Sept. 15th 2007 - Beautiful Seed CD release show in Los Angeles / AADAP 14th Annual Benefit Show at the Aratani.

15th September 2007 - AADAP 14th Annual Benefit Show at the Aratani.

Well, I'm having my concert this evening at the Aratani Theatre
in Los Angeles. I'm headlining the 14th Annual Benefit show
for the Asian American Drug Abuse Program. http://www.aadapinc.org
Should be fun although I've been feeling a little
more stressed through these past few days. Lord, help me to leave
this day, with all its burdens and joys in your hands.

-------------

So the concert at the Aratani went well. We got there for sound check
around 2 p.m. The sound guy was nice and he got the levels we needed
pretty quickly.

Trying out an 'artsy' pose at the piano during sound check



Kavin at sound check

Craig testing out the kit


Eric looking cool


Andrew at soundcheck


Adrianne and her 'dragon' cello

Eric, Andrew, Kavin, Natasha and I had dinner later at a Japanese
restaurant across the street from the Aratani. The food took
such a long time to come. Poor Andrew waited for his food for at
least half an hour before it came. Kavin and I had the char siew ramen,
which was pretty good. The pork was nice and succulent. Eric had spicy
tuna and california rolls and Ntasha had some hot veg. salad and spring
rolls. The food was good. The service was tardy though.

Next up came meetings with Lincoln (videographer) and Nat (photographer).
After this, I went about doing my make-up and got changed.

'On Ensemble', a taiko drums ensemble were the first act to perform.
Following this, the AADAP (Asian American Drug Abuse Program) had their
presentations and Pastor Ken was presented with an award in appreciation
of his years of helping with the AADAP.

The band and I went on stage at 8.30 p.m. We had a good show
and the audience really loved our performance of 'Little Superhero Girl' :)
I was glad that, having had the experience of singing at the 1600 Esplanade
Concert Hall, singing for a 800-seater theatre audience was not as nerve-wrecking.













After the concert, I walked out to the foyer to sign autographs for the 'Beautiful Seed' cd. It was lovely to see Willy, Olivia and Grace, and many other fans
who had come out to support the release of 'Beautiful Seed' at the concert.
Clinton, Regina and Joe helped to sell the cds; bless their hearts :)





I posted the rest of the photos of the evening here.

A Piano Sonata

"Art is a collaboration between God and the artist,
and the less the artist does the better." - Andre Gide

I was delighted to finally catch a concert at the Frank Gehry designed Walt Disney Concert Hall the other day when my good friend Dan invited me to catch a piano concert by celebrated pianist Alfred Brendel.

It is a beautiful concert hall. Full of curved, wave-like
wood ceiling finishes



and shiny metal pipes bursting forth from the
built-in organ on one end of the hall.


The gleaming, majestic piano sat in the middle of the stage,
proudly lit in fiery orange-yellow lights. It sat there, silently
waiting for the pianist to come out on stage to caress its keys,
so that it could breathe new life into the Mozart, Beethoven and
Schumann pieces that were scheduled for the concert programme that night.




Alfred Brendel soon walked out on stage to loud applause and
the lights dimmed as he sat at the piano and began to masterfully
and delicately play.

He made that piano sing.
And as the notes from the piano dipped and flew,
a thought came to mind.

I thought about what St. Therese of Liseux had said about us being
mere instruments, about how we cannot take pride in ourselves as
instruments. For without a master to use us, what are we
but silent and unplayed, collecting dust in some hall.

If God is the pianist and we are his keys, ("Ebony and Ivory, live together in perfect harmony,side by side on my piano keyboard, oh Lord, why don't we?"- Stevie Wonder), then how beautiful we sound when we are all playing the notes of a wonderful chord together, in harmony.

How beautiful the sound of an instrument that yields to a masterful touch,where the keys are smooth, and don't stick or obstruct the fingers of the artist in any way.

How beautiful the song that is played, when the artistry of the master is facilitated by an instrument that doesn't hinder the artistry in any way, but sings fully with all the resonance with which it was made to sing.

Alfred Brendal weaved his way through all the sections of the sonata,
making the piano sometimes weep, and sometimes shout with joy.

Our lives, our histories are like songs. Like sonatas.
Just as a piano sonata has a structure and a song has a song form,
different musical sections are often needed to make the song
breathe with beautiful colour and contrast.

Major has to turn into minor, consonance to dissonance, short
to long,...just like the story of human existence and history;
nothing stays the same for too long.

Our history is pockmarked with the undulations of war and peace,
of harmony and dischord, and while we are in our own time,
singing the notes we have been given,
we have no clue as to how the whole piece will play out.

But just as every song has a beginning and an end,
I'm sure there will be an awesome modulation or key change at the end of time,
as the whole of creation will be awestruck
at how perfect the whole song shall be,
as how only God knows it will be.

The Man Who Paints With His Nose

I'm walking along 3rd street promenade in Santa Monica, California, watching the street performers and the dogs on leashes with designer dog collars being carried by their Prada encrusted owner's arms and suddenly I come across a guy sitting in a wheelchair, surrounded by a semi-circle of baskets on the floor, each holding different things...postcards, a basket with some scrunched up dollar bills from people who could spare some change for a donation...

Everyone seemed to walk past him without giving him a second look ; but I was intrigued. I walked towards him and saw that he had a framed biography/story on the floor and so I picked it up to read and here's what it said :

"
Gille Legacy was born in Bathurst, NB, Canada.
He was the sixth of eleven children. Afflicted with
cerebral palsy since birth (his doctors performed
last rites at that time), Gille has no use of his
arms or legs.

What he does have is an incredibly talented nose.

When he was eight years old, Gille noticed some
paints and a coloring book a sister had left
open in his room. He scooted over to
the paints and started to dab his nose into
the various colors and onto the paper.
To his delight, he soon realized there
was red paint on his nose, and a
painting of a bird in the coloring book.

The artist inside Gille had emerged!

For over forty years, Gille has created beautiful
impressionistic paintings using the tip of that
very talented nose. He has painted with oils, acrylics
and water colors. He originally painted on canvas,
but the surface was too rough on his nose.
He now paints on ultra-smooth masonite surfaces
of various sizes. Smoooth.

Gille's work has gained international recognition.
He exhibited in 2004-2005 at the Heron Bay Gallery,
Shediac, Chemin du Monde (Acadie 400)
Nova Scotia, Moncton Public Library, St. John Arts Center
and the McCainGallery in Florenceville, Canada.

Gille was awarded the Paul Harris Fellow Award in
January, 2005, Rotary's highest honor, for his work
with school children.

Gille has also written and published four books
of poetry and short stories. They are all typed
on his computer. With his nose.

In mid-2005, Gille moved to Santa Monica with
his Muse and soon-to-be wife, Sandi. They established
the "Nose Boutique Gallery." It is open to visitors who
make advance reservations at gille@manwhopaints.com
Gille also demonstrates his nose painting skills and exhibits
his work on Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica.
Contact Gille at his email address for the dates and times
of his appearances.

Gille and Sandi have given motivational presentations to
various groups and organizations, including schools in
Canada, and most recently, at the Coachella Valley
Rescue Mission in Indio, California

A great deal of artwork is made by hand.

Few are made by nose."

I almost couldn't contain my tears upon reading it. Here was a guy, bound to a wheelchair, neck and body twisting and turning somewhat uncontrollably, suffering from cerebral palsy, missing the lower half of his body; and instead of wallowing in self-pity or perhaps not having a sense of purpose, he taught himself to use his NOSE to paint.

I looked through the paintings he had on his postcards in the baskets...paintings of angels looking to a horizon of mountains, coloured skies, rolling waterfalls. There was so much beauty and hope in his artwork. So much joy in nature.

Here is a man, who most of society would look on without much care, perhaps even feel sorry for, and here he is, putting his heart and soul into a work of beauty. I guess it just shows that God works in marvellous ways; that all life is precious and filled with much potential for beauty.

I sifted through the basket of postcards to find the one that struck me the most.
I showed him what I had chosen and told him it was lovely and asked him if I was right in guessing that it was an image of an angel that he had drawn. His eyes were filled with delight as he grunted something that sounded like a 'Yes!' and he nodded his head with a slight turn of his head.

It was also lovely to meet his fiancee Sandy. Takes a special woman to recognise the lovely man within that gnarled body.

I think that meeting Gille was extra special also for a very important reason. Earlier in the week, I was reflecting on how each person shows us a facet of God; each person is a clue to discovering His face...the different parts that make up His face.

So I was keeping that reflection in mind. It was almost a 'Where's Waldo' game, except that this time it was more like "Where's God?" in this? "where is He?"
So I was keeping my eyes open, as I am still trying to do, keeping in mind that every person is a handiwork of God, every person can show me a little something about Him, can teach me a bit more about understanding God...that each person was created in the image and likeness of Him and hence getting to know each person better, will help me to see His face clearer, by seeing His face in each one of us.
It is like fitting the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together. The more pieces I have that I can piece together, the clearer the entire picture becomes; hence the clearer His face will be.

So anyway, I don't think it was a coincidence that Gille was there on the promenade that day. I believe He must have had a hand in leading me to behold His face in Gille...and what a lovely face he has.

Man Who Paints

Customer of the Week!

So, it finally happened...

I'd been going to Peets Coffee and Tea so often these past few months to write songs
that they finally named me "Customer of the Week"! Woo hoo.

For one entire week, I had the distinct pleasure of getting free cups of tea.
Awesome!

I guess I'll have to put them in my album credits now.

Peets Coffee and Tea

Letting Oscar Peel - Los Angeles, Make-up and Red Carpets

March 7th 2006

L.A is a tough town on aspiring singers/actors looking to glamourous dreams of walking the red carpet ala the Academy Awards.
L.A is almost proud of its superficiality and touts it like a badge of honour.

I watched a bit of the Academy Awards on television and was a little taken aback by all the posing happening on the red carpet, all the twirling, the rumours of romance whispered to reporters... it is a seemingly contrived world. It was interesting to watch music artist Ludacris boasting about his style and as he was being interviewed by the reporter, he made sure to point out
the size of the diamonds on his earslobes.

Stars are cajoled, placated, wooed and fawned over by the media and by the public until the next new thing comes along.
The media is like a spoilt little child whose attention is fast-changing.
Every few seconds, it has to be enticed with the latest news, the newest dresses,
the latest gossip hung like fish bait from various publicists.
It's like a crust of make-up, carefully applied foundation and lip colour, that gets washed away with the rain.
Even the weather in Los Angeles, virtually unchanging, light blue
perfect skies ala a staged studio set... Even the weather acquiesces in the ploy.

Perhaps that's why I love seeing clouds in this often cloud-less sky.
I like the reminder that nature is still present, that reality is still out there.
I love it when it rains. That's when the whole city gets a little more introspective, and I'd like to think...that's when all the make-up and artifice is
washed away and we can start anew.

I heard something on an NPR radio programme the other day. A mature actress, ex-Oscar winner was recounting how horrified she was when her Oscar first started peeling off its gold layers. She got him re-dipped in gold.

But now, she just lets the gold peel away, feeling more of a kinship in the process, whereby the superficial glitz and glamour is peeled back to reveal the real within.

She talked about how fame wasn't about her, it was about 'them'.
It was about how the public perceives you. You don't change.
The public vision changes and that is the frightening thing. If you go along with the public perception and don't recognise or acknowledge the truth ie. that the public image has been crafted and contrived with a marked artificiality, you are likely to be swept away; just like the way a movie set is stripped away once the movie is done and all the parts become amusement park attractions or some question in a trivial pursuit boardgame.

Oscars statues on Ebay anyone?

Hotel Cafe - 9th January 2006 "Don't Call Us Tori" 2nd Anniversary Show.

Hotel Cafe Gig - 9th January 2006 @ 9.30 p.m

Band: Craig Macintyre (drums), Eric Holden (bass), Adrienne Woods (cello), Corrinne May (piano)

Left to right performers: Corrinne May, Marina V, Shannon Hurley, Steve Leavitt, Kat Parsons and Sierra Swan.


Set List :
Little Superhero Girl (band)
Angel in Disguise (band)
Leaving (band)
Everything in its time (band)
Shelter (band)
Free (cello, pno)
Safe in a Crazy World (cello,pno)
The Birthday Song (band)
Mr. Beasley (band)

This was a show to celebrate the 2nd anniversary
of the Don't Call Us Tori
artist collective.

I had fun sharing the stage with the rest of the women from
the Don't Call Us Tori artist collective. Shannon Hurley,
Marina V, Sierra Swan and Kat Parsons all performed fantastic sets.

The Hotel Cafe is now really nicely renovated and much more comfortable
with it's expanded audience room and a stage that is more roomy
and is now a little raised from the ground.

It's always a little scary to preview a new song for the first time...
We played two new songs 'Shelter' and 'Leaving',
and I was happy that they were both well received.
Eric and Craig were fantastic as usual, and Adrienne was awesome too.

The show was also recorded for a future webcast date.www.nextbighit.com

Molly Malones CD release show

Thanks to everyone who came out to the Molly Malone's CD release show. I had such a great time and we packed the place! We had people sitting on the floor and standing right at the back of the room. Amazing night. Joe, Craig and Andrew are also such wonderful musicians and I loved having them back me up on the show.

Chris Lunari was great on the sound engineering and thanks also to Clinton and Darlene who helped with the CD sales and with Kavin who was there to make sure that things ran smoothly. Thanks also to Nat and Bernard Bauer who were there to capture the visuals on their camera and to Reuben and Patrick who ran around with the videocamera.