American in Shanghai

Two very nice things happened today--I actually received the tickets to Yo Yo Ma's "Bohemian" show that I ordered, with the price only gouged a little, and a friend offered me a ticket to Mass Ensemble concert tomorrow night. =-) http://massensemble.com/    

Luckily, so far I have not needed to visit here. And I hope to keep it this way.    

This is a real, paid advert I keep seeing.  Just every time I see it I think, man, for real?  But yup, that's China! :)  

I just played a weird gig last week but I have never played worse in my life...still I think it came off pretty well. The job was through Sam Matthews, a colleague across town who has an instrument sales business and he makes bows as well as plays cello. It was for an Austrian firm who rented the restaurant of the Austrian Pavilion of the World Expo to entertain its Chinese clients from hither and yon all across China. There are a number of steps to completing a successful job such as this.   First of all, Sam had to find the players and then come up with the music we would need.   Then we had to find a rehearsal time which wound up being the night before the job—this is not only about checking musical arrangements but solving logistics and in Shanghai this is a crucial step as getting to places is kind of like being in the Amazing Race.   Next we had to get to the job, which entailed meeting outside an Expo entrance so we could all go in toget