World Harmonica Festival '97

on 15 - 19 Oct 97

at Trossingen, Germany

Diary of 18 Oct 97 (Sat)

If the word 'fun' is to apply to a competition, it should be the open category starting at 9am.  The variety of entries really shows off how versatile a musical instrument harmonica really is.  With more than 20 entries, nearly every entry is unique in style.  This was actually our original intention to enter 4 different entries - a sextet (in the style of the original Quintet) playing arrangement of Chinese orchestral music, a trio consisting of all tenor harmonicas to demonstrate the capability of tenor harmonicas, a 'traditional' duo playing Bach's masterpiece of Double Concerto (we are sort of forced to do so as the duo category was dropped by the organizer - we notice that as a result, there are a number of duo entries in the open category), and finally a showpiece for bass harmonica - the Villa-Lobos' Bachianas Brasileiras No.5.  We are glad that we are in the 'carnival' and we don't really feel that we are in a competition.  It is hard to compare oranges with apples!

Besides a marvelous experience to the ear, we do gain something else.  Paul Lewis (who writes the test piece for chromatic solo category) is in the audience and we manage to catch his attention and appreciation of the way we play.

Meeting Mr Paul Lewis, the composer of test piece for solo competition, after the open category competition.

Our second next highlight in this Festival (apart from the group category competition) is the scheduled performance in the "Friends for Friends" concert tonight.  We play the Villa-Lobos' String Quartet No.1 and an arrangement of Rossini's Barber of Seville Overture.  Despite the tiredness after days of competition and the late evening concert time (10:15pm which is normally the closing time of a concert in Hong Kong), we manage once again to concentrate and show our best group work to the 1000+ audience in the Dr. Ernst Hohner Konzerthaus.  Here, we recall, by the standard of an amateur group, the lengthy practice sessions (minimum 3 hours, and up to 6 hours at critical times before a concert) and irregular practice time (until midnight after a day of heavy office work).  These must be helping us to  overcome the tiredness.

Fun time during rehearsal for "Friends for Friends" concert.