Canadian Chinese Orchestra
June 20, 2019
3 months ago at Hutaoli, I met with Amely. She asked me to play percussion for an upcoming concert. 3 months later, here we are.
Had my first rehearsal with them on the 19th, and then we went on stage on the 20th. It would have been better if I had more time to play with them. I played daegeum and percussion. They had rehearsed by themselves, and I played with them once before the concert. Playing the daegeum was fine, since I can follow the orchestra, but the percussion was a little bit of a problem. Since the percussion sets the rhythm and tempo, the orchestra is the one who has to get used to me. In addition, they had their own percussion section. So it was like playing percussion to a recording, one of the hardest things to do as a percussionist. And I was situated in the soloist position at the front of the orchestra, so I ended up looking over my shoulder the entire time, trying to listen and follow the orchestra.
It was pretty humbling. Here I am, a leader of a Korean traditional band in which we have 2 or 3 Korean traditional instruments, playing with a 30 piece amateur orchestra fully comprised of traditional Chinese instruments. Would we be able to get to that position one day? How long would that take?
Took a lot of pictures during the downtime.
