Christmas Day and business as usual in China. Fortunately I only had one class today as I’m down with a heavy cold.
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| Natalia and Richard playing up a storm |
I found out during the day that Natalia, a Ukrainian piano teacher who teaches at a local music store had organised a Christmas eve concert last night. As I understood it, she and Richard, (English teacher at the adjacent university who plays saxaphone), were going to give a small concert. Well, it wasn’t quite like that.
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| Duet of piano and erhu |
Not only did Natalia perform, but so did many of her small students – surprisingly well. This meant that there was a packed audience of parents, friends, and a whole class of Richard’s students.
This was quite fortunate as the windows and doors were open and it was frrreeeezzzing! Natalia also played a duet with a Chinese musician who played an "
erhu". The erhu is a two-stringed bowed musical instrument which is often referred to as the ‘Chinese violin’.
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The English speaking (and singing)
contingent |
Natalia and Richard were great, playing mainly jazz, and it was the first live music I’d heard since arriving. I didn’t realise how much you can miss something like that.
All of the English speakers (a very small group) were co-opted into singing Silent Night – I didn’t know that there were three verses. It went down pretty well though, given the quality of the voices – possibly more because of the novelty value than vocal quality.
