steven – Page 20 – Steven Yi

Tai Chi Camp 2006

Last week was our fourth camp with Lenzie and our Tai-Chi family and it was as special and wonderful an experience as ever…

This year’s camp came as welcome relief from the stress of the process of leaving and moving to another country. I think for most of us it was a time to step away from the world and to work on something we all love, as well as a time to live simply and to be able to reflect on the lives we live and the life lived since the last camp. For many, the past year was filled with many trials and losses, and with news the night before that Nelly from Holland had passed away, the camp began on a quiet and introspective tone.

Through the next couple of days, Lenzie guided us to very advanced concepts and ideas and worked with us a great deal to both understand mentally and physically these lessons, and especially to experience them to really get to know them. Well, it will really take years to get to really know these ideas, but through the experiences and teachings gained through those days, the doors were opened, and now it is only for us to take the steps through and to embody the ideas ourselves.

It was great to see the many friends from class and previous camps, to catch up with each other, as well as to meet new friends and to get to know them. The camps have really been extremely special in so many ways, and it’s always an honor to be amongst such a wonderful group of human beings.

By the end of camp, I felt that the days had gone by all too quickly and wished they could have lasted so much longer, but yet the days felt full and rich, each day filled with experiences. It was sad for us to not only say goodbye from camp but also to say goodbye to our friends and teacher for the following year. I will miss seeing them all every week, but hope to continue diligently with training and continuing to develop what was learned this camp.

And of course, I will be looking very forward to seeing them all again, and am already looking forward to next year’s camp! ^_^

Ligeti Passed Away Today

I read on a mailing list today that Gyorgy Ligeti passed away. The article that was posted is here.

Since I first came to know of him, I have long respected him and his music. Today it is gray outside and quiet, even more a reminder of the loss of a great human being.

My Friends from Eveo

Today starts my last week at work at Eveo… I’ve been working here almost 3.5 years and this has been the only job I’ve had since moving to San Francisco, and so looking back at my time here in SF I associate a great deal of it with the experiences of this job. I had thought the other day that as workers we spend a great deal of our time together, and so all the more reason that it is so lucky that I have had the chance to work with a really great group of people that I can consider my dear friends.

Farewell Dinner

Thursday last week, my company put together a farewell dinner for me at a very nice restaurant Bocce in North Beach. The food was delicious and the company fantastic; a very warm night with good conversation and many meaningful words spoken. At the end of dinner, my friends surprised me with a present: a Creative Vision:M portable mp3/photo/video player! My friend Alex organized the purchasing of the present and knew just the one to get. (After all these years it’s my first mp3 player!). I was very touched by the present and it has been just fantastic.

After dinner, most of moved on to a bar, then on to a private karaoke room. We spent the rest of the night singing away our favorite tunes. ^_^ It was as nice a celebration as I’ve ever had, and one which I will remember very fondly.

Endless Lunch in the Park

On Sunday, Corinne, Mike, Alex, Nick and I got together with our signficant others at Golden Gate Park for a Barbecue. Beer, food, and playing a lot of hacky sack made for a nice, long get together of friends. The day was overcast and a bit chilly, but the company was warm and the hours spent seemed all too short, or perhaps just not enough.

While walking from the park at the end of our time there, I wondered to myself why we hadn’t been doing this before? It really was a fantastic way to spend a Sunday. I guess it’s only now that the time of year is amenable to such excursions, but I guess it wasn’t just a matter of getting together at the park but simply just getting together.

I’ll miss my friends here very much and will value spending the time with them that I can until we leave for Warsaw. I know already that this group of people will likely never again all work together, so am grateful for the time that this brief part of our individual histories came together. I am sure too that there will be another “Endless Lunch” ahead when Lisa and I return from Warsaw, and will be looking forward to again seeing my friends.

the leaves in the wind…

Today at lunch we sat at the park by Levi’s Plaza and there I sat looking up at the trees, the leaves gently moving about in the wind. Since the first time I was in Poland it’s been one of my most favorite experiences in life, to look up at trees and watching the leaves, whether it is during the day or at dusk or dawn when it is only silhouettes one sees.

Sitting there today, looking up, the thought came across my mind that if the rest of my days were spent simply looking up at the trees, fascinated by and appreciative of these beautiful gestures, it would have been a life well lived…

Maslow – Creativity and Self-Actualizing People

This morning on my way into work I was rereading the chapter of Abraham Maslow’s Toward a Psychology of Being entitled “Creativity and Self-Actualizing People” and absolutely loved it. He talks about creativity and how it shows up in many people and places outside of the common notions of creativity (paintings, music, literature). There’s one line regarding something about a housewife he knew and how he much preferred her first-rate cake to a second-rate painting…

I think what resonated most about the article to me was the highlighting of creativity as being not in the product but in the individual’s actions and way of looking at things. It’s been on my mind lately that much of our works of art are a result of our character and the state of being we bring to the table when going to work, and less so as a result of technique or something inherent to the product itself.

Lutoslawski Conducting Chain I

I found a wonderful video of Lutoslawski conducting the London Sinfonietta in the performance of his Chain I. Fantastic!

If anyone knows where I can download or purchase a copy of this, please do let me know.

L.A. in San Francisco

Tonight, Lisa and I went to see Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic perform here in San Francisco: an absolutely wonderful concert of Beethoven and Lutoslawski.

The concert began with Beethoven’s Leonore Overture; it felt a bit hesitant in the slower parts and not quite really full with life, but an enjoyable performance never the less. I have to say that I don’t know how I feel really about Beethoven’s music, as at times I find myself engrossed, and other times flatly not engaged at all. So perhaps I had some baggage in listening to this piece tonight, I don’t know.

The second piece was Lutoslawski’s Fourth Symphony which was the prime draw for myself to this concert. When I first heard the Fourth on CD I didn’t quite get into it, but over time it has grown on me very, very much. The past few months I had been listening to the piece quite a bit and studying the score when I could, and finding myself deeper and deeper into the piece. Tonight’s performance was exceptional. It felt as if the performers really put themselves into the piece, and the conducting was perfect: the silences were filled with weight, the piece was completely cohesive, the sound shaped without a drop in suspense. The orchestra filled the hall with such a wonderfully rich sound, and it was an absolute joy to finally hear this piece live.

After the intermission was Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, and still filled with the experience of the Lutoslawski, made it difficult to engage with the first movement (though I haven’t found myself ever really drawn into that movement otherwise). I enjoyed the second movement a great deal, it’s slow, relentless movement forward and lovely orchestration, and found myself listening intently afterwards into the third and fourth, even though their comparable levity in mood. A fine performance of a fine piece.

The performance was capped off with a short, fun encore that I thought went very well after the Beethoven. Overall, the performance was throughly enjoyable and the Lutoslawski was absolutely superb. Another fond memory…

^_^

Fireworks

A few years ago, our friend Therese from Tai-Chi Class invited us out to watch the KFOG Kaboom, a fantastic fireworks show put on by the KFOG radio station every year that they organize and sync up to a 20 minute long medley of rock music. I had never really been too much a fan of fireworks as they always seemed somewhat… wasteful(I still have some reservations about it all…). But I have to say that that evening, listening to the music, the fireworks in sync, us out on one of the piers, the fireworks so close and so well done, they truly were a fantastic spectacle.

Last year we had forgotten it was happening, much like this year, and both then and tonight, sitting in our apartment and hearing the thunderous noise, Lisa and I opened our blinds to see the fireworks in the near distance, a great view straight from our apartment window. We turned on the radio and tuned into KFOG, watched the fireworks and listening to the music: a strangely beautiful dance of lights against the night sky.

Reflections on the Alumni Concert

It’s been a few weeks now since the Alumni Concert and now that things have settled back down for me I realized I had not spent time to reflect on the concert…

The Alumni Concert at the University of Georgia was such a nice event. It was a real joy to see so many old friends whom were fellow students when I was there at the University, getting to catch up with them in both their lives and in their music. I saw a few old Professors there as well and was very glad to reconnect with them. I was very happy to be able o share my piece at this concert with my friends and professors as well the rest of the audience.
I think that it’s a real credit to my old professor, Dr. Leonard V. Ball, that he put in so much effort to put on such a great concert, and perhaps more importantly that he has had so many students who have gone on to explore many different interests in electronic music. I think it wasn’t only techniques he taught(though he does this very well), but also a sense of exploration that we all took with us when we left that school, and that I think is so much more important.

All in all it was a very warm and positive experience to be back in Athens with this fine group of people. I only hope that we will all be able to see each other more often in the future.

^_^

Etude

Completed: 2006.03.23
Duration: ca. 20 minutes

Ensemble: Electronic(blue, Csound)

Part 1 (5:44) – MP3 | OGG

Part 2 (4:49) – MP3 | OGG

Part 3 (4:15) – MP3 | OGG

Part 4 (4:53) – MP3 | OGG

Project Files: Click here (.blue, .csd)

Program Notes: Click here (PDF)

This piece was premiered on April 5, 2006 as a part of the University of Georgia Alumni Electronic Concert II, held in the Dancz Center for New Music. Information on this piece is available in the program notes link above.

My sincerest thanks to Dr. Leonard V. Ball for organizing this concert and for programming this piece as a part of the concert.