Newsletter March 2023, Opus 2
Hi there,
I hope that your March is starting out great.
At the end of February, I had a wonderful time visiting Michigan for a week. I performed and taught a masterclass at The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and Michigan State University in East Lansing. I also had a great opportunity performing a duo piece with harpsichordist, Shuntaro Sugie. The piece was written by a Polish composer, Weronika Ratusińska (b. 1977) called the Nymphs for soprano saxophone and harpsichord.
Last Saturday, I was thrilled to give a lecture about classical saxophone to members of the LA Phil Composer Fellowship Program, which is a youth program to foster future composers. My goal was to spread awareness of the potential for classical saxophone techniques and sound.
Some upcoming performances…
After a long hiatus due to the pandemic, I am returning to the Los Angeles Philharmonic on Tuesday, March 14th at 8:00 p.m. The program is the LA Phil New Music Group with John Adams at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. I will take part in the piece by Katherine Young entitled Spores (world premiere, LA Phil commission).
Two concerts of Armenian Music with ZePure Trio: Chika Inoue, saxophone, Maksim Vilechkin, cello and Ovanes Arakelyan, piano. Playing music by Komitas, Babajanian, Khachaturian, Arutiunian, Baghdassaryan, Sayat Nova, Khachatur Avetisyan, Stepan Davtyan, Edgar Hovhanisyan and arrangements of several anonymous folk songs.
Friday, March 31st at 7:00 p.m. @ Glendale Presbyterian Church
Saturday, April 1st at 2:00 p.m @ The Brand Library Recital Hall
I also wanted to share my morning routine that I recently rekindled. It is called the Radio Exercise No. 1 (Rajio Taiso Daiichi) that every Japanese knows by heart. It takes only 3 minutes’ time and does not require so much space but I find that it is quite effective to get your blood flow going. Check out this video of me demonstrating the exercise. The piano accompaniment was played by my composer and pianist friend, Leon Thomasian.
I hope you have a wonderful month of March. Spring is around the corner!
Best wishes,
Chika