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Taiwan Tour, Days 5-8


We've been busy! Sunday we played with the Butterfly Orchestra, an orchestra in Puli that MuChen's parents help run. The community seems to really love this orchestra and the music they play. The kid in the picture above thought conducting William Tell overture really fast was absolutely the most hilarious thing he had ever done. I've been getting to know some Taiwanese folk songs during the tour. There were several arrangements played by the orchestra and we had our own suite of them arranged for us that we have been playing. It was great to hear the audience sing along!

Monday was spent rehearsing and preparing our next school presentation, as well as more teaching private lessons at MuChen's parents' school in Puli. Her parents run a music school in Puli, and two others in Taipei. These schools have been our home bases for the tour, and the connections from them have really been at the core of our tour.

Tuesday night we played a private house concert for a donor who is paralyzed. He and his family and friends were incredibly welcoming and friendly and we ended up playing several more movements than we intended because they kept asking us so nicely to play more! That may have been one of my favorite performances of the tour so far.

Wednesday morning we drove to Taichung for our next school workshop, this time at a high school and open to the public. The school's string quartet played for our masterclass for the first half, and for the second half of the workshop we highlighted elements of quartet playing and our repertoire, and had several of the students jump in to practice cuing and phrasing with us.

Poster at our school workshop. (I'm not sure what Ravel is doing on there...)

After the Wednesday morning workshop we hopped on a high speed rail and headed to Taipei for the rest of our tour! Taipei is great so far. Bustling, clean, vibrant, and beautiful. Three more school workshops and then our final concert on June 1!


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