Club Union San Jose: 4th November 2010

We practiced at "Club Union"(http://www.clubunion.com/) in San Jose today. This place was established in 1923, since then it has been utilized by important figures of Costa Rica such as politicians, entrepreneurs and so forth. I can imagine how those people talked in this place, having cigar and whisky, sitting on a comfortable sofa in front of a fireplace...(ummm maybe not a fireplace because Costa Rica is too hot to have one!)  

This construction has several rooms such as a conference room, a billiard room, a bar.... where we practiced was in restaurant. It was rich in ornament with beautiful a drawing (5 women representing central America) and chandelier.

The piano they have here was Yamaha, piano de cora (fluegel klavier). It was over all in good condition! I was too excited to play this piano in this spacious restaurant. There was no one in the restaurant when we arrived there, so started practicing immediately. We were a little excited since it was for the first practice after half a year.

After a while, we also had dinner there. I ordered a glass of red wine....it tasted just super, had rich flavour in it...fruity but heavy. I loved it!! Can you believe it was just a glass of wine, not like selected bottle?

For the main (though it was salad) I ordered Grey Palmito and Salmon Salad. I tasted White Palmito (heart of palm) a week before in Puntarenas, and really liked it because it was just like Bamboo which is my favourite. But this Grey Palmito (the long one in the picture) is very special in terms of its taste and the place you can have......the taste wise, I could feel the taste of palm, while the white one has slightly less taste of it. And the place wise, you cannot find grey one anywhere else in Costa Rica but only in this Club Union.

This one is white palmito, for example. A very kind servant brought it to us to compare with the grey one. The red fruit is actually from the same palm tree which bears palmito! You would boil it, and peel the skin and then eat it. This part tasted just like Chestnuts! The servant told us that Costa Rican people loves this fruit!

I was completely satisfied and inspired by the cuisine! Everything has own taste, even the butter for bread. I could feel the milk in it!

Well, today's entry turns to be a "restaurant report..." :))

After the meal, we played for customers who were having dinner then.

It things allow, we hope to practice here from time to time.

Entry: Midori

Innovation for International Development Conference: 6th November

A conference on "Innovation for International Development" took place in San Jose on the 6th November. The programme was consisted of 6 parts:
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1. Opening Remarks by Jan Pronk, Professor of Theory and Practice of International Development at the Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in the Netherlands and President of the Society for International Development (The Netherlands)

2. Renata Villers, Executive Director of Amigos del Aprendizaje (ADA) and Fellow of CALI (Central American Leadership Initiative, of the Aspen Institute and INCAE) (Costa Rica)

3. Panel Discussion: Making Innovations Happen

Facilitated by Professor Nika Silvetti, Coordinator of Responsible Management and Sustainable Economic Development program at UPEACE (Italy)


Panelists:
Eduardo Mata, National Coordinator of the GEF-UNDP Small Grants Program in Costa Rica (Costa Rica)

Dr. Juergen Carls, Government Advisor to the Ministry of Agriculture in Lisbon, Portugal; Freelance consultant to the FAO; and Professor for UPEACE (Germany)

Andrés Castro Ruiz, Director of Architec, SA (Costa Rica)

4. Break Out Presentation 1
I participated in Appro-Eco Scouting: Looking for Ideas that Really Work.
• Gail Swithenbank, Principal, Green Design Strategies (USA)

Antarqui participated in Innovative Model for Hands-On, Experiential Learning in Higher
Education
• Dr. Pedro Bidegaray, Director of International Academic Programs, EARTH University (Peru)

5. Break Out Presentation 2
Both Antarqui and I participated in Social Entrepreneurship—Innovating from Within.
• Mohit Mukherjee, Director, UPEACE Centre for Executive Education, (India)

(Can you guess who it is?)

6. Exposition
We presented the project using video clips and pictures that we took before in Niigata. We could get to talk to a lot of people!

***********************************************************************
It was indeed a rich event in which we learnt a lot about "innovation". This is what we really needed!

We started Azur Indian Music Project over 2 years ago, in fact, we first begun to play music at some parties and gigs, soon after we gradually formed this as a project (not just playing randomly) on International Understanding for Japanese citizens using the means of music appreciation combining our skills. Coincidentally our educational background and work experience were very similar; music and development.

But, we faced difficulties, it was mostly about finance. Our project depended on the budget of respective entities which asked us to perform, but not many entities had enough budget; particularly, for spending for work of art. So, it endangered our lives, too, lol!!

Another issue was promoting. We mainly targeted schools (both private and public, from nursery school to high school), posting our advertisement to each schools. However, we only received some responses. I analyzed it had something to do with school schedule. Since schools in Japan starts in April, they plan educational design by sometime in February at latest. In this sense, if advertisement and their interest doesn't meet by then, it would  be definitely hard to change their mind to have us out of their initial plan in the middle of school year.

Other issues can be our own time constraint. Since I could not predict until when I could stay in Niigata depending on my other work which enables and sustains myself to continue music project. Indeed, I could not have continued this project without having other job because it was financially tight without, as I mentioned above!

After all; everything was put into a negative circulation, financial tightness leads to be passive towards active promotion, and this circulates to financial problem.

As we proceed this project in Costa Rica, we really need to get these problems solved.
1. Fund
2. Promotion

Honestly, this conference gave us fresh and innovative ideas not only from the talks by the lecturers, but also from participants through some of the activities that we took part in. Furthermore, we could meet many people who belong to various organizations, NGOs students from many countries. Hopefully we sum up every essence we gained and this enables us to move forward! 

(Plus, I was personally feeling comfortable to participate in the conference because "development" is much more familiar to me than Peace making and Media :)) )

 

(Tonight's dinner; Pescado y Mariscos con salsa de tomate @ Club Union :)) )

Entry: Midori

Costa Rica コスタリカ

Do you know where Costa Rica is?

It's in central America, bordering to Panama and Nicaragua. San Jose is the capital. As other central American countries, Costa Rica used be a Spanish colony and became independent in 1821. Its population is slightly above 4,000,000. It's famous for a rich nature, rain forest and a country which eliminate armed force in '50s. The currency is "Colon" which originates from Spanish explorer "Christopher Columbus". People are formally called "Costa Rican" but its nickname is "Tico". Isn't it cute??







Explaining Costa Rica from Wikipedia might sound a bit boring....:)) so I will present it from what I have observed for past 2 months!

People
Ticos are latinos! They love music, dance and very relaxed people I should say. They love and are proud of their country. I love when people say "Tranquilo (be calm/be quiet)" for me when I am rush into something or out of control :)). Maybe this is something we don't have in Japan....?

People like music and it is always filled with music. Why I can say it is that my area where I live (it's down town of Ciudad Colon) is so! It's always with music with speakers....indeed....like right now.

Language
Spanish, but Costa Rican Spanish! They say "con mucho gusto" for almost anything which I heard that other Spanish speakers rarely say.

They rarely use "Tu" but always use "Usted". I have never heard of my host mother calling her husband "Tu" but "always Usted". "Tu" is "you" in English but informal "you". "Usted" is formal "you". ummm I don't think English has this notion....? In German, it's like "Du" and "Sie". In Japanese......??? maybe "Kimi" and "Anata"!???

They sometimes pronounce "R" like English "R" which is interesting to me because I thought Spanish "R" is always "rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" when it comes to double "R"!

They also put "-imo"(ummm was it "-ito"? now I am confused! Correct me if I am wrong) at the end of the word which is close to what Spain Spanish people say "Midorita" (close to "small Midori"...)!

And most importantly, (this affects me the most) they speak super allegro!

Food
They eat a lot of......
-Rice (a bit harder than the Japanese one)
-Furijoles=Beans (beans themselves in the rice or mashed beans with/out bean skin. I love this bean paste without the skin)
-Meat (Beef, Chicken, Pork...)

I was a bit terrified of eating meat everyday(!?!?) but no need to worry, this country faces both Pacific and Caribbean, we still can get sea food :))

Weather
It is still rainy season right now, they say that dry season starts sometime in December. When I arrived in CR in August, we had rain almost everyday at almost same time like 1-2pm. It's like "A LOT", so-called "squall". It sometimes gets cold, and I regretted that I didn't bring warm clothes with me....Well, the rain is decreasing a little by little. Now we sometimes have full-sunny-day :)) Can't wait for the Dry season swimming in Caribbean!

Nature
As I said above that this country has rich nature, the government preserves them, as well. It has rich natural forests, volcano and beautiful sea....

Here is my favourite bird "Tucan". It's the symbol bird of the country.....



I will update as I found more interesting things :)


Entry: Midori

The latest Azur Indian 最近のアズールインディアン

We would like to appreciate again here for the cooperation and attention people gave us in Niigata in order to operate this music project smoothly.

Niigata city hall, Niigata city International Association, Ishiyama san from Yu's music, Kawamura san from, Dr. Kani, Ryutopia, The Local, Kantae san......and many many friends!!

We both are very thankful not only for the music project, but also pure friendship we received from people. We are missing Niigata so much!

Since Antarqui came back to Costa Rica from Niigata, we are now working on starting out the new phase of our Music Project in Costa Rica! We are busy making name cards and promoting ourselves...

Let's see what will happen, don't miss it!

So far, I received two emails asking if we could play music at a party, but it was all in Spanish! My short term target became now to learn Spanish as soon as possible obviously...!!

Con suerte para mi!



まずは、お久しぶりです。新潟では本当にお世話になりました。きちんとみなさんにお礼ができないままこちらにきてしまった気がします・・・・失礼お許しください！

前にも書きましたが、新潟のみなさんには本当に感謝しています。Yu's musicの石山さん、カストワミューズの川村さん、Dr. 可児のオーナーと奥様、りゅうとぴあ、ローカル・・・・・etc etc ・・・・新潟じゃなかったら、絶対にできなかっただろうな・・・・と思う今日この頃。感謝です。

そして音楽だけではなく、お友達＆知り合いとして仲良くしてくださった方々！こちらも本当にありがとうございました。新潟にはまた遊びに行くと思うので、これからもどうぞ宜しくです。

こちらコスタリカは雨季の真っ最中です。今年はラニーニョの影響で、雨季が明けるのが遅いんだとか・・・・雨のお陰で意外に寒いのです！

アンタルキが新潟から引き上げてコスタリカに帰ってきたので、こちらでも音楽をやろうかと今動き始めているところです。新潟で作った名刺はもう売り切れてしまったので・・・・こちらは増産中。あとは、どこかで演奏できないかプロモーションをしているところです。

私の目下の目標は基礎スペイン語習得・・・・早速「演奏してくれないか」というメールが2つも届いたのですが、読めない・・・・涙。電話も受けなきゃいけないかもしれないので、話す方もですねー。


Entry: Midori

A concert in Santa Ana 14th October 2010

Midori had another concert in Santa Ana with Sergio Nunes! It was held in the Casa de la cultura Santa Ana on the 14th October.

The venue looks quite new, and is 4 stories building, seems to have about 4-5 class rooms in each floor. The concert room was on the 3rd floor, and it can accommodate about 100 people.

The room was filled with audiences including students of Casa de la cultura and musicians. I didn't really expect my school friends to come because it was in Santa Ana and it was only Thursday....but some of my friends came over to see me, that made me very happy!

There was an old Kawai fluegel piano (how do you say that in English? Is it just "Grand piano"?) and this became tonight's another partner for me.

Funnily, I didn't become nervous at all (this was the first time in my life as far as I remember!!), and I could enjoy playing music with Sergio's cello. In this sense, I really could dig into my own music world and to collaborate that with Sergio's. I look forward the video that tricky tracky took :))

This was another new quality experience.

Muchas gracias :))







10月14日（木）セルヒオ・ヌニェスさんとの第2回目のコンサートを開きました。場所は首都のサンホセから約30分くらい北にある、少々ハイソな街、サンタアナ。こちらの文化センターにて行いました。

文化センターはコンクリートむき出しの現代的な4階建ての建物です。今回のコンサートホールは3階。収容人数は100人。

お陰さまで会場は文化センターに通う学生たちや、ミュージッシャン、そのほかの方でいっぱいになりました。木曜だったし、サンタアナだったし、普通の日は 忙しい私の学校の友達はあんまりきてはくれないだろうと、そんなに期待していなかったのですが、何人かきてくれました。うちの向かいに住んでいる人にも声 をかけてたのですが、彼も仕事帰りに立ち寄ってくれ。もう一人、何人家わからないんですが、メールでお知らせした方がきてくださいました。やっぱり知り合 いに応援されているのって嬉しいですね！

会場には年季の入ったカワイのグランドピアノ。今夜の私のお供です。

不思議なことに、全然緊張せず（人生初だったかも！？）演奏でき、そのお陰でセルヒオの音楽を感じ取りながら、自分の音楽をどうやって作るのか、ということに集中できた気がします。なんか嬉しい！！トリッキートラッキー（というあだ名の青年）がビデオを取ってくれたので、見てまた研究します。

また新しい経験・勉強になりました。


Entry: Midori

Un concierto de musica con Sergio Nunes セルヒオ・ヌニェスさんとのコンサート

On the 25th September, Midori had a concert with Costarican Cellist, Sergio Nunes at the theatre of Ciudad Colon in Costa Rica.

Ciudad Colon is about 20km north to the capital San Jose where there is an university (University for Peace) which I go.

Sergio Nunes is a prominent Cellist in Costa Rica. He studied music at a university in Brazil and continued to Master's in Berlin, Germany. Currently, he is the director of the Cultural Centre of Ciudad Colon.

We had many audiences on that night including my friends from the university and received warm compliments. Thank you very much!!!

I also learnt new perspectives and approaches on music from Sergio which, I am sure enrich my future play.

It was completely enjoyable to play before people after a half year. Also, I am very thankful for Sergio to give me such a chance, I am happy to be able to play in Costa Rica, yay! Moreover I am glad that I could get in touch with Costarican people particularly in Ciudad Colon through music.

Today's repertoires
1. Bach: Arioso
2. Saint-Saens: Allegro Appasionato
3. Villa-Lobos: Bachianas Brasileiras No.5
4. Schubert: Ave Maria
5. Schubert: Serenade
6. Faure: Elegie
7. Mascagni: Intermezzo Sinfonico
8. Villa-Lobos: Bachianas Brasileiras No.2
9. Saint-Saens: Swan
10. Popper: Govotte
Ancore: Luis Castillo: Luna Liberiana

*Here is a link of a news letter of my university. In the page 4, you can see my report regarding this concert.

http://www.allianceforupeace.nl/Uploaded_files/Editor/file/Newsflash%20UPEACE%20October%202010.pdf






9月25日、コスタリカ人チェリストのセルヒオヌニェスさんとシウダット・コロンのシアターにてコンサートをしました。シウダット・コロンは首都のサンホセから約20km北に位置し、人口は約15,000人、私の大学がある街でもあります。

チェリストのセルヒオさんですが、このシウダット・コロンの文化センターの館長さん。ブラジルの大学で音楽を専攻し、その後、修士をベルリンでされています。

シウダット・コロンのシアターなのですが、結構年季が入ってて、建てられたのは1946年ってかかれてた気が・・・・すごくシンプルな収容人数200人のこじんまりしたかわいいシアターです。

土曜日だったこともあり、学校の友達が多数見にきてくれ、会場は満杯！わーい！みなさんからたくさんお暖かいお言葉をいただきました。ありがとうございます。

セルヒオさんのようなチェリストと演奏をさせていただけるのは、私にとっても本当にいい経験。ベルリンで培ってきた彼の音楽性が、練習しているだけで、吸収できる！やった！！新しい発見もたくさんありました。ピアノがもっとうまくなりたいと思った次第です・・・それから、何より音楽で地元の人と交流ができたことが一番の収穫。音楽で平和を作っていこうとしているので、その第１の足がかりになりました。

＊大学のニュースレターにコンサートのレポートが掲載されましたー！4ページ目です。ご覧ください！
http://www.allianceforupeace.nl/Uploaded_files/Editor/file/Newsflash%20UPEACE%20October%202010.pdf

Entry: Midori

Singing in Manila マニラにて歌う。

It's been almost three months since I came here. Time flies, indeed!

A new life brought me some fresh energy, and I am filled with happiness, thankful for this wonderful chance to be able to realise my long-time dream: study!

So, I have come to be given a chance to sing for the first time in the Philippines after a long time concentration on studying. This was for a party which was organised at a student residence where I live in on the 29th June.

I sang "You raise me up" which has been one of my repertoires in our activity in Niigata.
The second one was "Kanayo Kanayo（愛よ愛よ）" by Natsukawa Rimi. I felt a bit
weird to sing them without the cello, but somehow I made it!




12月から新潟→仙台→マニラと移動。マニラには4月にやってきましたが、既に3ヶ月が経とうとしています・・・・うーん、時が経つのは本当に早い・・・！

私の新しい生活＝学生生活ですが、新鮮がエネルギーをもたらしてくれています。勉強できることに感謝しない日はないくらい・・・・自分でもそれにびっくりなんですが・・・・ずっと留学を目指していたからかな・・・いいことですね！

さて。私が今住んでいる学生コンドミニアムにて、パーティーが行われ、歌を歌わせていただきました。歌ったのは"You raise me up"と”愛よ愛よ”（夏川りみ）です。新潟でもよく歌ってたナンバー。当日はちゃんと電子ピアノも準備しててくれて・・・。チェロなしで歌うってのが、 とても久しぶりだったので、何かが足りない気がしたりもしましたが、無事終了。

ってあとで知ったのですが、これただのパーティーじゃなくって、若い学生さんが自分の音楽を発表するタレントショーだったらしい・・・・何だか賞品ももら えたらしく・・・・ごめーん！知らなかった・・・・ちょっとですが曲がりなりにも一応一応音楽でお金をもらっていた私がこれに参加してはいけなかったよ ね・・・・ともらった賞品を見ながら思うのでした・・・・


文責：みどり