Musique Non Stop

It's been a wonderful Christmas Day for music this year. After Arthur left for school (Christmas Day is not a national holiday in Japan, unfortunately), Kazuko and Valerie enjoyed watching Japanese high school dance performances on you-tube. Then, Kazuko and I enjoyed a Christmas date together sans children! That's a Christmas gift in itself.

First of all we enjoyed a lovely meal at an Italian restaurant in Nishinomiya-Kitaguchi. We then browsed some shops together in Nishinomiya Gardens. While Kazuko continued browsing, I enjoyed a performance of Christmas songs by Human Note. Twelve members of the vocal harmony group sang today, three of whom are featured in today's blip, but the entire group consists of 700 singers across Japan. 300 of them will be performing in Kobe in January to commemorate the anniversary of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake. I may go and see them perform there because they were very good indeed.

The focus of our date was a classical music concert by students from Hyogo Prefectural Nishinomiya High School, a prestigious music school in Nishinomiya. The students who performed today, all aged 17, were absolutely outstanding. The highlights for me in today's concert were
Duet Andante and Brillant Op.92  by Mendelssohn, The Aquarium, Fossils and Finale from Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saens and, most outstanding of all, Etude no.11 by Franz Liszt, performed by a student who recently won first prize in a national music contest. He was incredible.

Now we are home and looking forward to eating our meal and Christmas cake and opening our presents together with the kids. 

Merry Christmas everyone!