I went for West Winds symphonic orchestra's performance on Sat night. Titled "All things Japanese", the orchestra (band of Bukit Batok CC) played pieces of Japanese music or music composed about Japan or composed by Japanese composers. I was there with some of my JC classmates, to support our JC history teacher who was playing the clarinet. Surprisingly, the concert was pretty good. The music was lively and I enjoyed myself.

I must say, though, that I loved the second half more. Because of the presence of guest conductor ITO Yasuhide, who is simply amazing. He started it off by playing the piano while conducting the band at the SAME TIME. It was just so amazing. And funny. And cute. He was like, bouncing off his seat, kicking his legs, making cute hand gestures and I was genuinely afraid he'll like, bounce off the piano seat or something. And so began my "love affair" (as James puts it) with him.

The next few pieces, he simply focused on conducting, and they were all brilliant. I enjoyed every single one of them, and you can tell it's pure talent. I especially love "Gloriosa -- Symphonic Tone Poem for Band". A piece about the hidden Christians in Japan way back in Edo period, and how they had to practise their faith in secret. The haunting sound of the bell, the Gregorian chants, the gradual movement from darkness to light etc. etc. made it wonderful. And yes, all the pieces he conducted at the second half were all composed by him!!! More brilliance. And he will actually single out those good players and applaud them. And he runs out and jumps onto his conducting stand everytime he comes out to conduct the next piece of music. He is just so cute!

And, I think he really enjoyed himself a lot, 'cos the encore dragged on and on! But I wasn't complaining, it was fun watching his antics on stage, which really livened the entire performance. In one of the encore pieces, he joint-conducted with Maj Philip Tng (who was conductor for the first half). It started off slow (and a little sleep-inducing), then all of a sudden, ITO Yasuhide jumped off the stand and shouted "1,2,3!". The band then burst into lively rock band-ish music and Mr. Ito just started bobbing around and clapping his hands. Then he passed the conducting to Maj Tng and went to play on the piano (where he kept bouncing on the seat again). I tell you, he is a genuis. And so cute. And funny. And endearing. And... old. But still cute. HAHAHA. And so lively. And he just wouldn't like stop, like he kept coming back on stage on kept conducting on and on, until Jas was like exclaiming, "Why he keep coming back? I want to eat!" Haha. Yah. It was so funny.

You just have to be there lah, to get what I mean. I'm trying to find videos of his conducting (not so successful yet), but here's one of him playing Gloriosa on the piano. You have to click on the words I typed below (ie. the title of the piece) to go to the video on Youtube, cos they disabled embedding.

Gloriosa- Symphonic Tone Poem for Band (ITO Yasuhide)

Oh, isn't it a moving piece of music? Pure genius.

And this is the orchestra version (not conducted by Mr. Ito, sadly). I don't know if it's really good though, cos I haven't watched the video (was loading damn slowly). In the meantime, I'll continue hunting for more brilliant pieces by Mr. Ito! And by the way, the pieces I posted or linked here are just movement 1. There's links to movements 2 and 3 as well, but I was too lazy haha. But you have to listen to the entire thing!