Director of Orchestras Wes Kenney and Music Professor Leslie Stewart are spending two weeks in South Korea where Maestro Kenney will conduct the Changwon Philharmonic. These entries document their latest experience!
Wednesday, June 20
A routine has been established of an American or Korean breakfast followed by a stop at Starbucks. At a Korean coffee house, if you want a quick coffee you need to order a Cafe Americano or a Latte and they will always ask if you want it hot or iced for the latter is very popular. For a drip or brewed coffee, you’ll need to wait at least five minutes as they do individual cups only and fresh.
Rehearsal begins at 10 a.m., goes to 12:30 p.m. We then seek out a lunch and following that is more exploration. The breakfasts are OK, but never really varied. The orange or tomato juice that comes with the American breakfast comes out of a carton as a convenience and the coffee is an Americano. There is one choice of white toast and if you order poached eggs, they will come on the top of it. There is an ingenious strawberry jam packet that squeezes the jam on your toast when you fold and bend it between your fingers.
Today’s rehearsal is going through the entire Prokofiev symphony and we’re all tired by the end. Before leaving the hall, the two inquiring violinists from the previous day appear and tell Choi they would like to take us to lunch the next day between rehearsals. Today our midday meal is with Inho and Jeune Lee, the wonderful pianist who came to Fort Collins last November and performed with FCS. She is thrilled to see us and we enjoy some lively conversation over another traditional Korean lunch with even more taste experiences. Jeune is playing a concert of her own on Friday near the DMZ on the north side of the country. She is a faculty member at a nearby university as well. Jeune is particularly excited to be returning to Fort Collins to perform and adjudicate at the Keyboard Odyssiad at CSU in August.
After lunch, Inho guides Choi and us through Changwon University where he teaches conducting. The university is up on a hill, something that is common for most schools in Korea as the land is less expensive as explained by Choi. It is a nice campus and we stop at a student coffee house to grab some ice coffee and hear about Inho’s graduate conducting class which he has just started teaching this past fall. Changwon University has a small music department and we pass by the building where it is housed.
After that we are off to one of Busan’s famous beaches along a strip of modern high-rises. The beach is clean and not very crowded for this time of year, but it is later in the afternoon about 4 p.m. by the time we arrive. Leslie and I take a walk to explore some of the sculptures found about 150 yards into the water. Swimming is limited and a boat or a jet-ski with patrolmen wave people out of the water where they are not supposed to be. No one seems to know why swimming is not allowed near us, but is fine about 500 yards to our left. It is here on this Busan beach that we see more foreigners. In Changwon, it is possible to go an entire day and see one or even none.
On returning, Choi takes me across the street south of the hotel to order dinner. Tonight is fried chicken, another food that the Koreans love. When we do sit down, we are given a cabbage slaw and a huge platter of chicken pieces and they are very tasty. We go to sleep early for Thursday will be a double rehearsal with our soloist.
~ Submitted by Wes Kenney, Director of Orchestras
Leslie has arrived at the end of the rehearsal and while I’m toweling off, two violinists from the orchestra appear at my door. One of them asks if we speak French, which does not get us far, but they seem to want to have lunch with us later in the week. I tell her that we’ll talk when Choi comes back on Wednesday.
We then walk into a neighborhood just a few blocks south that is filled with restaurants (one is Vietnamese), coffee, and dessert places. What is unusual about this neighborhood is that none of the buildings are taller than two stories and most have outdoor patio seating. The coffee houses in particular do a serious business even with several being side by side by side. We are on the hunt for a red bean ice cream, an ice concoction that Ms. Baek has mentioned and after several stops we score one. It is huge and similar to what we had with Choi at Spaland. Our walk back takes us around a school with a park with some green houses and finally deposits us on the north end of the lake opposite our hotel.
Director of Orchestras Wes Kenney and Music Professor Leslie Stewart are spending two weeks in South Korea where Maestro Kenney will conduct the Changwon Philharmonic. These entries document their latest experience!
Choi took us up an elevator to the top floor looking for stall 29, the proprietor recommended by his mother. Along the way down the aisle, a young woman used forceful persuasion to convince us that her place was THE place to eat (at least we believe that’s what she was shouting at Choi in Korean). Another 25 yards down the row we found the our destination. We sat down at a table overlooking the harbor and was served a seafood feast, the culmination being a square platter with four rows of a multiple kinds of raw fish. The Kimchee, chili-sauce, bean sprouts, shaved green onion, and other sides could be wrapped up in sesame leaves with these delicacies to create a sandwich of sorts all downed with copious amounts of the light tasting lager that is a also a staple of tables throughout this region. Choi was amazed at our adventuresome palettes, willing to try anything.
After an hour or so we had our purchases and headed back to the car for a drive to a Buddhist temple out in the area where Choi lives. Traffic was still heavy even on Saturday so it was close to 4 p.m. by the time we arrived. Such shrines dot the region and they are an oasis to hubbub found in the cities. Tongdosa Temple, is located at the base of Yeongchuk mountain just outside to the city of Chonglim. There are multiple buildings including a museum and a 1000 year old temple. One can start at the front entrance and enjoy a considerable uphill walk along the Nokdonggang river or drive to a closer parking lot. We opted for the latter, passing through several temple gates to the inner sanctum of the compound. Missionaries are present at work amongst the Zen chamber, precepts chamber, and lecture chamber. It is an idyllic and relaxing setting in stark contrast to the scenes experienced earlier in the day.
By 9 a.m. the shell is up, and the rehearsal gets started about 9:15. One player is missing because of a family emergency, but fortunately they are only a few minutes late. The Copland and the concerto go relatively smoothly. Balances are better than I anticipated although it seems that the brass sometimes tends to overplay the space. We get to go over a few things in the Dvorak and get through the entire symphony just as time expires. I thank the orchestra for their work and they applaud. Eight rehearsals down and only the performance is left!
At intermission, the hall outside the dressing rooms is filled with family and friends of Nhi, Lan, and Thang. This includes Honna-san who stops by to tell me the Copland was terrific. As photos are being taken in the hallway, I towel off, blow-dry my hair into some semblance of neatness, and get my game face on for the 2nd half. Their librarians are efficient in taking scores to put on my stand and returning the first half, always being gracious in doing so. Everyone speaks a little bit of English, so communication has always been fairly easy during the concert process.
Another morning rehearsal this time back on the Copland which was a bit rusty from the weekend’s activities. The music came back soon enough allowing us to go through the entire piece and then the concerto. The Dvorak was more challenging and during the break, the personnel manager came to me and told be that because of exams at the Academy of Music, two oboes and the pianist could not make tomorrow AM’s rehearsal. Thus he asked me if starting at 1:30 would be adequate. Then the assistant concertmaster asked if we could get more string section rehearsal on the last movement. So within the span of ten minutes, we went from a scheduled AM rehearsal for the next day to a 1 PM string sectional and a 1:30 full rehearsal in concert order. It was amazing that the orchestra was able make this change the day before, but they did, and without apparent complaint. Flexibility is a required trait for the musicians, and even with other jobs, they make their complicated lives work. What was NOT communicated to me was that in the wheeling dealing of scheduling, I had lost 30 minutes of rehearsal from 3.5 hours in the morning to only 3 hours in the afternoon. Something that would cause consternation the next day.
We returned to our hotel for some rest before being picked up to go to one of the most successful restaurants in Vietnam, a Japanese pizza house called For P’s and Pizza. The monogram “P’s” being short for peace. Lan had managed to get the last table available that night, but in fact should have made a reservation a month ago. The first of these was in Japan, but now there are a several throughout Vietnam and they are never without business. This is for good reason, the pizza is some of the best we’ve ever tasted. Semi-chewy crust, they make their own cheese, and the presentations are extremely intriguing. Lan ordered several pies. One had a soft camembert cheese that was then spread over the rest of the pizza slices. My favorite was duck, pear, and blue cheese. Thang pointed out that the pizza is always cut for the number at the table. We had six which is not unusual for pizza slices, but they can artfully do 5 and 7 as well. Even after several slices we ended with a crab pasta with a creamy peanut type of sauce and then Tiramisu (a very popular dessert in the area) for final treat.
Still after awhile we find ourselves leaving the skyscrapers that are even on the outskirts of Hanoi and heading south on a Freeway and out into the country. We see crops, rice paddy fields, and other flora. We also see police waving down speeding vehicle (100 kilometers per hour – about 65 mph – is max) We are headed to the farm owned by Lan’s sister Ha and her husband Pham.
To be taken out to meet the full family is an honor in Vietnam. After leaving the highway, we drive a few kilometers east and turn down a road where an open gate and archway lead us into a courtyard where people are sweeping, dogs are barking, and a late model BMW is parked.
Pham is an international banker and travels much. He and Ha bought this farm eleven years ago as an investment. There are fruit orchards, chickens, ducks, and a wine cellar that seems to be abandoned at the moment. We meet in short order Ha, Pham, Lan’s father, Pham’s father, Ha’s daughter, son-in law, and three-month old child. We sit down, drink some tea, eat some snacks, walk around the buildings a bit, then sit down for a “country” lunch of Asian chicken salad, sausages, herbs, soup, and finally a hot-pot. There is also red wine, lots of red wine. Once again, it is a huge amount of food and we are offered a place to nap afterwards for an hour. After that we tour the farm where we see some huge examples of exotic fruits (see the photograph of Ha holding her prizes).
After the walk around, we head back to town (although a golf course near by would have been fun to look at), swing by Lan and Thang’s apartment to pick up Long, and then stop at a multi-story mall for coffee and a conversation about orchestras. We then head upstairs for a Korean barbecue dinner that involves thin meat cooked on an air-heated grill right in our own private dining room (see photo of Lan cooking). The meat is then wrapped in lettuce with other herbs, condiments and vegetables before being dipped in a sauce and eaten by hand. It is another food discovery of which there have been many on this trip. As someone at the high-rise dinner has pointed out, in Hanoi sight-seeing is not the primary reason to visit, but the food is!
We do a bit of shopping in the very elegant stores. There are some good deals to be had, but for the most part, many of the items are very expensive. One must learn to calculate the costs quickly. 1 US Dollar = 22.000 VND. Thus a 500.000 VND bill is nothing to get excited about…$45. We saw a leather bag for 11.000.000 or $484 US. Many of the clothes were in the same range. Wow!
Catching any kind of a bug on an international trip is not fun, but compound that with two days of double rehearsals in humidity, and a day off was needed to get back on the mend. Thus most of Saturday was spent inside the hotel.
Most important is that the hotel supports the Vietnamese National Symphony Orchestra in trade. The lobby is decked out at this time of year for the holidays and they are interesting and sometime downright elaborate (see the full sized saxophone-playing Santa Claus and the cookie-made Christmas tree).
Afterwards, Thang drives us over to the area where the presidential palace is, a large conference center, and Ho Chi Minh’s tomb. The story is that Ho Chi Minh did not want a large tomb as an edifice, but the government felt otherwise. They are all magnificent.