My first concert in Japan!

17/06/2012, a day that will remain on my memory forever.

Despite the size of this post, words won’t suffice to explain the awesomeness of the experience I had yesterday. Coming to this orchestra for the first time around two months ago, knowing no one, and not having the slightest idea about what to expect, turned out to be something with quite a huge importance in my everyday life. “Shock”, is the word that best describes the feeling I had when I arrived. The really high level of professionalism in this orchestra, despite being amateur, is something quite superb. From the rehearsals to the setting of a stage, from the musicians’ playing ability to the careful planning of the orchestra’s schedule. I just keep getting amazed every week.

Yesterday was the climax of these two months of practice, but it won’t be the climax of my stay there. As the orchestra’s manager said to everyone, “When this concert ends, don’t think that it’s all over. Keep the tension high, so that we can keep climbing higher and higher.” And yeah that’s damn right. Up is the right way!
Having arrived more or less two months ago, I can’t possibly have the same skill level as the rest of the orchestra. We’re talking about Japanese people here! After a super busy trimester at school, with important things like kanji tests, school exam, speech contest, and then having an ultra busy orchestra weekend like this, fatigue accumulates, and sometimes concentration drops momentarily. I made some mistakes, some due to this, but also some due to the difficulty of the pieces. And some of these mistakes, I feel really bad for not having played in the proper way. Damn, when did I feel like this for the last time? Never? The level here is so high! Still, I’m the kind of person who thinks that everything that happens has a meaning. I want to climb higher and higher, so having this mistakes carved in my memory, helps me not doing the same mistakes twice. I’ll always try to do better and better! Up is the right way!

(My seat on the stage, with the concert program open)

And then, being the only foreigner in this awesome group feels kinda funny! Hearing funny comments from the conductor, having everyone making me a lot of questions, and looking at me in a curious way, in the beginning I got kinda embarrassed, but now I’m getting used to it. Despite being the only foreigner here, I don’t want to stand out too much. After all, I’m just one more alto sax musician in there. Still, everyone is so kind, I can’t help it but to feel lucky. I really feel in debt with everyone, so the only thing I can do is to do the best I can, as I always do!

(Sax team, the best team ever!)

The next step is the orchestra contest in August. That will be much harder than yesterday. Just have to do better and better! 練習一生懸命がんばります！

Summarizing this post: thank you, thank you, thank you everyone! 🙂

P.S.: Japanese Lesson next Wednesday!