Five5
FIVE …things you didn’t know about me
Eins: I have an undergraduate degree in Instrumental Music Education and once had a valid teaching certificate to teach K-12 music in North Carolina.
Zwei: I collect a few random things like magnets, postcards and Le Petit Prince books in different languages. At the time of this publication, I own 46 different languages of this little gem. According to Wikipedia, there are 301 different languages and dialects.
My Collection: English, German, Ruhr German, French, Italian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Norwegian, Latin, Hebrew*, Spanish, Catalan, Basque, Hungarian, Turkish, Romanian, Lithuanian, Greek, Bosnian, Slovenian, Afrikaans, Swedish, Korean*, Finnish, Russian, Arabic, Portuguese (Portugal and Brazil), Slovakian, Chinese, Cambodian, Japanese*, Icelandic, Danish, Georgian, Uzbek, Dutch*, Flemish, Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, Latvian, Vietnamese, Serbian, Swiss German, Georgian and Czech. (* = two editions)
Drei: I had an extended family member who won the Massachusetts state lottery. She received a cool few 7-figures.
Vier: I was named after a song my parents heard on the radio. My middle name, Ann was the middle name of my late dear aunt.
Fünf: During my senior year of high school, I entered a pageant and won. I wanted a chance to perform my Beethoven Sonata in public before college auditions so I decided to enter the pageant. I borrowed dresses from friends and had my neighbor, a Mary Kay consultant, do my makeup. I found out afterwards that one of my responsibilities was to represent my high school in local parades and throw candy at people. (1/5)
Five… books for a Personal Pan Pizza
As a young girl, I was a voracious reader. There was nothing I enjoyed more than roller skating fearlessly around the block in the Southern California sun and reading. My parents encouraged my love of reading with weekly trips to the library, extra summer classes in reading and the purchase of many paperback books.
The Book-It program is a reading incentive program created by Pizza Hut in the 1980s. I remember collecting many purple buttons that had the logo with the outline of five stars along the top. After each book, I received a gold-star sticker for the button until my reading goal was achieved. The prize? A paper coupon for a free personal pan pizza (one-topping, always pepperoni) from Pizza Hut.
Here are my 5 books, all written by female Asian writers:
1. Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong
2. Pachinko by Min-Jin Lee
3. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
4. Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-ju
5. Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
📖 Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong
This book, a collection of essays, is part memoir, part cultural criticism and part history book. Hong’s theory of minor feelings are not “small” feelings but the feelings that arise from dissonance. These minor feelings surface when American optimism contradicts with one’s own reality. Although it is a mere 202 pages long, it took the longest for me to read because I really wanted to absorb everything in this book. I found myself underlining or annotating on every page of the book.
📖 Pachinko by Min-Jin Lee
This book is a multi-generational family saga written during the time of Korea’s most fragile & challenging past. For me, it was a glimpse into 20th century Korean history that made me wonder, “how does my own family’s story fit within this history?” Pachinko is not a quick read but I couldn’t put it down. Have a box of tissues ready.
📖 Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
This is a story about motherhood and identity from people in the small town of Shaker Heights, Ohio. These people are so real, so damaged and yet so beautiful. The authors handles each one of them with such care that it is impossible not to love every single character despite all their flaws. Throughout the book, we learn that each character is carrying a secret that will ultimately change their lives. We do not know how it will change, only that they have the chance to make that decision.
📖 Kim Jiyoung, Born in 1982 by Cho Nam-ju
Kim Jiyoung, a name that is considered the Korean equivalent of “Jane Doe,” is the story of an ordinary young woman in South Korea. Through her eyes, we learn about the hardships, discrimination & social pressures of Korean women starting from her birth to her adult life. It was quite the experience to read this book knowing that it is a work of fiction but at the same time, realizing that it is not. Throughout the book, there are footnotes with supporting data and facts about the discrimination and sexual harassment of women in South Korea.
📖 Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
This memoir, published in April 2021, is an expansion of her essay with the same title that was published in The New Yorker in 2018. I laughed and cried while reading the stories from her childhood, drooled over her descriptive explanations about Korean cuisine which made me ache for my own mother’s cooking and empathized with her journey grappling with identity.
Ok, so where’s my coupon? (2/5)
Five…images from Venice and Prague
I discovered a new travel hobby this summer — a photography lesson/tour. In the past, I have taken cooking lessons, participated in walking/running tours and even had a bagpipe lesson so this was something fun to add to the list. I have discovered it is a great way to develop your photography skills by learning from a professional photographer in a destination that you have always wanted to visit. The majority of these photo tours are given by photographers who are also certified travel guides so it is fantastic way to discover the hidden gems of any location. I had the opportunity to see a city from a different perspective and in a way, it made me feel less like a tourist. For one of the shots in Prague, Martin had me lying on the ground with my camera practically in the water. These guides have organized specific locations and timings for the optimal shots. I learned so much from these two gentlemen and now have a deeper appreciation for their love and dedication to this art form.
“The Perfect Composition” tour in Venice with photographer Marc de Tollenaere.
Photo Tour of Prague with photographer Martin Bishof
All photos taken with Fujifilm X100V.
(3/5)FIVE… countries
…an adventure through pianos…
-Germany-
Bonn
2020 was the 250th anniversary of the death of Ludwig van Beethoven but like many things that year, we did not celebrate as planned. Fortunately I was able to visit a special exhibition at the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn that devoted an entire wing to the Beethoven celebration.
Düsseldorf
And just a 25 minute walk from my home is the home of Clara Schumann’s piano at the Heinrich Heine Museum in Düsseldorf. Although the museum is dedicated to the works of Düsseldorf’s most-esteemed writer, there is a room dedicated to the Schumanns and Mendelssohns who were inspired by Harry.
Düsseldorf is more famously known as the city where Schumann jumped into the Rhein. It was the only residence that housed all the Schumanns, Robert and Clara and their seven children. Robert completed a third of his works in Düsseldorf where renovations are now underway for the Schumann Museum. The city has spent over $3 millions euros for this museum which is planned to reopen this year.
And because of that infamous jump, Schumann ended up in Bonn.
And here is the room where Robert died in 1856. A small music library has replaced the sanatorium that was Schumann’s home for the final years of his life.
-Austria-
A special visit to the Brahms Museum in Mürzzuschlag, Austria. Johannes spent a total of 9 months (1884-1885) here composing many songs and his Symphony No. 4.
-Norway-
A visit to Norway is not complete without a visit to Troldhaugen, the home of Edvard Grieg. His Steinway (New York) is the center of attention in his living room where a tour guide might break out into song. When the guide announced that he was going to sing one of Grieg’s songs, I asked, “op. 48?” He looked a bit surprised but nodded yes. “No. 6? Ein Traum?” Right again.
-Hungary-
And here is Franz Liszt’s piano in Budapest, Buda to be precise. Upon entering this museum, the visitors are given cloth slippers to protect the floors. It’s an intimate and small museum, but worth the price of admission for any musician.
-Czech Republic-
And here is Bedrich Smetana’s piano at the Smetana Museum in Prague. This is a very simple museum with a small concert space (that has a different piano). The highlight of the museum is Smetana’s piano. This museum is in desperate need of an update although I enjoyed waving a magical baton around to activate the music to play.
On this particular day, I told the museum employee (via the magic of Google Translate) that I am a musician. She was very excited and insisted that I play the (other) piano. She ran to her desk and unearthed a version of Má Vlast arranged for one piano two hands. The smile on her face as I played the piano made the visit all the more worthwhile and special.
(4/5)
Five
… Tchaik Five…
The final part of this post is to feature the sublime horn solo by 5 different horn players in Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5.
This excerpt is one of my favorite moments in classical music and one of the reasons why I wanted to play the horn. Although I never had the opportunity to play this in a rehearsal or a performance, I love to pretend that I can play it whenever a friend puts a horn in my hands.
Horn: Stefan Dohr
Orchestra: Berliner Philharmoniker
Conductor: Zubin Mehta
2017 Berlin Philharmonie
Horn: Eric Terwilliger
Orchestra: Münchner Philarmoniker
Conductor: Sergiu Celibidache
Horn: Lars Michael Stransky
Orchestra: Wiener Philharmoniker
Conductor: Riccardo Muti
Horn: Stefan Dohr
Orchestra: Berliner Philharmoniker
Conductor: Claudio Abbado
1994 Suntory Hall, Japan
Horn: Charles Kavalovsky
Orchestra: Boston Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Leonard Bernstein
Horn: Inger Besserudhagen
Orchestra: Oslo Philharmonic
Conductor: Vasily Petrenko
And if you can’t get enough Tchaik 5, the International Horn Society has an entire website dedicated to this famous horn solo/excerpt including many recordings that do not exist on YouTube. You are read (and listen) more here.
(5/5) You made it to the end. Thank you.