Holidays Concert 2021

Thanksgiving Concert 2021

Mother’s Day: May Concert

A Mother’s Instinct

Daniel Choi

A mother’s instinct - 

As visceral as a scream, 

As automatic as a knee jerk

With intentions as tender as the chicken Mom makes, 

With motives as pure as the water she ensures we can afford

Like sunlight in the love that radiates from her once inhabited womb, 

Like rain in its constancy and persistence

A mother’s instinct knows no end

In sight, for it had never latched onto the child from the beginning,

Instead, the child was always under its wing, it grew from within its womb.

Stubborn and persevering, visceral and tender, giving without receiving,

A mother’s instinct is perhaps God’s proudest creation.

Poem by Stella Schick

There is only one day 

Set aside for celebrating our mothers, 

But we ought to spend the whole year 

Cherishing them. For who else will

Wake up in the middle of the night 

And sit at the side of your bed and 

Hold your hand when you are ill?

And who else will reassure you 

That you are actually very good-looking 

And very clever and very kind and very talented

Despite what others might think?

And who else will make sure that you are

Always well-fed and well-dressed and 

Well-prepared for anything you might encounter?

And who else would give you 

Just one more minute please

Before it’s time to turn off the lights?

And who else gives such tender hugs 

Or such witty comments 

Or makes the very best sandwiches, 

Without your having to ask for it?

Perhaps it is true that there are times 

When we wish they were not so strict or so doting 

But then in the end we see that these qualities 

Are not flaws after all. So, in short—

We have more reasons to celebrate our mothers

Than we have days in which to celebrate them.

New York Presbyterian Church: March Concert

December Holidays Concert with Language of Music Ensemble

This Time of Year

Daniel Choi

The holidays, a time of festivity and cheer.

Reflecting on the year past,

Awaiting the year to come,

Gratitude for what we have,

Appreciation for our ability to celebrate,

These things just can’t be wrapped neatly with paper and a ribbon.

They can’t be reduced to a parcel or package,

Shared on a certain day.

They can’t be treated like things you can exchange for something else,

Things that are valuable only this time of year.

No, they must have been given and received all year long, long before the gift giving season.

Treat every day like the holidays

The Prelude

Stella Schick

I am not partial towards winter.

The cold, the trees stripped of their leaves,

The grey, the interminable grey, and at night the

Horrible black of a starless sky. In winter it is

Supposed to snow. That is how it is in paintings,

In old pictures of gentlemen in three piece suits and

Capes having snowball fights in January. 

One gets to expecting snow, to expecting the sparkling

Twinkling warmth of a room with the windows shut

Against the cold, with hot cocoa steaming in the kitchen,

With the warmest sweaters you own, with old music on the

Stereo, the name of which only your father’s father

Remembers. With the secret family recipe, with the
Present you’ve been waiting for all year; the dress or the 

Concert tickets or the leatherbound book. With the frost

Outside, creeping in swirls up the windows, with the 

Grandparents who take you to the Nutcracker and buy you

Sweets in the intermission, and the dog to curl up with at night.

This year I watched the green turn to red turn to dead grey

All alone. There are no stars this year, only clouds turned

Charcoal grey at night. There is no snow—only freezing rain.

But with winter comes spring. In fact, without winter there can

Be no spring. Spring, the season of flowers, of birth, of

Books you haven’t read and gentle beaming sunlight. 

Life cannot come from nothing. And we are all happier

In the respite of our sadness. “In spite of us, and

Without our permission, there comes at last an end 

To the bitter frosts. One morning the wind turns,” Van Gogh

once wrote to his brother, “and there is a thaw.

And so I must still have hope.”

Hope During a Pandemic

Metamorphosis

Daniel Choi, 6.25.2020

Catastrophe at a new decade’s dawn. 

Ravaged. But US? Impenetrable. 

TikTok! No need to fear. Life carries on.

Bliss. Wrapped in cocoon. All negligible.

Uh-oh. A break in the cocoon. Slumber

Cut by first appearance of light. Painful!

Harsh! Blinding! Scorching! We find a number

Of comforts in darkness. Light? Disdainful.

But to live in fear forever? Lowly

Insect peering out: cocoon is so small!

Sees sun, grass, bees, truth, love, faith, agony,

Pain, forgive… Oh, joy! Music in the hall!

Torrent of light! Burst cocoon. Flight at dawn.

We can see now, feel now - life carries on. 

Thanksgiving Concert with Language of Music Ensemble

Performance on 11/22/20. With Isaac Jin (violin), Joseph Yoon (cello), Stella Schick (poetry)
and Daniel Choi (music and poetry).

At Least

Daniel Choi

At least there is bread in front of me for lunch, even though I don’t know what’s for dinner.

At least I can see the trees, even though I can’t hear the birds chirping.

At least I can learn at school, even though I can’t call anyone Mom or Dad.

At least I have good friends, even though I don’t have my mom with me.

At least I can stroll through nature and look around at the blue sky, even though I may not be able to jog.

At least I can listen to music in the radio, even though I can’t see the people dancing in the television set.

At least I can understand other people’s minds, even though I can’t understand complex theories.

I understand what I don’t have and I appreciate the many things I do have.

Success and Failure

Daniel Choi

Life is hard. I don’t deny that.

But there is something remarkable that

Happens every time we struggle, every

Time we fail, we find our better angels

And we stop and marvel at

The beauty of the 

Absurdity

That is

Life.

But every time we succeed, every

Time we breathe, exhilarated, at the finish

Line, on the cusp of it all, we look back at the moments of failure,

And we are grateful, for it is not the critic that counts, but the credit belongs to one in 

The arena, who strives valiantly, marred by blood and dust.

To this we say thank

You.

Paper Geese

Stella Schick

If you remember something

Well enough you forget everything about it,

Like a stuffed animal worn

Bare by the force of

Love after a very long time.

My life was so long ago that it has

Become a fairytale. Back then I

Went to the philharmonic and

Woke at dawn sometimes and

Dreamt I came from space.

Our home was so far north that

At night the window above my bed revealed

A bright blue sky;

A fever dream.

I loved birds, for I longed to fly, and I loved water Because it felt like going home.

All of this I cherished, though I hold it

Closer now, because it is so far away.

When I was a child my father insisted upon Thank-you notes, which was like a death sentence.

I have too many relatives to count on one hand,

And the patience of a hungry cat. But every year, Every holiday, every birthday, each relative would Find a card in their mailbox, written in a shaky scrawl And signed with hearts or incorrect cursive.

We both still keep up the practice, though

Many of his relatives who first taught him have Stopped sending the cards, the notes. They would be Like a flock of birds if you collected them all,

Like silly little paper cranes. They are still tedious to

write.

My fingers still shake, and the tips bare callouses, ‘Arising from frequent contact of the fingertips

With the strings.’ I wonder if all my relatives still read The cards, the notes, the paper cranes.

Every where humanity goes we create things out of nothing

And sometimes, if we are so wonderfully disposed, They become gifts. Or love letters. Or talismans. Once on a winter morning my mother and I

Rose before the sun, unrecognizable under layers of Coats, hats, mittens. We drove an hour, maybe Two. We waited by a lake, looking-glasses in hand,

while

The sun woke up, and the mist billowed around the

water,

And above us, all around us, the sound surrounding us

like a

Symphony, like a concerto, came the geese; a whole

flock of them,

Like sheets of paper rising into the air and singing for Dawn, the same rosy-fingered dawn of Homer.

Once my parents took me to the philharmonic for their Yearly proper excursion. The orchestra played Liszt, And in the finale the organist played his solo with Such gusto that my father thought the building would

come down,

That there was an earthquake, and I felt the music In my heart, in the quivering of my seat.

I wish you could write thank-you notes for things like that.

My favorite composer is still Liszt and Geese still look very friend-shaped to me.

2018-2019

08.24.19
Young Musicians Concerto Night

Gabriel’s Oboe
04.21.19
Bedford Presbyterian Church

Kazabue -Mishiru Ohsima- 웰컴투 동막골

09.08.2018.

Somang church in NJ