased at a separate stand (they are still figuring these things out), but my meal and the company were delightful.
Healthy food makes my body so happy.
After dinner, we headed across the street to the Sedona Hotel. We had a school event here in our very first week in Yangon - the parents' association treated all of the teachers to a "Welcome Back" banquet. It was the first of many times that I felt underdressed in my first semester here. When I was packing to move to a tropical environment, I thought, "Oh, there won't be many super dress-up events." Oh, how wrong I was. I brought one decent dress, which was worn to every dress-up event last semester, and it was way less fancy than the majority of the people around me. Coming back from Christmas, I definitely brought back several of my fancy dresses and am more prepared for dress-up events this semester!
The Sedona is a beautiful hotel. It is far beyond the means of my teacher budget for travel, even in Myanmar (which I recently found out is one of the more expensive places for hotels in Southeast Asia). As I said, it is a beautiful hotel, and the free(!) concert was held in one of their ballrooms. Outside the ballroom, there were many pictures of Poland set up on stands. I was having a moment because I had a not-so-great encounter with someone from one of the cities that was pictured, but then I realized that the display was there to celebrate Poland because Chopin was Polish.
Duh.
(Please don't take away my Bachelor of Music degree, University of Florida!)
Did I mention that the hotel is beautiful?
The lobby had live Myanmar music and dance performers, but I felt weird about snapping a picture of them. So I just took a picture of their lobby area instead.
The exhibition of cities in Poland
The chairs were even lovely, and decked out in the colors of Poland.
The chandeliers in the ballroom are interesting. A friend of mine told me the leaf shapes are inspired by a Chinese plant (the name escapes me), and these appeared to be made of gold.
I liked the wall art too.
Initially this was meant to be a shot of how full the ballroom was. But then my lovely friend Carolyn leaned in. Okay... TWIST MY ARM, I'LL TAKE A SELFIE :-)
Before the concert, some people came onstage to introduce the program. They spoke in Myanmar and in English, much like they did at the orchestra concert that was part of the same festival earlier this school year. They basically MC'd the whole program, which seems to be somewhat typical here. After the opening remarks, someone from the Polish Embassy spoke to the crowd as well. He spoke about the fact that Myanmar and Poland were both captured around the same time by different countries during World War II, and that both countries have fought to create their own identity in the decades since then. Apparently the Polish Embassy closed in Myanmar for a number of years due to financial reasons, but they reopened in 2015. The program was meant to celebrate nostalgia and heroism of the Polish people, and Chopin's music is really the best choice for that.
The artist, Kimball Gallagher, came onstage and gave some opening remarks as well. I read in his bio and then he echoed it to us in his speech - he has performed on all seven continents, including Antarctica! The first thing that popped into my head wasn't a feeling of surprise or awe; rather, I could only wonder, "Who the heck was his audience in Antarctica??" I never got my answer. I did, however, find out that he lived and performed in New York City at the same time I was living there. I went to many concerts in Carnegie Hall, especially in my early years there, and I am almost positive that I saw him perform during that time. I had a distinct feeling of déjà vu during one of the pieces.
Obligatory social media post to prove I was there.
The program
Opening remarks - the woman in red was an impeccable public speaker
A "Welcome!" from the Polish Embassy representative
"I performed in Antarctica!"
Kimball Gallagher played a very nice concert. I studied some of the pieces he performed, but I obviously never played it to the caliber that he does. I am pianist, and Chopin was obviously my first love. The piano that Gallagher played was very bright (not my usual preference), but it worked for the marzurkas and the waltzes. I absolutely loved the first mazurka - I like that piece, and he performed it really well. Gallagher had very clean runs, and I could appreciate how many hours of Hanon exercises he must have done in his lifetime. He was very good at the dramatic, fast parts and was generally a good showman.
In the middle of the concert, he had a guest singer. She spoke to the audience beforehand, and she was quite shaky (I am guessing it was health-related). She spoke with a Polish accent as she told the audience about the story in the song, since the words were not in English. As soon as she started singing, it was apparent that she was not a professional, but I found it quite sweet. She obviously loved the music and was proud to sing it, and I think that can be just as beautiful as listening to the most talented soprano. Someone else who attended the concert was kind of bashing her performance because it was not of professional caliber, but it was honestly one of my favorite moments in the program. Watching someone sing for the love of singing... it doesn't really get much better than that. There was also a guest pianist. He is Burmese and studies piano here. He was super nervous and even forgot to translate his speech to his native language; it was quite adorable to watch him as well. He played really well, and again, I could feel the love and passion, despite the level of talent. It made me want to play again! While the Burmese pianist performed, Gallagher was sitting at a table by the stage while looking at his phone. I found myself wondering if he was Facebooking? or Snapchatting? I guess we'll never know.
A night of beautiful music by Kimball Gallagher
Danuta M. Zasada, voice
The local pianist, Kyi Zin Wai - he was so nervous!
But he played beautifully :-)
More Gallagher to close the program
This was as much as he bowed the whole night.
One more round of applause for all of the presenters and performers.
Fast forward to the end of last week, and my friend invited me to the opening night of Little Shop of Horrors. It was presented by ISY (International School of Yangon), which is the school where most of the Westerners attend. Most of the international schools in our city have some combination of the letters "I" (International), "S" (School), "Y" (Yangon), and/or "M" (Myanamar). The performance was held way downtown by People's Park at The Yangon Gallery. We walked around there the day we went #pauling after brunch awhile back. They had cleared out the gallery space and set up a performance space. It was a bit odd because it turned out that my seat was not with my friend, but I am used to going to concerts and events by myself. The thing that made this experience odd is that I was surrounded by teenagers. Western teenagers, at that. It was so weird. But it was kind of cute whenever a new actor would come onstage, and they would excitedly squeal about their friend or their classmate or their crush. There was also a moment when a teacher came onstage as the Chinese man who sold Seymour the plant. The teacher was not in the playbill, and it was clearly a surprise. The students were like, "Whattt?? Mr. (Whatever His Name Was)!!" It was cute.
The venue
The small but functional stage - They kicked us out when they changed the plant so that they could keep their staging a secret.
Showtime!
I saw this name and immediately thought of my friend who did Orff levels with me in my previous life. It turns out he is the nephew of my friend in Chicago. It is literally a small world!
Before accepting the job in Yangon, one of the things I was considering was the fact that my opportunities for musical events and live performances would probably diminish greatly. I was even prepared to spend the year without any such performances. I have been very pleasantly surprised at the opportunities that I have had here to not only explore the local culture, but also indulge in Western music performances. I heard a clinician one time at a music educator's conference talk about the importance of feeding the "artist within you" so that we keep our fire for our art. After all, it takes a whole lot of passion to teach what we teach, and I have to remember why it is that I love it. Luckily, the country is developing rapidly, and with that development has come a lot more exposure to Western cultural events than I ever expected.
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