I want to report my recent life today.
As for music;
I came back to teach the senior citizen chorus group and they are doing really well! I started to teach them by using what I got from NY experiences, from the choirs I belonged to, from the way my vocal teacher taught me, from the experiences of the Western Wind workshops, and so on. They seemed puzzled sometimes and then they understood me for a while later and improved so much! I'm really thankful to every musician I met through my NY life.
We are participating the city cultural festival next spring and we started to rehearse the program. We are singing three songs all in Japanese, and we will add choreography taken the hint from the sign language. I asked one my former private students for help and she helped me to think it out. Her parents couldn't hear so she used the sign language since she was a child. She became an elementary school teacher, got married and now have three children! I visited her house twice to work with her. We became good partners and thought up a great choreography, both meaningful and beautiful one! Last Friday, I taught the chorus members it for the first time. I was so glad that they liked our choreography so much! I know we have to work hard to sing and perform well but we are making it finally, I'm sure!
I've got six private students up to now, one led to another, became six! They all are women and over 50's. I think they deserve to enjoying their own lives after devoting most of their time for their family for many years. I'm so glad I can help them enjoy their own lives by learning something new!
My husband and I are performing Messiah by Handel next Tuesday. It's coming so soon! Last night we had the first rehearsal with the conductor and had a great time! The conductor currently lives in NY and came to Japan all the way from there. His name is Kimbo Ishii-Eto. We are having two more rehearsals with the piano accompaniment and two rehearsals with the orchestra and then will perform it finally. I have to be careful not to lose my voice till then!
And...
It's related to partly music but, as for my church life:
I became one of the organists there! It's not a paid job to be an organist in church but I'm glad I can do it. We have a quite beautiful organ in our church and I am glad that I received the opportunity to play it! My first playing music day was last Sunday. For the past few weeks since I was offered to do it, I checked out many songs from my sacred music stock to find out what suits to play for the day. I went to church twice to learn how to use the organ and became friends with it and I fell in love with the organ. It sounds really beautiful. As I played some of the English Hymns, I couldn't stop my tears coming out because each song reminded me some specific wonderful memories with my friends over there.
"Oh this is Dynah's favorite!"
"Oh I sang this in my Park Slope church!"
"I love this song playing in the beginning of the service at the nursing home!"
"This is John's favorite! That is Eugenia's!"
And on and on and on.....
I felt sometimes happy to remember the memories and also somehow sad that I was here and not there.... with them any more and felt like I couldn't share my memories with anyone over here.
I chose "Because He lives" for the offertory music. This is John's favorite. John was one of the volunteer ministries at the nursing home I worked. Whenever he became emotional, and perhaps not coming up with any words to say, he would start to sing this song and I loved it!
Also I have another memory with this Hymn. When I stayed in Auckland, NZ in 2002 for three months to learn English language, I sang this at a shopping mall to fund-raising campaign by the church I was attending. I was asked to sing anything I knew and I chose "Because He lives" by my instinct. I think the reason I was asked to sing was I couldn't speak English very well at that time so I couldn't contribute to the campaign by talking to passing-by people there. So it was the only thing I could do.
I started to sing it, trembling.....
To my surprise, people started to stop by one after another, smiling, listening to me, so kindly.
Then after a while, a woman came up to me saying, "My husband is sitting over there at the food court table. He likes your singing so much and asked me to say it on behalf of him. He is sick so he couldn't come here." I was so glad to hear that and I went to the table and made a chat with him for a while.
Then.... I was back to singing the same song again and again....
A middle-aged man, perhaps Chinese, suddenly appeared in front of me, and to my great surprise, he started to sing it with my with the big smile so joyfully!!!! We sang the song together for the next few minutes and just said good bye without exchanging any personal information about us. Then this was not the end! I met him again at my church after few weeks when the church provided language learning classes for foreign residents. We became friends and he invited me to the small meeting at his house. I was surprised to see so many Chinese Christians living there at his house. They cooked a wonderful Chinese meal for me and we had a great time together.
Like these, I have wonderful memories with every music. I think it'd be one of the greatest things when you continued to do something for a long time. You have wonderful memories one after another and it becomes your history and you can live with them!
When I played the organ at my current church last Sunday, I got nervous, my hands started to tremble, my brain become empty somehow.... and I became panic! Then I pictured everyone's face. I even called everyone's name in my mind one after another.... "Please love me Lord, and my friends, Lisa, Nancy, Pam, Joyce, Cheryl, Michael, Jonathan, Ieva, Togu, Sachi, Jayson, Marge, Rita, Richard, Dynah, Virginia, Mr. Thurmond, Morris, Ramon, Alma, Russell, Mr. McGee, Mr. Brown, Eugenia, John, Ms. Butterfly, Ms. Paul, Rosa, Kristina, Philip, Sig, Dorry, Brian, Jim, Nuala, and, and , and......
I couldn't put them all but it really helped! As I recalled the names of my friends, I felt as if I was protected by them and they cheered me up! Then my mind became so calm and I could get focused on playing music for God. It was amazing!
Many people form the congregation came up to me to thank me after the service and one of them said "It was really heartful, Naoko!" I was so happy to hear the comment! Yes I put all of my heart into the music and they understood my mind!
We have several organists in our church so I'm going to play the organ once or twice a month from now on. I look forward to playing it next month!
After the service, our pastor asked me to teach a choir at another church just for this Christmas. He said, "there is another church, 20 minutes train rude from here, they are in trouble not having anyone to direct the choir right now. Could you help them? If you could go there just a few times after church, Sunday afternoons perhaps, they will appreciate it so much!" And as you can imagine, I said, "Yes, I'd be glad to!"
One event leads to another. One friendship leads to another... and I'm having this magic right now!
I have to work hard and it wouldn't be that easy. But I want to enjoy everything with great joy!
Oh.... I was about to forget!!!!
We got a new family yesterday!!!!
I named him "Kuri". He was abandoned just in front of our house and cried and cried for more than five days.... we were not going to take him but after five days or so hearing his desperate cry we couldn't stand it and took him inside. He has a cold but we believe he survives and becomes well soon!
Talk to you soon, dear friends!
