5/23 - Still Sleepless in Tokyo

in my earlier post, i mentioned being able to wake up super early as an advantage w/ jet lag (so as not to oversleep and miss the bus to the baseball field). however, it (as well as waking up numerous times during the night) can also make having to play a rehearsal and concert after experiencing such a restless night, extremely difficult.

despite being so tired last night, i constantly woke up throughout the night (each time thinking i was late of course) and finally gave up sleeping at around 5:30. we had a 3 hour rehearsal scheduled for 11 a.m. but i wanted to get to the hall early to practice so i got there at around 9:30. lots of people were already there because for many of us, this was the first time to see our instruments after packing them in the trunks last saturday night. we had to cover a lot of music in 3 hours and by the end of the rehearsal, i was ready to call it a day. but of course, hunger won over sleepiness and a group of us went out to the ginza area for lunch.

(pauline, one of our friends and her daughter came to the rehearsal since i couldn't get them tickets to the concert and here is a picture pauline took of us in suntory hall.)

by the time we got back, it was almost 5:30 and the concert was at 7 so there was not much time to do anything. i was barely standing but knew that if i took a nap, i would probably miss the concert. so i got a coffee drink (and i'm not a coffee drinker at all) in hopes that it would wake me up. by 6:55, i realized it was not going to happen. it was as if i was in a dream.

and it was a dream in some ways. i have seen many pictures of suntory hall and heard about the amazing acoustics, so finally being able to perform here as a member of the philadelphia orchestra was a dream come true. our soloist for the japan portion of the tour, midori, played a beautiful and dazzling tchaikovsky violin concerto (i don't think i've ever played the 3rd movement faster!) and in the second half, we performed prokofiev's 5th symphony (which we did in our second to last week of subscription concerts). it went well and the audience was incredibly warm and appreciative. so as an encore, we did an excerpt from prokofiev's romeo and juliet (the montagues and capulets).

i know many of us were in a similar state of tiredness (is that even a word?) but i think we were able to overcome and give our all to the music. it was fun but i hope i am a bit more rested for tomorrow afternoon's concert.