Being Cultured... Again..

Went to another free concert just now... :)


It is a Choir Concert by ＫＡＹ合唱団, held at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Center. The ticket is free cos one of the Professors in my graduate school was giving them away... I went to the concert with one of my Masters lab-mate from Indonesia. In fact, she was the one who told me about the free concert and ask if I wanna go.

We were supposed to meet at 4:45pm at Ikebukuro Station, but she called me last minute saying that she will be late due to her son.. So I went there alone...

I had no problem finding the place... I was there around 5pm.. There were so many old folks attending the concert that I was the youngest among those lining up to get into the concert hall... The design of the concert hall was very nice. It has a big organ at the back of the stage... Too bad I didnt bring my camera along...

The concert start promptly at 5:30pm. There were a group of musicians seated in the center of the stage. Then there were about 7 rows of wooden long benches behind those seats. Those were for the choir singers.. then there are seats for the soloist.. the tenor, baritone, alto and soprano.. Imagine my surprise when I saw the Professor who gave us the ticket among the choir singers!! Professor K was the dean of the graduate school a couple of years ago.. now he is just one of the professors... but I am really surprised that he joined such a group... Must have been good to have a passion outside of work...

The choir was all in German, i think.. The information posted on the website was as follow...

J.S. Bach
ヨハネ受難曲 (Johannes-Passion)
指　揮　(Conductor)：　渡辺善忠
ソプラノ(Soprano) ：　五十嵐郁子
アルト(Alto) ：　　永井和子
テナー(Tenor) ：　　畑儀文
バ　ス(Bass) ：　　多田羅迪夫
ピラトアリア(Baritone)：宇野徹哉
オルガン(Organ) ：　草間美也子
合　唱 (Choir) ：　　ＫＡＹ合唱団

It started at 5:30pm, had a 15-min intermission around 6:15pm and lasted all the way till 8pm! As they were singing in German, I must admit that I did doze off a couple of time during the concert.. :P Lots of people were dozing off too, looking at their body language... hahahaha... and also the audience was really made up of 80% old folks... and seriously I doubt if they understand anything that was sang... Overall, the concert was okay...