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