Alton's blog

Does Ipernity have apps yet for Android smart phones? I picked up an HTC Hero this week. It would be nice to put an Ipernity feed on it next to the Facebook and Twitter stuff.

On 2009 August 8 Saturday Typhoon Morakot made landfall in central Taiwan. Over the weekend many central and southern areas of the island experienced more rainfall than they normally experience in a year. The result: flash floods and landslides that have taken lives and property and left hundreds of people without shelter.

A roundup of news about the typhoon appears at my blog:
http://www.conductorsnotebook.com/2009/08/typhoon-morakot.html

For information about ways you can help with disaster relief in Taiwan, please visit:
http://www.conductorsnotebook.com/2009/08/typhoon-relief.html

Typhoon

Le Rouge restaurant in Banciao, Taipei County, kicked off its summer exhibit in style. The photos will remain on display through the end of September. If you are in the Taipei area I hope you will pay a call. I have eight works in the exhibit. Le Rouge stands near Dante Coffee at the Xinpu metro station, exit 1.

http://www.conductorsnotebook.com/2009/06/le-rouge-photo-exhibit.html

I'm feeling happy and exhausted. Two years and 40,000 images after I got it started, the Taiwan Mussorgsky Project enjoyed a successful debut with three performances. The inaugural showing of the exhibit, with concurrent live performance of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, took place in Taiwan's National Concert Hall on 2008 December 15. Apo Hsu conducted the National Taiwan Normal University Symphony Orchestra. Last week the exhibit was presented twice again with Apo Hsu conducting the Taiwan Wind Ensemble. The first performance took place 2009 April 9 in Taipei; the venue was again Taiwan's National Concert Hall. The second took place in Taichung's splendidly refurbished Jhonghsing Hall.

The multiple showings allowed me to benefit from audience responses and make some changes that made the show stronger. Many thanks to my colleague and friend Apo Hsu for supporting the project. Thanks to Weng Chun-Yuin for indispensable and outstanding work as the lead artist model. Thanks to musicians and concert planners with both ensembles. It's been an incredible experience.

You are invited! Mussorgsky's Europe meets modern Taiwan when Apo Hsu and the NTNU Symphony Orchestra present Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition on December 15 Monday 19:30 in the National Concert Hall in Taipei. The performance will feature a synchonized exhibit of my photography in which images of Taiwan reflect elements in the music.

For complete program and ticket information please visit my blog.

I hope you can join us.

Taiwan's pop culture is hugely influenced by Japan. Nowhere is this more evident than in the popularity of Japanese comic books, or manga. University campus neighbourhoods often boast multiple bookstores filled wall-to-wall with Chinese-language editions of manga.

Today marked the return of the annual Taipei Manga Convention. My camera was in the the camera hpospital but I still managed to borrow a D50 and head over to the show. I've posted some images of cosplayers--costume players. These are manga fans who attend events like this dressed as their favourite characters. If anyone can help me identify the characters in the photos I've posted, I would appreciate the help.

It's a rare thing to see an American comic-book character at an event like this, but my favourite, the Dark Knight himself, was the subject of a manga. The friendly woman at the table gave me a Joker pin and told me I would get a discount on the book if I could say the magic phrase. 'Three words,' she said. 'The first word is why.'

I said 'Why so serious?' and got my discount.

A circus march: caffeine set to music.

 

________

Alton

Gallery: altonsimages.com

Blog: conductorsnotebook.com

Main Site: altonthompson.com

This is from my National Concert Hall debut. The soloist is Yang Chiaohui, a native of Taiwan who studied in Paris. For this slow middle movement of his concerto, Weber essentially wrote an opera aria for clarinet.

________

Alton

Gallery: altonsimages.com

Blog: conductorsnotebook.com

Main Site: altonthompson.com

Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open, and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked,
I cried to dream again.

The Tempest 3.2.148-156
William Shakespeare

________

Alton

Gallery: altonsimages.com

Blog: conductorsnotebook.com

Main Site: altonthompson.com