I have to say that I really miss playing chamber music after all that has happened this month. For the past several weekends I’ve been traveling down to New York for rehearsals, bonding, and immersing myself in music and doing intense study of repertoire with my duo partner Lee-Wen. We’re both very studious and focused but we are also very different learners and players. This was not our first time playing together (I had played in Lee-Wen’s doctorate recitals at Stony Brook), but this was our first duo recital given to the public and we definitely learned a lot.
Overall the experience was a good one. It was nice to see friends come out from various places to support us and hear us belt our hearts out (more about that later…). Since we had to do our own publicity, there were some local people who showed up. I made sure to put up ads online on various sites and LW physically handed out flyers to buildings surrounding the area. I’m happy that we made those extra efforts. I think we had around 30 to 40 people, which made the concert very intimate. One large factor that didn’t play in our favor (no pun intended) was the acoustics of the theatre. Since it was recently renovated, it was a nice size hall that seats around 300 people with carpeting and ambient lighting. The stage was on the smaller size and seemed to be more appropriate for spoken events or lectures because there was a lot of dry space and no resonance which is preferable for musical performances. They have a Steinway baby grand but it was very bottom heavy. In any case, we tried our best to be musical and there were a lot of good things that happened as well as some funny accidents. Luckily, we caught everything on MD so if there’s anything worth hearing, I’ll post links here and on our new website.
