Adv: Niigata Interntional Film Festival にいがた国際映画祭での演奏

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We are playing for the "Niigata International Film Festival" on the 14th February 2010. It starts at 6:00 pm at Niigata citizen plaza on the 6th floor of Next 21. Please come and join us!

Niigata International Film Festival official site: http://www.info-niigata.or.jp/~eigasai/poster.html



告知！！！

2月に行われる「にいがた国際映画祭」の20周年ファン感謝デーで演奏させていただくことになりました。14日（日）18:00からNEXT21　6階の新潟市民プラザです。映画音楽を演奏します。是非お越しくださ～い。

にいがた国際映画祭公式HP：http://www.info-niigata.or.jp/~eigasai/poster.html

Christmas concert 9/Dec/09

Thank you for all coming to Azur Indian's christmas concert! We were honoured to have nearly 100 people in the hall!

Our opportunity of performance had been based on invitation we receive from entities, schools and etc, but this event became the first one in which we organised everything: lending the venue, setting the theme of the concert, what we play and show along this theme regarding music and International Understandings, advertisement, selling tickets with the BIG support
from Ms. Ishiyama from Yu's music.

(Thanks for Marco for this pic!)

Classical music = serious....
I always wanted to destroy this image of classical music and introduce fun appreciation part to more and more people. I wonder that audiences could feel it from the concert....? I hope so!

For the first piece, we picked Lalo's Cello Concerto 3rd movement. This piece is a memento for Antarqui, he played it for the graduation performance from the Victoriano music school back in Honduras, as well as playing for the audition for the Singapore National Orchestra in April. It has the combination of calmness and agitation, the agitation gives us a great motivation to express the music as mush as possible with energy con fuoco, on the other hand calmness parts encourage us to smooth down the intense part. This is well balanced in terms of combination of both! This is the reason I also like it, but at the same time this is extremely tough piece to play. Therefore, we were discussing whether or not to play it just a minute before the performance!

The followings were "Elegie" by Faure and "The Swan" by San-Saens. These two pieces helped us a lot, these were the most played ones in the past year.

And then, we had Piano Trio featuring with Mr. Hara from Niigata University. He graduated from the department of Education of Niigata University, and pursing his study on the Violin as a researcher in the Niigata University. He is normally quiet but when he says something, it always hits the right point which made me amuse a lot! Needless to say, his skill of Violin is wonderful, it was honoured to play with him. As a trio, we played "Reigen seliger Geister" by Glueck, "Ave Maria" by Schubert, "Salut d'amour" by Elgar.

Here comes my piano solo. The piano solo was something I did after a long time since we were always playing together in this past year. I brought "Arabesque" by Schumann which I had longed for playing for nearly 10 years. I was inspired by this piece at a concert which I went to in 1999, it was played by a pianist Minako Tsuruta who was based in Germany. She was a alumni of my school.

http://minakotsuruta.livedoor.biz/

The last repertoires for the first part of the concert ended with "Passacaglia" by the violin and the cello. This was composed by Johan Halvorsen and originally for the violin and the viola. It contains all kind of technique for the string instruments (playing 2 strings at the same time, Staccato(both by fingers and the b0w), Arpeggio, Flagioletto and so forth) with all kinds of tempo from Lento to Allegro. The following link is played by one guy, he plays both the violin and the cello, it's very interesting so have a look!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NseBdxfHk5k

(rehearsal at piano piano)

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The latter half of the concert.....

Coincidentally, there was a solo piano concert in the same hall by a prominent Japanese pianist, Hiroko Nakamura. I actually made a phone call to buy the ticket for this concert.... oops! :))

Thanks to those of kind people who came to our concert not to hers..... :) Here, we prepared something special which you can only hear from Azur Indian: "Presentation"! As for myself, I lived in Zimbabwe for two years to teach music, and as for Antarqui, he is from Honduras. So, we introduced these two countries.
As a consequence, the comments that we received after a few days regarding the presentation; "Central America was far away from Japan but I felt like the world is connected!"
"Hey, I became interested in Africa, and I am now watching TV series focusing on African continent every day!"
These comments were indeed important for us and indicate what we achieved; particularly, because our main purpose of this music project is to provide a chance to get to know other countries, regions and areas through our music.

After the presentation, we ended up this concert with Christmas medley and "O holy night" with the vocal. For the Christmas medley, it was arranged like jazz which was imported from the US. The codes and the rhythm were fun to play because they were unexpected (because we do not normally play the jazz!).

In the end, we are very thankful for Ms. Ishiyama who supported us by all means, booking the hall, making pamphlet and posters, selling tickets, organising everything in the hall during the concert.

Moreover, it was warm and wonderful moment to share the music with audiences. Because of these people who constantly support us, we feel Niigata is our home and this is why we can perform here. I cannot help saying thank you for all.

Note: The after-party lasted until 5am!

Entry: Midori
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クリスマスコンサートにきていただきありがとうございました！！お陰様で１００人近いお客さまと時間を共にすることができました。

常々”クラシックのコンサート”＝堅い・・・・というイメージをぶち破りたい（笑）と思っているのですが、そう感じていただけたかなぁ。

まずはLaloのCello concert第3楽章。これはアンタルキが音楽学校の卒業演奏で弾いた曲で、今年オーケストラの入団試験を受けるときにも選んだ曲。とにもかくにも激しさと静けさが混在する曲で、弾いても聞いてもバランスが取れるので、二人とも大好きな曲です。ただ難曲なので、本番直前までやるかやらないかで揉めました（笑）。一番最初に演奏したのも、ある意味賭けでした。思い切ってやってみてよかったです。
それからフォーレのエレジー、サンサーンスの白鳥、この2曲はこの１年間、いろんなところで演奏させていただきました。お世話になった２曲です。

そしてトリオ。ここではバイオリンの原さんにも入っていただきました。原さんは新潟大学の教育学部を卒業され現在は研究科で学ばれています。原さんは普段静かな方ですが（私が喋りすぎってのもありますが・・・）、要所要所で的確なコメントや発言をされる方。それがとってもおもしろい！ははは。そして素晴らしい腕の持ち主でもあります。原さんの美しいバイオリンに合わせてこちらもうっとり。GluckのReigen seliger Geister、SchubertのAve Maria、ElgerのSalut d'amour(愛の挨拶）の3曲。

その後、ピアノソロ、シューマンのアラベスク。これまでアンタルキがチェロソロをすることはありましたが、私がピアノソロを弾くのは初めて。この1年、ずっと伴奏専門でやってきたので、久々のソロにドキドキでした。この曲は大学1年生のときに行ったピアノのコンサートで初めて聞いた曲で、いつかやってみたいなと思っていたものです。ちなみに現在ドイツで活躍されている鶴田美奈子さんという方のコンサートで聞いたのでした。

http://minakotsuruta.livedoor.biz/

前半最後はバイオリンとチェロでPassacaglia。いろんな演奏技法が１曲の中に詰め込まれています。それらを駆使しながら音楽的にも高い表現力が求められるので、一筋縄にはいかないものです。ちなみにyoutubeにおもしろい画像があります。

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NseBdxfHk5k

･･･････････････・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

さて後半戦。
実は当日、同じ時間に同じ会場内でなんとあの中村紘子さまがコンサートをされていたんです！！！危うくチケット買うところでしたよ、私も・・・・・チケット購入の電話しちゃいましたからね・・・

中 村紘子さんではなく、Azur Indianを選択してくださった優しいみなさま！ありがとうございます。そんなみなさまに少しでもお土産を・・・・と思いついたのが、プレゼン。私は日 本人ですが、せっかくホンジュラス人と演奏活動をしているので、海の向こうの、それもあんまりメジャーではない国を身近に感じてもらえればと思いホンジュ ラスとジンバブエ（これは私が2年ほど住んでいた国）の紹介をしました。意外と好評！？
数日後会った方から「中米って遠くに感じていたけど、何だか世界は繋がってるんだなぁって感じたよ～」
「今BSでやっているアフリカの特集毎日見てるのよ～。アフリカにすごく興味を持っちゃって～」
というとっても嬉しいコメントをいただきました。ありがとう～～～

私たちが演奏活動を始めるきっかけとなったのも、音楽を通して世界を身近に感じてもらえるように・・・という思いだったので、今回はそのへんも達成できたんですね。

プ レゼンのあとは、クリスマスメドレー。まず歌を歌って(O holy night)、それからアメリカから輸入した楽譜を使用したトリオ。有名どころばかり入ったメドレーでしたが、リズムやコードが意外性でいっぱいの曲でし たが・・・・最後に温かいクリスマスの曲を持ってきたので楽しんで演奏することができました。伝わったかしら・・・・？

うだうだとコンサートの報告を書いてしまいましたが（一応記録のため）・・・・本当にたくさんの方々に来ていただき、コンサート後には温かいお言葉やプレゼントをいただき・・・・最高の夜でした！感謝感謝。みなさんに感謝です！！！
最後に・・・・コンサートの企画、運営をいつも支えてくださったYu's musicの石山さん、本当にありがとうございました！
そしてこの後打ち上げへ。朝5時まで続いたのでした・・・・・
文責：みどり

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Thanks for the post Mi,
Even though we couldn't work the camera to record the concert that night, here is a little video of us trying to set the camera at the event..