Thursday, December 21, 2006

While they had a day off...

posted by Michèle Sharik
On Tuesday, we all flew to Fukuoka. Most of the group had the rest of Tuesday (and Wednesday morning - the Porcelain trip) off, but 4 of us had volunteered for extra duty: Ruben, Tess, Sunghee & me. While the others were off visiting temples, the 4 of us walked over to the concert hall with Tamamura-san. The hall is attached to a giant multi-level shopping mall (which has several floors of office space above it - the Japanese are masters at efficient use of space). Near the hall entrance, NHK - Japan National TV - had set up some cameras and lights. That's where we were headed.

It seems that our Wednesday night concert was going to be featured on the evening news' "Entertainment" section & our quartet was to appear on live television!

We met with the tv crew and went over what would happen. There were 2 segments for the show.

We got out our bells & played through our pieces for them. They asked for a few modifications to fit their time constraints, which we readily agreed to, of course. They also walked us through how they were going to interview us - yes, interview! The main hostess lady smiled and asked us questions in Japanese, and there was a lady standing behind us who quietly translated. It was difficult to listen to the translator while the host lady was speaking directly into our faces, but we managed.

Soon the first segment began -- the host did an introductory shot in front of the mall's Christmas tree & we shook our bells & waved at the camera. Cut to commercial. When they came back, they introduced us & we played a short version of "Jingle Bells" (from the Porta-Four Carols collection). Then they started interviewing us, asking us things like, "Are you very busy during the Christmas season?" and "Are handbells very popular in the United States?"

After the interviews, we played Jim's quartet arrangement of the Japanese folk song "Sakura".

Then we had about an hour break in which Tamamura-san took us over for coffee and sweets. After our break, we went back for our second segment. For this segment, we opened with the Porta-Four version of "Carol of the Bells", then Ruben got to give the host a handbell lesson - she tried to ring the G2, and he pulled an E8 out of his pocket to many "ooh!"s and "aah!"s.

After the lesson, we played the full version of "Jingle Bells" and waved bye-bye to the camera.

All in all, it was VERY cool!

But the coolness does not stop there!!!

The next day, our quartet went back to the hall where a jazz combo (sax, bass & piano - the name was "Oh! Jazz") was giving a lunchtime concert. We were their "guest artists". We played through "Jingle Bells" for them & they wrote out a lead sheet so they could play along - we extended the arrangement a bit so they could let us play by ourselves for a verse. Then we played through "Sakura" and the bass player improvised along with us on the 2nd time through the piece.

When it was time for the concert, they brought us onto the stage & introduced us. They then played an arrangement of "Silent Night" which segued into our "Jingle Bells". It was totally awesome to play along with the jazz group!! The audience certainly seemed to enjoy it - we got cheers! :-)

After "Jingle Bells", we played "Sakura" and some of the audience hummed along - and again gave us a wonderful ovation with cheers!

After the concert, the combo thanked us profusely. We gave them a copy of Sonos' new CD "Contrasts" & they took pictures to be posted on their website - I'll post the link to that when I dig it out of my luggage later.

We think we dispelled some handbell myths that day. When we arrived, the combo seemed a little uncertain about having us - kind of like "who are these people & what are they doing with those toys?" But after hearing us & seeing how easy we were to work with (ie. flexible with our arrangements), they were "totally jazzed"!

It's too bad Jason wasn't there with his video camera; this is something I wish we had been able to preserve for posterity....

1 Comments:

Blogger Jan said...

Yeah! I would have LOVED to have seen that!!

8:42 PM  

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