nai video blog

Liz Lipschultz, a Fulbright English teacher living in Comrat, Moldova is keeping a fantastic video blog. I highly recommend looking at all of entries. Her most recent video is about nai. Many thanks to Liz for her excellent work! Here is the address so you can see it! http://moldovamoldovamoldova.wordpress.com/ 

Lautarii and the nai maker

It continues to be very cold in Chisinau but today the sun is out. It is not like Wyoming with its dry air. We are very close to the Black Sea so the air is humid and stays very cold even in the sunshine. When the wind blows up from the southwest it is bitter! Yesterday I went to see Lautarii, one of the national folklore ensembles in Moldova. It is led by Nikolae Botgros, a member of a family with a long standing line of "lautars" or professional musicians.

The original lautars were primarily Roma musicians serving as slaves in Turkish and Romanian courts starting in about the 16th century. They were required to play all kinds of music in order to earn money for their masters - Turkish and Western European classical music as well as Moldovan village music for weddings and other special events. After the end of slavery in the mid 1800s these musicians continued to perform and developed guilds of players capable of playing a wide variety of musical forms for every kind of event. This may have been the beginning of the fascinating ability of Moldovan musicians to use nai, cobza (lute with an attitude), and other local instruments for all these kinds of music. This ensemble of 17 violins, bass, cymbalom, two accordions, two trumpets, two valve trombones, two clarinets, and nai, played with speed and precision that is hard to believe. The president of Moldova spoke along with many dignitaries in honor of the 40th anniversary of the group (it always seems that there is an anniversary connected with concerts) and it went on for five hours. Earlier in the day I had the pleasure of spending two and a half hours with master nai maker Grigori Covaliu in his workshop in the village of Durlesti. He is a dedicated and talented craftsman with a wide reputation for his excellent work. I now am very happy to own two of his instruments, one with a three octave range and one with that plus four extra low notes. We talked (all in Romanian) and played many different nai plus a lot of other flute type instruments that he makes. It was a great adventure for me to ride the 101 microbus to the Alimentara Izhvor (a sort of convenience store with two springs by it) where I called Covaliu and he walked down from his house to show me the way. A great day!

colinde and school lunch

I have been treated to lots of Moldovan Christmas and winter songs (colinde) during the past week. I love them for their simple and beautiful melodies. Children's songs tend to be syllabic while adult colinde are more melismatic but not anything like the "glorias" in "Angels We Have Heard on High." Last week Andrei, one of the young people who run Acasa la Mama (my neighborhood Moldovan food restaurant) gave me a CD of colinde because we had talked about them one evening. Last Monday I attended a beautiful concert of colinde at the Sala cu Orgel featuring a solo female singer and a wonderful classical guitarist. Their arrangements were excellent, the performance was great, and the setting was quite elegant.

Then today I went to a festival-competition for the performance of Moldovan winter traditions at a school in the neighborhood called "Botanica." I heard about fifteen schools present various versions of Moldovan winter and Christmas musical and dramatic forms. These include a hilarious acting out of a man trying to sell a goat. The goat gets sick and they call in a doctor or a gypsy healer and then haggle a lot over the price. We also heard boys doing men's songs with a whip, bells, and a friction drum and shouting. There were a few beautiful solo songs and at the end of each performance lots of new year well-wishing and throwing of grain (the adjudicators were covered in grain). I knew two of the adjudicators and they invited me to "share the table" with them which in this case meant a school lunch at the Liceul Teoretic "L. Rebreanu." It was excellent. We had large bowls of soup, bread, beets, cabbage, two kinds of meat, fried potatoes, cheese bread, Moldovan pizza, juice, and hot tea. We all felt well fortified to hear more performances! And I may not have to eat for a few days.

End of semester and holidays

Today (Saturday the 11th) is quite cold with a good stiff breeze from the northwest. People keep telling me that it will get even colder in the next few days. The students have finished their exams and most of their concerts, but the Academy building was full of people today. I practiced there all morning and especially enjoyed the decorations the door people have put up. The woman in charge today just beamed when I told her that they were "foarte frumos! (very beautiful). Downtown is now looking very festive with a large Christmas tree and lots of lights all around. There is even a small holiday train for taking children around. Everyone is bundled up against the cold but having a great time. The stray dogs are becoming a bit more aggressive about trying to catch pigeons in the park and it seems like adults and children are trying stay warm by chasing the pigeons. My normal walk home from the academy of music takes me past the president's residence and the past three days or so I have been detoured by a policeman. It appears that there are men dressed in fancy white uniforms (maybe for the holidays) at the door of the house waiting for someone important. This is fun to see, but the people I talk to are hoping for some positive political action now that the elections are over. As always, it is an interesting and festive time to be in Moldova. I am looking forward to a concert of colinde, Christmas songs, on Monday at the Sala cu orga.

Many hands

Some people have asked me if all the leaf sweepers become snow shovelers when it snows, and I can tell you that they do! Throughout October and November all over Chisinau people came out with brooms, many of them handmade with a bundle of sticks, and swept leaves every day in front of businesses and public buildings and especially in Pushkin Park and around the big statue of Stefan cel Mare. The statue is the main place to meet people in the center of the city. If you want to meet up you can just say, "See you at the statue" and everyone knows what you mean. Today as I passed the statue I saw the leaf sweepers out with snow shovels, many of them handmade from cardboard or pieces of scrap wood, shoveling. They began to make their way up into the park, but then it began to rain - hard! The snow all turned to slush and I hope they were able to go some place warm. I served as an international observer during the national elections last week and saw the same kind of team work among the election workers. I was stationed at a very busy polling place where almost 1800 ballots were cast. I sat with about a dozen observers, most from political parties but about five of us were impartial, and watched as a very efficient team worked to keep things moving for the voters and make sure that the election rules were followed and everyone was able to vote. They were great! I sat for twelve hours with a great team of people dedicated to making democracy work in Moldova. I was quite moved by their dedication and hopes for the country. At exactly 9:00 p.m. the election team went to work to count the votes. They took the two very large boxes of votes and dumped them out on a large table and went to work. The team of about ten took each ballot and straightened it and put it in a pile. Since there were 39 political parties each ballot was about two feet long and had been folded to be able to fit into the boxes which were pretty full by about 2 p.m. Everyone worked carefully and I knew that the team would take all those ballots, straighten them, and count them fairly. Some of the observers from specific parties were pretty pushy, but the election team was very patient with them and went about their work. They finished at about midnight and we all went home. I am so impressed with the way people in Moldova work this way in so many situations. They are careful and respectful of each other and many hands make seemingly enormous jobs possible to finish.

Winter in Chisinau!

Today it is winter. It is the kind of damp cold that makes -4 C feel like the coldest weather ever. We have had a good stiff wind all day and now it has been snowing pretty well for about three hours. I am having to reorganize my Moldovan fashion statement and I am happy to see that knit caps are acceptable. I must learn the Russian and Romanian words for all the winter apparel. High heels are still on the streets but furs have come out of storage. When I arrived at the Academy of Music at 8:00 a.m. the woman at the door pinched my cheeks and laughed because they were so red. The big Christmas tree was erected in the main square today and I discovered the tree behind my TV set. It is already decorated so I only need to plug it in to make it light up. As I arrived at the apartment building this afternoon a person leaving instructed me to be sure to close the outer door. Tonight I went to Acasa la Mama and discovered an amazing Moldovan soup. I was looking through books for Moldovan Christmas songs to play (Colinde) and the waiter went through his list of 5000 tunes on his computer so he could play some for me. As I left the restaurant there were lots of people out enjoying the snow, walking dogs, pushing children down the street using cardboard boxes for sleds, and peering out from their giant furry hoods. Tomorrow I will go to an English language class at the State Pedagogical Institute to play some Christmas carols on my flutes and have them sing some Christmas carols. I will miss the daily skate skiing in Wyoming this winter, but Chisinau seems to be ready for the cold weather. I see on the BBC news that there is a big cold snap in northern Europe today and I think it might be headed our way.

concerts and surprises!

We have had a week of amazing concerts in Chisinau. I have attended all three concerts to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the conservatory of music and they were pretty wonderful. On Tuesday I went to visit the rehearsal of the folklore ensemble and opened the door to find a small room filled with instrumentalists and singers. The atmosphere was charged with happiness and excitement about the performance on Thursday. Any ensemble with five nai players, two accordions, a cymbalom, bass, trumpets, clarinets, and eight violins has to be good! The director had them get a chair for me so I could sit at the front of the room next to him. I know many of the singers and players and they seemed to as pleased to have me there as I was to be there! Their concert on Thursday was excellent. The director is very well known and has played a very important part in founding and maintaining this ensemble dedicated to the living traditions of music heard in all kinds of celebrations, restaurants, concerts, and even cell phones around Moldova. After the rehearsal I asked him if they were performing again this semester. I must get better at understanding Romanian because I thought he said that they would play for about an hour for a violin festival in Chisinau this morning. I woke to the first snow of the year, dressed warmly, and went to find the place he had said to meet. At the last minute as I was leaving the apartment I decided to dress nicely with nice pants and a sports coat. I am glad I did because it turned out that the address I had was an empty store front where about ten people met to be transported to another village for a huge festival event that lasted until 9 p.m. I sat with the judges, was treated very well, heard hours of excellent music, ate good food, and met the famous Vasile Iovu. He wrote the nai study book I am using so I had him sign it for me. This day was very different from the day of eight hours of practicing I had planned but it was great. Last night I had tried placinta for the first time. Tonight I was able to ask, "Este placinta?" (Is that placinta?) and people responded with, "Da, Da!" and gave me lots of it to eat. Last night I witnessed a performance of the accordion ensemble "Concertino" which is made up of Moldovan accordionists who now tour all over the world. Seven virtuosi on accordions with drums bass and piano cannot go wrong!

Zamfir - Yes!!!

Zamfir performed in Chisinau tonight. It was a fantastic event at the Filharmonic Hall. He performed with the Iurie Borsch orchestra, an ensemble from Chisinau, but it sounded like he had performed with them every day for years! The hall was sold out and enthusiasm was very high for this concert sponsored by Jurnal TV and the Romanian Cultural Institute. When I arrived I was greeted by my nai teacher who then introduced me to the Filharmonic Hall house manager. She was very happy to meet me and told me that my professor is the very best (which I already knew) and that the nai is absolutely the best and most interesting instrument. I will remember this tomorrow morning when I am struggling with my E flat major scale once again. It is an amazing instrument and I must agree that it is very special. Zamfir was amazing. I first heard of him while teaching in Australia when I was in my early 20s. I was not too sure then what to think of the panflute playing classical music. Tonight Zamfir was quite at home playing incredibly beautiful and virtuosic Romanian folk melodies and dance tunes, along with some of his hits (Lonely Shepherd - the "Kill Bill" theme). The band consisted of cymbalom, two trumpets, nai and clarinet, two accordions, bass, viola, and two violins. When combined with the special style of Zamfir it is hard to go wrong. This was a great night of music and I feel quite honored to have been part of it.

Concerts and Remembrances

This is another busy week of concerts. The conservatory of music is celebrating its 70th anniversary so there is a series of concerts to commemorate that event and all of the people who have been part of the process of teaching and learning music in Moldova. Last night I was quite moved by a concert put on the school called Ciprian Porumbescu. The concert included young musicians playing all kinds of music from classical music to jazz to Moldovan folk music. Of course I especially enjoyed the amazing playing to two nai virtuosi, one in the folk ensemble and one as a soloist with the chamber orchestra. The most moving aspect was the remembrance of teachers and students who have passed away. There was no shortage of tears as they played a recording of the voice of a former administrator and musician from the school, and a video of a performance of a violinist performing a piece written to commemorate Porumbescu. I could not help marveling at the contrast with our music schools in universities where older faculty members are largely not well-respected as the younger faculty members negotiate their own legacies. We forget the enormous efforts and sacrifices of the teachers who have come before us in our departments of music, even though they may not have done things "our way." The flowers, tears, and tributes last night were an inspiration and joy to all of us. Tonight I have a ticket to see and hear the great Zamfir (many people I talk with do not believe that he will really be here - I will let you know), on Wednesday and Thursday the Academy of Music will put on big concerts, and on Friday we are all looking forward to the big accordion ensemble event at the Sala cu Orga. This will be a fun event since I get to sit with a group of young Moldovans whose fathers and grandfathers played accordion when they were growing up, and some of them even are learning to play themselves. A big week!

Special days at the Academy

I was surprised and happy to discover on Tuesday that this is a special week at the Academy of Music here in Chisinau. It is the Concours - Tamara Ciobanu editia a XI-a, a week long folklore event focused on singing. When I went to attend a class I discovered our normal room full of students from one of the other ethnomusicology teachers watching a video of a staged wedding with an emphasis on the various aspects of songs and dances for each part of the wedding. When the video failed we were pleased to have the instructor bring in a young girl in costume with an accompanist to sing for us. She was great! When we finally gave up on the video we went to the sala mare (large hall) to witness the children's competiton that is part of the week of events. The children were great and each had prepared and performed a series of songs with accompaniment in full costume. Wednesday and Thursday I have spent several hours in the hall to hear the "mature" performances. This means that there are three different age categories considered as mature, but the performers varied in age from 17 to 80. Grandparents performed for the young people they have taught all their lives. Of course my attention is often on the accompanying bands. The nai players are wonderful, often switching between nai and fluier (end blown flute). The other instruments are usually accordion, bass, violin, and cobza. Cobza is like a lute with an attitude. At first glance is looks like a baroque lute with a large rounded body and short neck, but it is strung with between eight and twelve strings and is made to play loud so it can be heard in bands with nai, violin, accordion, and even brass instruments. It ranges from an elegant melodic instrument to a driving chordal accompaniment to drive acsac dance rhythms (7/8). What a treat!  And today someone said to me, "Treb mergem!" which I think might mean something like, "We must be making some progress!" Yes, we are on the road. A meaningful feature of many Moldovan songs is that they begin in a major key but always end in the relative minor with a descending flatted second. This is a beautiful but mournful sound.

Mergem - on our way!

Tonight at the Academy of Music I kept hearing people say, “Mergeti?” or “Mergem!” These mean, “are you on your way (formal)?” or “We are on our way.” When people ask how I am doing on the nai they usually say, “Mergeti?” This is the formal way of saying, “Are you making your way on the nai?” The first time someone asked me this I said, “Mai rar” which was definitely not the right answer. This means, “very slowly” and even if I feel like I am going slowly it is better to say, “Mergem” meaning “we are on our way” in response. The person asking the question was not sure what to think of my answer. She had meant to be friendly and my response indicated that I was not sure if I was making any progress on the nai. We are always making progress, no matter how slow.  Tonight one of the other nai students said, “Mergeti” when I complimented him on his playing, a violinist and my nai professor exchanged “mergeti,” and on my way out of the building the woman at the door said “mergem” to me. I find this to be a wonderful way of encouraging each other and indicating that we are indeed on our way to playing better or being better. I will definitely have to be more aware of this term. What a delightful and encouraging way of greeting another “fellow traveler.”

Chisinau - A city of music!

I have had visitors the past few days. They are young Fulbright English teaching assistants living in Azerbaijan and Georgia on their way home from a conference in Kiev. They wanted to see Chisinau and i have been very happy to host them at my apartment. And they have helped me to see just how much music is alive in our city! On Thursday evening they all attended a recital of flute music at the Academy of Music. The young flutists were excellent and I was happy to contribute a baroque solo sonata on my antique flute and to play in the ensemble. After the concert we walked down on Pushkin Strada to find some food and saw my friend Marin, the violinist, entering a restaurant to perform with the amazing nai player Boris Rudenco and his band. The band was excellent (nai, cymbalom, violin, and accordion) and we even had some dancing, much to their amusement. Yesterday the Moldovan band Zdob si Zdub (google them) performed along with several other bands at an outdoor concert downtown and we got to hear the sound check - pretty amazing! I joined several Moldovan friends to attend a jazz concert with the Russian guitarist Alexander Vinitsky and a wonderful Moldovan violinist. And the accordion player continues to play in Pushkin Park every morning. I have become well known at the Sala cu Orgel and am now looking forward to a performance by an accordion ensemble (ten accordions?) on the 26th. It looks like we will have a big group coming along!

Flutes and archives

My amazing colleague and nai teacher from the Academy of Music has been having me help out with teaching flute. Today I made a very complicated repair on a flute belonging to one of his students and last week I coached the flute students as they prepared for some performances. This has been fun for me. I am in an environment where I mostly have to do everything in which I am not competent - speaking Russian and Romanian, playing the nai, and living in Moldova, a very different place from Laramie, Wyoming. It has all been fun, but I have enjoyed being able to make some kind of contribution. Tomorrow I hope to work in the archives of recordings of folkloric performances dating back to the 1960s. I was there last week and found it to be an amazing collection of material mostly on reel to reel tapes. Much of it cannot be played because of the condition of the tapes, but much of it is very accessible from a computerized archive. My host for listening to the collection is a very talented graduate student who plays violin as well as studying ethnomusicology. I am hoping to assist him in creating some kind of backup and sound playback system. I also have access now to phonograph recordings from the mid to late 20th century. I find this especially interesting for the synthesis of jazz and Moldovan music played by "tarafs" or bands that play for weddings and other special family events. I find that in Moldova, more than in any other European country I have visited, people know something about the music of the villages and even use it for things like cell phones ring tones. I want to know more about why this is so.

Crossing the street in Moldova

Crossing the street in Moldova always involves skill and a keen eye for action. It is important to remember that taxi drivers and minibus drivers stop for nothing and most drivers are generally trying to make the most of the opportunities to get through as they see them. I tend to be extra cautious when getting ready to cross the street and often wait until there is not traffic at all (could be a long wait....). A beautiful exception is that cars and pedestrians always make way for small children. The downtown sidewalks can be crowded with thousands of people walking all different speeds and in all different directions, and somehow even the smallest and most unstable toddlers make it through. People love to see children and often smile (even the really tough looking dudes) when they see a small child. This is an advantage for crossing the street. I have even seen taxi drivers and minibuses come to a complete stop for a child. They patiently wait for strollers and toddlers. So - the lesson for me is to follow a stroller when I want to cross the street!

A celebration!

Last evening as I was walking up to the Sala cu Orgel to attend a concert, Professor Negura called me on my cell phone and asked, "Rodney, where are you?" When I told him, we decided to meet at the Sala cu Orgel. He explained that he was going to attend a special event for a two month old baby named Sofia. Professor Negura will be something like a godparent for this child. He also explained that it would last all night! We met a young couple with a car, stopped by Negura's apartment, and drove to Durlesti. The party was in a special place for events where there were tables set up with lots of food. The music was excellent, of course, and I had a fantastic evening of dancing and sharing quite a time with the group gathered for this baby. We survived the incident with flaming salmon at our table (it did involve me and my pants being in flames for a few seconds - well, I guess it was the stuff from the candles that was in flames). I was so glad to have great company, music, and food for the evening. The baby is well blessed!

Food and Wine in Moldova

I have just returned from eating dinner at Acasa la Mama, a wonderful Moldovan restaurant right across the street from my apartment block. I have eaten there several times and been delighted each time. The waiters are friendly and very attentive, and the atmosphere includes a mixture of Moldovan folkloric music and Moldovan pop. I always return to the apartment with a good feeling from Acasa la Mama, which means something like, "at home at mom's house." After a disastrous home cooking event this week that included some rotten frozen vegetables (I should have know better.....) I was extra happy with "mom's" cooking.

One aspect of Moldovan food is variety and experimentation. In the many times I have eaten with my good friends here in Chisinau, the food has always been slightly different and special. From sweet cherries, pears, and apples in jars taken from a plot belonging to the family about twenty kilometers away, to many fish dishes, each is different.

At "Acasa la Mama" I can order the same dish but get it prepared differently each time. Tonight I had a fresh salad made with peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, oil and vinegar, and goat cheese, much like a Shop salad from Bulgaria. Then I had fasoli with grilled onions (amazing), and finally a pot of "stew" with beef and (tonight) mushrooms and sauce.

In addition to being an excellent nai teacher and Romanian language coach, my music teacher has begun to teach me about Moldovan wines. They are among the best in the world, and quite famous in Europe and Asia. Yesterday after my nai lesson he served me wine from the northern part of Moldova (Bucovina), a dry and strong red wine. Today he served me a sweeter red wine from the central part of the country, near here. Each time he has brought the wine in a two liter pop bottle, indicating that it was home made. Fantastic!

Food is important in Moldova and I am certainly happy to be able to enjoy it. I think the most unusual food I have encountered was the seasonal smoked plums that can be eaten by themselves or cooked into various dishes.

traveling like a Moldovan

In Chisinau, Moldovans tend to carry light and simple briefcases with them. I tend to carry big bags with lots of flutes and books in them, but decided to try the small briefcase idea. It makes perfect sense for traveling on the minibuses that go all over the city. Basically, during busy times (almost all the time), the vehicle just keeps picking up passengers until everyone is packed as tightly as possible all the way back - and then it picks up some more! This makes it very difficult when I am carrying a big heavy bag.

I bought a small bag at the grocery store and have enjoyed using it a lot. Of course, my problem is that I must carry the nai (big panflute) with me most of the time. the longest tube is 17 inches and the instrument is about 20 inches across the other way, so I have some enormous bags for carrying it which I tend to load up with other stuff (dictionaries, books, etc.) so I have not really made much progress.

Realizing that a lot of life in Chisinau, like in any city, is a matter of style, I have decided to get someone to make one of these really cool form fitted bags for the nai. They are shaped like the panflute itself and I hope will make not only a great style statement for me, but also make carrying and traveling easier. I will let you know!

Great Music at AMTAP

I am really enjoying the Academy of Music, Theatre, and Fine Arts in Chisinau. It is my Fulbright host institution and I spend quite a bit of each day there. They have arranged for me to check out a room for practicing any time, even on weekends. It is a lively place, filled with sounds of practicing on all the musical instruments I know from American schools plus nai (panflute), accordion (lots of them - and they are great!), cimbalom, cobza, and others. Plus everyone likes scales that are outside of the scales I have always practiced for jazz and classical music.

I will give a presentation for the Academy of Sciences of Moldova on Thursday of this week. I have prepared a 30 minute presentation on gamelan in Bali and Wyoming, with a focus on the Balinese concepts of desa (place) - kala (time) - patra (circumstance). I am looking forward to it!

It is very humid today (raining) and I find that I am not able to play fast because my lip sticks to the nai! I cannot play very fast anyway, but I must ask my teacher how to keep speedy on these wet days!

A haircut and the neighbors

Some of you have been wondering about how my neighbors are taking the nai practice in my apartment. I have been very careful to be respectful and not practice too late, and I put myself in a back room where the sound should not carry too far. But on Saturday and very nice man with a small dog came to the apartment and told me in Russian that he would like to take a nap and that the flute was disturbing him. Frankly, the high notes were disturbing me too, so it was kind of nice to take a break and try to think of other places to practice. Musicians get used to finding out of the way places, and I remember very well practicing in the parking garage of the Denver Performing Arts Center when I was in the Colorado Ballet Orchestra, and janitor's closets in the schools where I taught in Melbourne.

Yesterday and today I was at the Academy of Music early to practice. Yesterday I found an empty classroom, but today I used the janitor's closet. Ah well, the life of a musician. Fortunately I am getting better every day and someday the high notes might even sound good!

I have been wanting to get a haircut here in Moldova, but was not sure where to go. It turns out that there is a barbershop right next to my neighborhood Alimentara (small grocery store). It has a big sign that says, "Frizerie." In my jet lagged days I somehow thought maybe it was a big freezer, and then later as I was trying to memorize a lot of new Romanian vocabulary I thought maybe it was a place where they train shop assistants.

In any case, it turned out to be a barbershop (also a new vocabulary word) and I went in on Friday and got an excellent Moldovan haircut.

Christmas songs in Moldova

Today I had the amazing experience of attending a class dedicated to discussing 'colinde,' the beautiful melodies of carols sung at Christmas time in Moldova. Moldova holds a special place in combining melodies and forms from Ukraine with Romanian words, primarily in the eastern region around the Nistru River; religious songs mostly from Orthodox Christianity with ancient epics about nature and famous characters, and melodies shaped by the modal sounds of many influences. The class was a wonderful time of singing with four Moldovans, and looking at various forms of script used to write the words and melodies.

The special form of notation using shapes is not specific like the shaped note singing of North America, but is relative pitches moving from a starting note with the notation indicating intervals and directions. It looks much more fluid than the shaped notes of Primitive Baptist hymnals. (sorry about all the music talk..... but I think it is pretty cool!)

The text we used was written in Romanian using Cyrillic lettering. This form was used for most academic writing during the Soviet era. I was so surprised the first time I began reading - expecting Russian words - but found that it was Romanian!!! It actually flows very well and for me it is really fun.

I will have had four nai lessons in five days! I am working hard, feeling very clumsy, but loving every minute of it! I do hope my neighbors love it too.......

Thanks for all of your emails! I am so glad people are reading the blog!!

Nai lessons

I have started my nai lessons with Professor Negura. He is an excellent teacher and I am really enjoying practicing and studying with him. I have already had two lessons and will have another one tomorrow. He has had me practicing all in "first position" (G major) so far and I am much more relaxed than when I was trying to make my own way. What a joy for me to study with such a distinguished teacher.

I am also really enjoying studying at the Academy of Music. I am taking classes with two excellent professors. They are different levels and different topics related to Moldovan music. Everything is in Romanian language and I am keeping up pretty well. I do think my notes probably end up a lot different from the notes taken by the other students (maybe some different information......) so I check with them sometimes.

It has been raining and cold, but the city is very interesting and I really enjoy walking around. I have become quite interested in attending some more orthodox churches to hear the music. I also plan to attend the Roman Catholic church downtown to hear their choir.

I have a presentation on Balinese gamelan coming up for the Academy of Sciences. My colleague from the Academy has offered to translate for me, which I think means she will translate the transcipt (I already wrote it and sent it to her) and then coach me on pronounciation (I may need a lot of coaching.....). I gave a presentaion on Irish flute for a class yesterday and they seemed very interested.

I will attend two concerts this week at the Sala cu Orgel including one by their resident orchestra. This is the most interesting to me!

Maybe dinner tonight at "acasa la mama".....

Concerts and Soap Operas

Friday night I attended a concert at the wonderful Sala cu Orgel (Organ Hall) in the center of Chisinau. The orchestra was a chamber orchestra from Munich, Germany. It had four first violins, four second violins, two violas, one cello, and one bass, augmented with one flute, one oboe, one horn, one bassoon, one trumpet, and one piano. The players were very young, probably all under or around thirty years of age. The stage is the perfect size for such an ensemble. The concert featured an excellent violin soloist and a concerto for trombone by a Chisinau composer.

The hall is beautiful. I found it quite stunning. The colors are white, blue, and a mauve sort of orange at the front. There are ten large pillars floor to ceiling, ten windows with beautiful blue and white curtains, ten small chandeliers and one huge one in the middle (all glass – many small pieces). The ceiling has gold trim on white, set off by the light blue walls and glass fixtures. The sound was perfect for the orchestra. I look forward to many performances in that hall during the year. It looks as though it the seats could be cleared to make it a perfect space for dancing. Two concerts next week!

Then I came back to the apartment to watch American soap operas with Romanian subtitles. I have known several people from Romania and Moldova who spoke good English and claim to have learned it mostly from watching soap operas with subtitles. At home in Wyoming I hardly every watch TV, so this was an adventure for me.

The special Moldovan twist is that many American movies on TV have actors speaking English (watch their lips…) with Russian overdubbed on the sound track and Romanian subtitles. So once again I get the full Moldovan language treatment! I think I learned to say some things we may not get around to in our language classes….

Last night I played cards with some friends. It was a game called "Who's the fool?" or something like that. Quite a good game, but I was definitely the fool. It made me realize how hard it is to learn new games with a new basic language base! The queens are "dama," the kings are "kronor," the jacks are "valet," and the ace is something I cannot remember - all in Cyrillic!

Chisinau city day!

Yesterday was the official Chisinau city day. What a big celebration! The city closed off almost a mile of Stefan cel Mare boulevard to allow people to set up stall and stages for performances, displays, and stands for selling things. I walked the whole length of it twice. In the big central plaza a huge stage was erected and a hot air balloon was inflated at bout 5 p.m. to prepare for the big ceremonies.

The stands were being set up the day before. Some were made completely of willows and gave a very nice smell to the area. Food was cooking everywhere and items ranging from clothing, crafts, shoes, and books to cell phones and garden tractors. I had to really enjoy the mechanical bull set up for rides near the statues of Pushkin and Stefan cel Mare. It seemed like almost everyone attended. My neighborhoos was suddenly deserted as people made their way up to the festival.

I really enjoy the way many Moldovans take time to talk with me, even when they know I cannot understand everthing they are saying. It is as though the act of conversation as a social event is more important than what is said.

We had another great Romanian class this morning. The class is lively and the students are very bright. It is hard to keep up with the other students!

This weekend I will see what is happening around town. I am spending a lot of time studying, practicing, and working on my own so I will need to get out a bit.

shopping and musical instruments!

Yesterday I experienced Moldovan shopping at its best. I depended on our good friend who is an expert. She asked if wanted to go the Malldova or the Bazaar (market). Of course I chose the market! Within an hour we had ridden the minibus to the market, gone to the ATM, and made excellent purchase so I can now look more like a real Moldovan. Pretty classy stuff and I really enjoyed watching my friend lead us around the market. It is quite extensive and has all kinds of good (and not so good) things to purchase. There are informal food markets in many places around the city, including a small alleyway near my apartment. I must try it out.

Then this morning I met with an excellent Moldovan ethnomusicologist. She soon realized that I have an intense interest in musical instruments of all kinds so she put on her coat and led me through the streets of busy Chisinau to another building of the Academy which is dedicated to "Arts Plastice." There she left me with a collector and player of a very wide variety of instruments - drums, mouth harps, flutes, trumpets (some ten feet long), bagpipes, and amazing string instruments. We had a great time together and even played some music on cobza (lute like instrument) and nineteenth century flute. We barely got started on the instruments so we will meet again. I plan to photograph and record a lot of instruments and hope to be some help notating music from old recordings. There are 16,000 recordings of Moldovan music made since 1964.

Tomorrow is "city day" in Chisinau, a day off with lots of public entertainment and action in the city.

Classes!!

I had a very interesting weekend with a trip in the rain and wind and cold to the annual wine festival, a wonderful visit with my friends, and a concert on Sunday night. I am learning to live in Moldova.

I now have a Moldovan cell phone and number. Quite exciting! It is one of those sweet little Nokia's favored by my son Colin. Now I know why he likes his so much.

Yesterday was a stunning day. Many thanks to my wonderful colleague from the Academy of Music, I now have access to the national library and will hopefully have access to the library at the Academy of Science soon. These are important for me as I learn more and more Romanian and can access journals, books, recordings, etc. I met the most respected Moldovan scholar of folk music in his office at the Academy of Sciences and he gave me two hours of his time to answer questions and tell me all about Lautarii and naiists in Moldova. I have read his articles and was thrilled to be able to meet him and ask him questions directly.

Today started with muesli and yogurt (I know now that yogurt is called Bioaurt at the local Fidesco shop) and of course amazing instant coffee. The weather has turned nice so I enjoyed my walk to Romanian class. Then I had the pleasure of attending two classes at the Academy on folk music and traditions. The professor talked about wedding traditions and then in the second class she played lots of great recordings and had the students help me with my Romanian translations.

People in Moldova have already been so wonderfully generous with me! Every day is something new for me living in the city, but the real highlight is always the great experiences of being with people. I am hoping to be in touch with my nai (panflute) teacher soon so I can get a lesson this week. Everyone says he is the greatest! Then I am planning to attend a concert at the Roman Catholic church downtown. I features choral groups from Russia, Beloruss, Moldova, and other eastern places.

More R&R

This morning I attended my first class at the Casa de limbii romane, a local language school here in Chisinau. I am taking Romanian for the 2010-2011 school year. Today I have not worked with any English speakers at all (not even at the language school) and have enjoyed conducting every conversation in Romanian.

The class was excellent! It consists of 13 native Russian speakers and me, so it is conducted entirely in Russian and Romanian. Many thanks to my fine Russian teacher at the University of Wyoming, I was able to keep up and the teacher even placed me with the more advanced group even though I have missed some classes already. The Romanian class teacher is excellent and the materials look great. I will have class every Tuesday and Friday from 9 - 10:30 a.m. and plan to work hard to get good and keep up with the class! The students are excellent as well and seem very motivated to learn Romanian.

My welcome at the Academy of Music has been warm. I worked in the library today for about an hour and enjoyed being surrounded by the sounds of so many instruments, including accordions and trumpets practicing in the halls! The Academy is a great place and really inspiring to me. And now I must go practice the nai so I can make some progress myself!

This weekend I plan to find the Irish pub and see about some tunes!

I am in Moldova!

I Love Moldova! I arrived last Monday at about noon and it has been non-stop swimming in Russian and Romanian ever since! I enjoyed three days of staying with my good friends and speaking and learning lots of good Russian. Then I moved to my apartment where my new landlady said, "You must learn Romanian" and gave me the contact info for Casa de Limbii Romana. I had to immediately buy groceries in Romanian and woke early to make lists of words and things I wanted to say in Romanian. Then my new landlord arrived to fix something and spoke only Russian with me. I find it hard to switch....... But fun!

I have met with a wonderful professor at the Academy of Music. She has helped me to organize some classes to attend and some special classes to offer while I am here. She will make it possible for me to borrow books at the library (the numbers cycle around and I ended up with library borrowing number 1). It seems like an excellent library, but all the books are in Romanian and Russian. So I must practice!

I will go now to the Embassy to deliver the correct (hopefully) type of photo for the visa. They must have a 3X4 cm non-glossy photo. AFter getting two sets in Laramie I found I needed to do it all again here. I actually had a hilarious time getting the photo taken, then having them crop my hair which seems to want to stick straight up in this climate, then realizing that the photo was too glossy, running into Vera who had to come to the second photo session to advise us all on various aspects of my appearance, then I bought a comb, then they cropped my hair again electronically, and then printed on the wrong type of paper again....

I hope you are all well! Thanks for reading my blog!

R & R

Most people in Chisinau speak both Russian and Romanian. I have studied Romanian on my own for about three years now (off and on), and I have taken two full semesters of Russian at the University of Wyoming. When I was in Chisinau during the summer of 2009 I found it difficult sometimes to even tell which language was being used until a key word was spoken (i or si).

I am looking forward to hearing and learning both languages to a much greater extent in the months ahead.

Learning the nai

I have been practicing nai for some time now and really enjoy it. The instrument is a series of tubes arranged in a beautifully curving set with largest on my right and smallest on my left. I have two excellent instruments made in Chisinau, one with 22 pipes and one with 27. It is a very different feeling from playing the transverse flute, but very satisfying (when I hit the right notes...).

But it is not easy! I have been working through Vasile Iovu's new nai instruction book, translating the Romanian and practicing the exercises. I am working patiently and systematically while having fun trying to play tunes and easy Baroqe solos.

The high notes are already legendary in our neighborhood in Laramie, WY. While I struggle to get a good consistent sound, my dog tends to get up and leave for another room after a while. Sometimes he and I get into a barking vs. high note competition. And I am pretty sure that neighbors cross the street to pass our house when I am really fired up!

In any case, I am looking forward to getting some great help in Chisinau very soon.

Thanks for following my blog!

Rod

Getting ready!

Wednesday September 29
I will fly to Moldova on Sunday. It is a crazy time getting ready to go and feeling both sadness about leaving and anticipation of learning so many new things. Moldova is a fantastic place and I am honored to have great friends there.

And the music is fantastic!!!

Every day I encounter more things to prepare. Mostly I am trying to weigh all my stuff as I think about packing it and transporting it all over there!

Keep in touch!

Rod