Thoroughly Musical

The last two weeks have been a sort of personal hell, but it's all my fault anyways. Part of it was the YIS' annual Bridging the Gap conference, which I wrote about a bit back.

But more time was consumed by my participation in the high school production of Throughly Modern Millie, a musical.

Have I ever mentioned I hate musicals?

Regardless, it was an opportunity for me to try to pick up the alto sax and clarinet again. The last time I played anything remotely challenging was in the first trimester of my senior year at Woodinville High School. After the marching band season, I ditched and moved on to ASB Student Council.

So, seven years out of the pond and it's time to play. Yep. I sucked. To boot, our pit orchestra was all of six people. I've always had the weakness of being an ear player, relying way too much on the rest of the band to play. That's tough when you're the only one playing your instrument.

At first, it was horribly hard, but when the pianist arrived, things got better. And a little easier. It was fun.

But I'm not going to spend all day talking about my clarinet skills. I'll thank Aili, one of my students, for lending me her Yamaha custom for the show, but to move on...

The vocals for the musical, especially the lead, was simply amazing. MJ, as she's known, was simply stunning as the lead, Millie Dillmount. Where the original Broadway production featured a frail sounding broad of the Roaring Twenties, MJ brought a much deeper, soulful performance. Her performance was also buttressed by a strong assortment of supporting cast (though our production had all of three male actors, leading to girls taking on some of the male roles too).

And that led me to appreciate how amazing the talent we've had go through our school recently. The last two years, the musical talent has been simply good. Last year was highlighted by an amazingly talented jazz/blues combo. This year, pure vocal strength.

Which is amazing. I went to a lot of concerts and the like when I was in high school, but none were nearly as interesting as our schools'. And I'm a tough, tough grader when it comes to what I listen to (with regard to amateurs, I've heard exactly one street band in Japan I've liked so far), but this stuff is pretty damn good.

With that, I leave you with some samples from a concert last year to judge for yourselves. Round Midnight features our Millie Dillmount, MJ. Cry Me A River features Hiroko, while At Last and Georgia On My Mind are sung by Mits Iwasawa, both with the aforementioned talented Jazz Combo.

Yokohama International School 2009 HS Spring Concert by Genki U.

(This post is also a sad excuse for me to try Soundcloud :P)