An A+ Piano Recital

Goethe Institute Auditorium. 17 February 2011. Bangkok, Thailand. Bangkok is blessed with many excellent piano students, and Warut Supo is among the very best I’ve heard. He performed a difficult program for his Senior Piano Recital for his music degree from Silpakorn University. With poise, he beautifully played works by Bach, Beethoven, Rachmaninov, Chopin and Prokofiev. If he were nervous, it was not on display as he never strayed from highly musical interpretations and execution. I don’t know if Warut’s teachers give him a grade for Thursday’s program, but if were up to me and the enthusiastic audience, Warut gets an A+.

An Evening of Musical Desserts

Neilson Hays Library. Bangkok, Thailand. February 10, 2011. Violinist Jonathon Glonek and pianist Eri Nakagawa treated us to an evening of delightful musical desserts, the type of short, breezy pieces that are usually reserved for encores following a heavy course of long sonatas, fantasias, fugues, etc. Many arrangements by Fritz Kreisler and Jascha Heifetz predominated. The mood swung from the sentimental (e.g., Heifetz’s arrangement of Stephen Foster’s “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair”) to the exciting (Fritz Kreisler’s arrangement of De Falla’s “Danse Espagnole”). The setting in Bangkok’s historic Neilson Hays Library, which had been cleared of some book shelves to make room for the piano and the audience, was atmospheric. Glonek and Nakagawa, both resident in Thailand, played expertly and beautifully. I hope that they enjoyed themselves playing as much as the very appreciative capacity audience did listening.

Tooling Around Bangkok on the Back of a Motorcycle

The fastest way to negotiate through Bangkok’s monumental traffic is by motorcycle, but it’s also the most dangerous. Cheap motorcycle taxis are readily available to those who are willing to risk it. I seldom do. However, I make an exception for my trainer Nat, who is extremely careful. This past Sunday, I mounted his bike and we went to a local restaurant to eat after my regular workout.

Kh. Nat readies himself for the ride.

I, on the other hand, just get on the back of Nat’s bike, without protective gear of any kind, and hope for the best as we weave in and out of traffic.