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

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