April 25, 2007

Here's more journal from Myanmar....

So here's what we know. The Dept. of Radio and TV or MRTV also runs the Naitonal Symphony Orchestra or NSO. The NSO formed about 6 years ago and has had 6 or 7 concerts total since then and have never had brass players come work with the orhcestra. Not only are we the first brass players but we're like the 5th and 6th people to have ever come and work with them! WOW! I guess there's no money anywhere. The govt. doesn't even give its citizens running electricity 24 hrs. a day. In fact, for the past week we've learned they homes have electricity about 6hrs. a day total. It's weel over 100 degrees here right now and that's before the humidity. I didn't know if we'd feel the oppression..but here we are in our little hotel that luckily has their own generator. But what about everyone else? Just 2 weeks ago in China I was asking myself the same question but in regards to the cold...but there are always blankets to keep you warm. Here, what do they do to cool down? Our room with a/c is at 82 degrees right now. We have a friend here who's wife is pregnant! How do you have children in this heat? I just can't even comprehend. How do they cook? We walked around the streets tonight and the streets were pitch black. We had to use a flashlight so that we wouldn't trip! If really feels like a bomb has just hit. Huge old british buildings are completely in ruins and abandoned. It's totally incredible the way people live here!

We gave 2 clinics today. A morning session with the NSO winds and an afternoon session at Gitameit. The NSO winds were incredibly awful. I mean, I've never heard a wind section sound so bad. But how could one expect to hear anything but awful when there is no access to hear any orhestra music. This is it! That said, the musicians were the most interested and eager to learn than any I have ever worked with. It's amazing. We talked about air soooo much, but also sounds, blend, and we sang a lot. It's incredible b/c they are all fantastic singers.. At Gitameit students are way more musical and talented and we had them improvising by the end of our class. It was excellent. We've also been trying to get a concert together for Sat. night. We've invtited the NSO members but they're all afraid of Gitameit b/c Gitameit was recently under investigation for possibly being political! Of course they weren't doing anything political..it was all rumor but since they were accused no one wanted to go near the school in fear of being arrested! Anyway, I hope they are allowed to come and see our concert. They'll love it! What an incredible way to bring 2 musical groups together...through a concert. It's pretty amazing timing actually.

I still can't believe this place exsists in the 21st century!