the beauty of music.

Stars frontman Torquil Campbell blowing a stream of rose petals
photo credit: samuel he

the concert was good! i have a lot to say about the not-so-suitable venue of esplanade concert hall, the very poor lighting design and execution and a little off-pitch singing for the 1st song. but all is well and redeemed by the band's amazing talent, synergy and charisma.

if anyone's interested,

STARS live in singapore!
setlist

1. The night starts here
2. take me to the riot
3. soft revy
4. window bird
5. snowman
6. reunion
7. bitches in tokyo
8. going going gone
9. look up
10. ageless beauty
11. midnight coward
12. a thread cut with a carving knife
13. undertow
14. trying to say
15. elevator love song
16. your ex-lover is dead

encores
17. happy birthday to guitar player
18. set yourself
19. my favourite book
20. calendar girl
21. one more night

so all in all, great gig. music always gets to me.

just a few days ago i was reminded by an article i came across on huffpost last year. one on joshua bell, celebrated violinist prodigy and virtuoso, who wore a baseball cap and played his almost-4-million-dollar violin in a busy washington DC metro station. over 1000 people walked past this guy who sells out concerts at US$100 per seat, and only 7 people stopped to listen, and only 1 recognized him.

this article by washingtonpost columnist later went on to win a pulitzer prize, and the article can be found here.

i have a habit of stopping to listen to buskers if they are so good that they catch my attention. i give money if they are truly talented, even in singapore. when i travel, i like to video good buskers and grab their myspace URLs and whatnots. even when i don't understand what they're singing (case in point, this great guitar-strumming energetic duo my sis and i spotted in kyoto. well they are cute japanese boys, so that's a plus).

but i admit that i'm biased, my sister too. i guess the reason why our ears are more attuned to music is 'cos of our training in classical music. now, we are so thankful to have finished our music education (no more scales and sightreading!), and thankful that we have received that education 'cos it has made my life a more beautiful one.

the washingtonpost columnist brings up several issues from this little experiment (and that's why its so brilliant that it won a pulitzer prize). such as is beauty beautiful if no one notices and appreciates. and is beauty only beautiful in one context and not another? people dismissed joshua bell and looked over his amazing performance because he was busking in a subway station and they were all rushing for time. an example he mentioned was to take a $5million painting out of a museum and into a restaurant, and no one would notice its true value.

well as you can see, my thoughts are swirling about as i listen to bell's performances of my favorite classical pieces. and it's late so i shall save this for another time.