For those of you who like violin, there will be a big concert in Chiangrai on Wed 25th at 7pm.

The concert will take place in the auditorium of the Chiangrai Wittayakom school.

Violinists come from Bangkok (15), Chiangrai (40) and Maechan (the 23 hill tribes violinists).

Be welcome.

Impressive, that's the only word which comes to mind.

And I don't mean the omnipresent sound of the aircon installation (seems to be a problem in the Bangkok Opera as well), nor do I mean the portrait of the Lord himself which was empathic present in the auditorium of the biggest Christian school of Chiang Rai (the beatnik version, for those among us who still remember the looks of a beatnik).

No, I mean the performance of the kids and especially the performance of the hilltribe kids.

Four months ago they never even knew about the existence of violins and now they played the stars from heaven.

Compositions by His Majesty the King, by Mozart, by Vivaldi, they seemed to be familiar with all of them. Not one false tone was heard.

It became clear that the Belgian violinist Geertje Podevyn not only teached them the basics of playing a violin at the Insii Thai House of Maechan, but that she did more: She managed to transfer her love for the instrument to the youngsters. They became inspired, they discovered a friend to hold on to and they embraced the eternal and cross-cultural beauty of western classic music.

I have the privilege to know three of the kids quite well, so after the concert I went to gratulate them with their fantastic performance.

What a happiness I encountered!

I don't want to rub it in, but to those who were critical about the project, worrying about western influences which would alienate the kids from their own culture, I can only say that I wished you would have been there yesterday!

Limbo

PS: What a coincidence! One of the top five European violinists, the Russian born Parisian Vadim Tjijik arrived in Chiang Rai yesterday as well. He is going to do a masterclass with some of the most promising young violinists of Chiang Rai. It is a project of the Alliance Francaise de Chiang Rai.

Yes, I wish I had been there too.

Chownah

Yes, I wish I had been there too.

Chownah

Did they do a good rendition of the "Orange Blossum Special"??

Yes, I wish I had been there too.

Chownah

Did they do a good rendition of the "Orange Blossum Special"??

How would I know? I thought it was clear from my post that I was not there.

Chownah

The concert was indeed really nice !

Thank you to all of you who came.