Physics and Music.
Common Denominator?

photo from Wikipedia

• Victor Weisskopf was one of the most influential physicists in the 20th Century. He was Eugene Wigner's first doctoral student, and he did his postdoc with Heisenberg, Schroedinger, Pauli, and Bohr. His talks were very easy to understand because he knew what he was talking about.

  He was born and raised in Vienna, and learned how to play piano during his childhood. He continued playing piano with his ten fingers. He used to say Physics is a Symphony. Here again he knew what he was talking about.

• Andre Previn is one of the most successful symphony conductors of our time. People say this and that about his conducting style, but he talks like a genius when he give TV interviews. I learned many things about music from him.

  Whenever he talks about music, he has "harmony" in mind. He was of course interested in generating beautiful sounds by combining those from different instruments.

  In one of his latest TV interviews, he was asked what music he wants to be played at his funeral. He said "Beethoven's String Quartet No. 4." I became excited. Indeed, this quartet has been "my music" since my undergraduate years. Whenever, I had a setback in my life, I recreated myself by listing to this piece of music.

  Death is a setback to everybody, but Andres Previn wants to rise again from Beethoven's String Quartet No. 4. You are invited to my Beethoven page to hear what I am talking about. You can really see what the harmony variable is in music.

• The Harmony appears to be the common denominator for both physicists and musicians.

  photo from the public domain

  1. James Clerk Maxwell constructed a symphony of electricity and magnetism.

  2. Albert Einstein composed a harmony of mechanics and electromagnetism using the mathematics developed by Lorentz and Poincare. He also constructed the harmony of energy-momentum relations for massive and massless particles.

  3. Richard Feynman said the adventure of our science of physics is a perpetual attempt to recognize that the different aspects of nature are really different aspects of the same thing.
     He was singing a harmony.

• We can all agree that the harmony is an extra-dimension leading to new physics. The question then is whether this extra-dimension belongs only to the privileged class of those great physicists. Click here to see whether you can do or you are already doing the physics of harmony.

• Beethoven's Statue, at the Beethoven Plaza near the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn (Germany, August 1996).
  1. In 1996, I was there.
  2. In 2010, I was there again.
  3. This plate says that, at the dedication ceremony held in 1845, Queen Victoria of England, Alexander von Humboldt, were King Wilhelm Frederick IV were present.

  4. Entrance to the Beethoven-Haus. Ludwig van Beethoven was born in 1770 at a house located inside this museum complex.
  5. It is one of the row houses in Bonn.
  6. String Instruments once owned by Ludwig van Beethoven. They are displayed in the Beethovenhaus.

• Mozart Dress at the Chonbrun Palace Concert Hall in Vienna (December 2006).
  1. The statue of Mozart in Salzburg (1997).
  2. In 2013 I was there again.
  3. In front of the statue tables and benches for relxation, and for watching rock shows.
  4. Rock concerts are performed on this stage to entertain Mozart. The idea is to entetain Mozart with the music of the 20th and 21st Centuries. An excellent idea indeed!
  5. In this house, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was on born on Jamuary 27, 1756. The entire building is used as the Mozart museum.
  6. He grew up in this house. The entrance of this house says so. This house is also used as a museum.
  7. There are hundreds of Mozart gift shops, and candy shops in Salzburg. Mozart attracts tourists, and they spend money there. He is a great source of revenue for Salzburg. This is a Mozart snack plate I bought there in 1997.

• Franz Liszt Square is within a walking distance from the opera house. See this map.
  1. His statue with long fingers is at the center of the Square. It was a honor for me to have a photo with him. with long
  2. There are many restaurants in this Square. This restaurant is one of the expensive places.

• Zoltan Kodaly was also a great Hungarian composer.
  1. I have a photo of myself next to Kodaly's statue in the Margarita Island. I was with a tour guide.

  2. While he was on the faculty of Eotvos university, he had a Korean student named Ahn Ik-tai. Before coming to Budapest, Ahn had composed "Symphonic Fantasia Korea," whose finale became the national anthem of Korea. Under Kodaly's guidance, he added final touch-ups to his work.

• Chopin's Statue at the Lazienki Park in Warsaw.
  1. Piano Concerts are held frequently at this Chopin sites. I was there in 1994. After the concert, while workers were removing the piano, I talked with several music-loving Polish friends. One of them was a music student, and the other was a Polish actress who became very happy when I showed her a photo of my wife with Actress Brooke Shields , who was a young popular American actress at that time.
  2. After Chopin died in France, his body was buried in Paris, but his heart was extracted from his body and transported to Warsaw to be entombed into the wall of the Church of Holy Cross near the main campus of Warsaw University and the stature of Copernicus. Click here for the church and the statue.

• Mikhail Glinka was the first Russian composer who established the Western-style music in Russia. His statue is near the Mariinsky Theater in Saint Petersburg (Russia). Here is the Wikipedia page about him. I was there in 2003 and went there again in 2010.
  How do I look with Mikakhail Glinka?
  1. How about Tschaikovsky? I talk about him later on this webpage.

  2. Rimma Sushanskaya was David Oistrach's youngest student and is of course an established violinist. I met her at one of London's Chinese restaurants in 1999. We became close enough to produce this photo after we found out we both like an Armenian composer named Aram Khachaturyan. This lady looks like (looks better than) than Tatyana Samoilova who was a Russian actress who acted as Veronica in the classic film "Cranes are flying" produced by Mikhail Kalatazov in 1957. Many Russians believe she is the real Tatayana. Click here for her home page.

  3. Irina Bochkova is the head of the violin section at Moscow Conservatory of Music. She was born in Kazan (Russia) and was in Kazan during the summer of 2001 to be with her mother. At Kazan State University, while attending the 2001 Volga meeting of theoretical physics, I heard her playing Beethoven's violin sonata No. 5 "Spring." I heard this Sonata when I was a high-school boy, and decided to live like the Spring Sonata. She was therefore playing my life. I was so happy that I gave her a postcard carrying a photo of Beethoven's four string instruments from my portable photo album. By giving this card, I was able to convince her that I was a Beethoven lover. She also told me she becomes very happy whenever she plays Beethoven's sonatas. Beethoven wrote ten violin sonatas, and his fifth and ninth sonatas, known as Spring and Kreutzer respectively, are very popular among Koreans.

  4. Andre Rieu is the most popular violinist of our time. Wherever he goes, he draws a large crowd. I met hin in February of 2017 at the lobby of the Hotel Steigenberger near Berlin's Hauptbanhop. We talked about things, but I did not realize he was Andre Rieu until he gave me his business card. He was with the manage of his Johann Strauss Orchestra. Let us look go to some his videos.

• Russian Ballerinas. Russians produce great ballets, and those ballerinas look like dolls or angeles on the stage. How would they look when they are passengers on an airplane. I met these ladies on a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Kazan (June 2001). This photo was taken when we were waiting on line for passport inspection at Kazan's international airport. They are holding their Russian passports (2001).
  1. Praha Quartet. Music students in Prague (2001).
  2. Music Students at the Conservatory of Music in Vilnius (Lithuania). They seem to believe in music.
  3. London Philharmonic. with members of the London Philharmonic Orchestra in the loby of Radisson-SAS hotel in Krakow (Poland 2009). They were arriving from London.
  4. Two opera singers in Minsk (2010). I met them at Minsk's history museum.

• Washington Opera. The city of Washington, DC is fortunate enough to have an excellent opera company with Placid Domingo as the music director. Its singers are often invited to various social events in the Greater Washington area. Five of those young singers came to a meeting of Koreans in August 15, 2010, and sang the songs the songs popular among Koreans, such as Il Bacio by Luigi Arditi. Koreans are song-loving people. I was able to put up to put up high-level talks with these young artists. I had a lengthy music talk with this singer. I asked her whether she came from Italy. She said No, but her parents came from Italy. I then asked her whether she was born as a singer. She was very happy to say Yes. She became impressed when I told her I have been Milan's LaScala Opera Theater.
  1. Alice Conway (CSEP) plays harp on the reception floor of the Ritz-Carton Hotel at Tyson's Galleria not far from Washington, DC (February 2005). In addition to luxurious amenities, this hotel offers live music performed by high-class musicians.
  2. Heather McAuliffe plays piano also at the Ritz-Carlton. I was very happy to hear that she studied music at the University of Maryland. This photo was taken in April of 2005.

• This Korean lady got her PhD degree from Juliard on Korean harp music. She was playing her composition on a Korea day at the Canon Building of the U.S. Congress. Here is her posture with the Korean harp.

• Einstein liked music. He used to play violin.
  1. Christmas Morning at Einstein's house.

• Since Einstein liked music so much, many physicists claim they also like music. Perhaps I am one of them. Some of my physics colleagues are more fortunate than I am. They married world-class musicians.
  1. Francesca. Renato Fedele of Naples married this soprano singer. In June of 1994, we were making a tour of Sicily while attending one of the Erice conferences. She started singing when we went to this Greek-style amphitheater with excellent acoustic condition. I am listening. Sicily was a Greek colony some years ago, and there are also Greek temples in this island. Here is one of them. Her husband is an Italian physicist, Renato Fedele. Here is my photo with him taken at the gladiator's quarter where Spartacus used to live, in Caserta near Naples.

  2. Agnes is another world-class soprano singer, and her husband is John Klauder. Here gave a concert during the 25th Colloquium on Group Theoretical Methods in Physics held in Cocoyoc, Mexico (August 2004). Here, she is making preparations for her next song.
     Two years earlier, in 2004, she gave a concert during the Wigner Centennial Conference held in Pecs, Hungary. Hungary is her native country. After the concert, she is with a young Hungarian lady who assisted her on the backstage. She looks better in a photo with her husband . How about the young lady with her? She also has a photo with a famous physicist. Speaking of John Klauder, he was several years ahead of me when we were students at Princeton. He has always been helpful to me whenever I needed help from someone. Here is my photo with him taken during the Cocoyoc conference (August 2004).

• Hibiya Public Hall in Tokyo. Before coming to the United States in 1954, I used to pick up Japanese music programs using my shortwave radio (Hallicrafters S-38). At that time, the Hibiya Hall was Japan's most prestigious performing art center. I used to hear and tape-record live broadcasts from there. The Hibiya Hall is located at the south-west corner of Tokyo's Hibiya Park south of the Imperial Palace. These days, Tokyo's music center is the Santori Hall located in the Shibuya District, and the Hibiya Hall is used for rock concerts. This photo was taken in 1996.

• Syria Mosque was the home of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra when I was an undergraduate student (1954-58) at Carnegie Tech (now called Carnegie Mellon University). This music hall was within a walking distance from my dormitory. I went there very often. William Steinberg was the director of the Pittsburgh Symphony when I was there. He was succeeded by Andre Previn in 1972.

  During the decade (1938-48), Fritz Reiner was the music director, From 1948-52, Leonard Bernstein and Leopold Stokowski were among the guest conductors. Laurin Maazel was born in Pittsburgh and maintained his life-long association with hometown orchestra. I had an excellent music education while attending Carnegie Tech. Indeed, while in Pittsburgh (1954-58), I picked up enough music background to construct this webpage. Click here for more about this great music hall.

• Vienna Opera House has a very rich history. On December 31 of every year, the Opera House presents Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus. You have to reserve your ticket one year in advance. Of course you can negotiate tickets at black market for about $300, but I do not trust those black marketers. I was there on December 31 (2006) but could not get in.
  1. Another View of the Opera House.
  2. I was inside in 2007. After the performance of Coppelia by Leo Delibes (2007).
  3. Higher Rings seen from an orchestra seat.

• Vienna Stadtpark is a great music place. Birds sing during the summer.
  1. Vienna Hilton is one block away from the Park. I stay here often because the airport connection is very convenient.
  2. Johann Strauss at the Park. Strauss is the eternal mayor of Vienna.
  3. Side View of the Johann Strauss statue.
  4. Franz Schubert in the Park.
  5. Franz Lehar is also there.
  6. There are many more, and they are all around the Park's reflection pond.

• Kursalon is a music theater dedicated to Johann Strauss. It is located at the southwestern corner of the Stadtpark, as can be seen from the Park.
  1. This is the entrance to the theater.
  2. I was there on January 1, 2007.
  3. I was inside for a Mozart Festival (1997). Since I do not know how to dance, I had to watch other people dance.

• Schonbrun Plaza is another great music place in Vienna.
  1. Let us watch one of the summer music festivals.
  2. How about the new year's eve? I was there in the evening of 2006-2007.
  3. Mozart dress at Chonbrun's music theater.

  4. Musikverein (2007). The New year's waltz concert is held at this music hall every year and is broadcast throughout the world. I was inside in October of 2007 for a Mozart festival.
  5. Vienna Volk Art Theater near the Parliament Building.

• Augustinerkeller is a Viennese restaurant serving Viennese dishes. I was there in 2000 and shared a dinner table from Germans from Munich. I was returning home from a conference held in Kharkov (Ukraine). Due to airline connections, I have to spend one night in Vienna.
  1. In 2006, I went there again, and asked the same accordionist to play "Over the Waves" by a Mexican composer named Juventano Rosas. This is a non-Viennese waltz, but he knew how to play. I was very happy because it was my childhood favorite.

• Grand Festival Hall, in Salzburg (Austria). At the conclusion of a performance of Modest Musorgsky's "Boris Godunov" (August 1997). The ticket was very expensive.
  1. The Festival Hall is at the bottom of a mountain cliff, and looks like a box. Here is an image of the entrance.
  2. Another view of the Hall. Its western entrance is shown in this photo
  3. The Festival Hall viewed from the top of the Monchsberg Hill next to it. Two tall towers are for the stage operation.
  4. The Festival Hall with its environment seen from the environment.

• Nuremberg Opera House, not far from the Nuremberg railroad station.
  1. Side view of the Opera House. It is a big building.
  2. Memorial for Richard Wager facing the entrance to the Opera House. I was there in 2013.

• Semper Opera House in Dresden (June 2004).
  1. Intermission between the first and second acts of Carl Maria von Weber's "Der Freischuts" held outside the opera building. It is customary to drink champaign during the opera intermissions.

• Frankfurt Opera House (new) is a shiny new building at the center of the city.
  1. During the evening hours, this opera house looks like this. How about in the afternoon?
  2. I was there in June of 2001 to see a performance of Pagliacci by Ruggero Leoncavallo. As usual, this opera was preceded by Cavalleria Rusticana by Pietro Mascani. This photo was taken from the balcony at the end of the performance.
  3. Intermission. It is always a pleasure to meet interesting people during the coffee break.

  4. This new opera house was built because the Old Opera House was completely destroyed duing World War II. However, as Germany became richer, the city of Frankfurt decided to reconstruct this Old Opera House, and it opened in 1961. I was there in 2016 to take this photo. I was really there.
  5. This Old Opera House has history. Germans are opera-lovers.

• Berlin Philharmonic Hall. The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra has a long history since 1882.
  1. Among the many outstanding conductors throughout the history of this orchestra, Wilhelm Furtwangler was the most outstanding and controversial figure. He conducted the symphony from 1922 to 1845 covering Hitler's Nazi period. He then came back in 1952 and became active until he died in 1954. He was succeeded by another great conductor named Herbert von Karajan.

  2. Yes, Hitler took advantage of Furtwangler's talent for his political cause. After the war, he was tried for the war crime for his collaboration with Hitler, but the court could not convict him because he was a God-like figure to all Germans. This is the reason why he was not the conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic from 1945 to 1952.

  3. During the war, Berlin was constantly bombed, and Berliners had to bomb shelters. However, when Furtwangler was conducting, the audience stayed still in the hall, and there are some recordings of his conducting with the bomb noise in the background.

  4. When he was re-instated in 1952, I was a high school student in Korea, and I heard about him. This tells how famous he was. German old-timers become impressed when I talk about him.

• The Konzerthaus is another concert hall for Berlin. This building was originally built for theater performances. After 1945, this theater was used for a concert hall. Since the hall for the Berlin Philharmonic was on the West side, Germans on the East side needed a major concert hall in Berlin. This elegant building has a complicated history.

• Berlin Opera also has a long history since 1742. Its home base is at the Opera House on the unten den Linden.
  1. This opera house shares the same bus station with the Humboldt University of Berlin.
  2. This opera house is now being reconstructed.
  3. While the reconstruction is in progress, the opera programs continue at the Schiller Theater about 3 km west near the Techincal University of Berlin.
  4. The ticket box is still at the original location. It sells also tickets for the Comic Opera of Berlin.

• Bolshoi Theater in Moscow (1990), north of the Red Square.
  1. Bolshoi Theater (2010) being refurbished.
  2. Inside the Theater during the performance of a North Korean musical entitled "A girl who sells flowers" (1990).
  3. Czar's Box. Those seats these days for Russian president, prime minister, and dignitaries from foreign countries.
  4. Theater's Control Room of 1990.
  5. Karl Marx overlooking the Theater (2010). Marx is still an important person in Moscow. He is also an important person to me, and I visited his grave in London. I like what he says about philosophers.

  

• International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians.
  1. Young American musician who came from New York with her mother.
  2. Young participant from Korea who came from Seoul with her aunt living in Los Angeles (USA).

  3. Three music Students. I met them not far from the Moscow Conservatory of Music, also known as the Tchaikovsky Conservatory (2014). They said they are singers attending a better music school. We talked about some of the opera songs. They said they like Michael Jackson, and are fond of singing Proschanie Slavianki.

  

• Tchaikovsky's statue in front of the main hall of the Moscow Conservatory of Music.
  1. This student is studying piano at the Conservatory. I asked her whether she likes Chopin. She said she likes Rachmaninoff better.
  2. This student is from Kazakhstan is studying harp. She said she has many Korean friends in her hometown.
  3. Irina Bochkova is a professor of violin at this Conservatory. She played Beethoven's violin Sonata No. 5, during a physics conference held in a Volga city of Kazan in 2000. She is a sister-in-law of the principal organizer of the conference. After her performance, I told her the Spring Sonata was one of my favorites since my high school years, and I gave her a postcard carrying the photo of the four string instruments Beethoven used to own. I usually carry a copy of this postcard in my portable photo album.

• Tchaikovsky Concert Hall about 1.2 km northwest from the Bolshoi Theater.
  1. Close-up view of the Hall.
  2. Tchaikovsky's Bust in the main lobby. I am with another music lover, more precisely Tchaikovsky lover.
  3. Exhibition Boxes in the Lobby.

• Kremlin Theater in Moscow, after the performance of Mikhail Glinka's Ruslan and Ludmila (1992).
  1. Music lovers are coming to the Theater. They are well-dressed. Russians have a great respect for Glinka as the father of Russian music.
  2. I was there with Paolo Tombesi, Margarita Man'ko, Roy Glauber, and Daesoo Han.

• Moscow's International House of Music. Panoramic view from the opposite side of the Moscow River.
  1. Close-up View. This new music hall has the state-of-the-art electronic environment, but people say its acoustic environment is not as good as those of Moscow's traditional music halls.

• This statue is across the street from the Mariinsky Theater. I am happy to share with you photos I took during my visit to this theater in 2010. There was a a performance of Prokofiev's ballet "Romeo and Juliet."
  1. Front View of the Theater.
  2. viewed from its front-right.
  3. Mercedes-Benz passing through the front ground of the theater.
  4. Upper Tiers.
  5. Stage Curtain down.
  6. Chandeliers. Telescopic view.
  7. Mother and Daughter from Novosibirsk, the science city in Siberia. I thought they are sisters.
  8. with J. S. Bach, and music lovers from Switzerland. The gentleman is a physicist.
  9. Mariinsky Administrator. I met this lady at the SPB airport while waiting for an AirBirlin flight to Dusseldorf. She works on exhibitions for the Mariinsky company. According to her, Moscow's Bolshoi is not the worst ballet in the world, but it is basically wrong to compare the Mariinsky with Bolshoi.
  10. Let us look at this video to see whether she is right.

• J. F. Kennedy Center in Washington viewed from the Georgetown waterfront. This photo includes also the Watergate residential complex, the Arlington-Memorial Bridge, a floating restaurant "Odyssey", and a helicopter carrying an important person are also seen (July 2004).
  1. Kennedy Center viewed from the Potomac River.
  2. Kennedy's Bust, in the main lobby of Washington's Kennedy Center for Performing Arts (February 2002).
  3. Chandeliers in the Opera House contributed by the Austrian government. Here is another photo of the same set.

  4. The Mariinskty Ballet of St. Petersburg comes to the Kennedy Center frequently. I do not have to travel to St. Petersburg to enjoy Mariinsky ballets.
  5. La Bayadere. after the performance of La Bayadere at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, DC (USA 2008). La Bayadere was premiered at the Mariinsky Theatre in 1877.
  6. Don Quixote. The Mariinsky Ballet came to Washington in 2009. I took this photo when everybody was excited after their performance of the Don Quixote, consisting of Spanish dances with Viennese music.
  7. Gisselle by the Mariinsky (February 2011). The No. 1 ballet performed by the No. 1 ballet team.

• Kiev Opera House. Front view. I was there while attending the 10th Int'l Conference on Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (2010).
  1. Side View of the Opera House
  2. Inside, upper tiers.
  3. Ceiling of the theater.
  4. Orchestra Bay during the intermission.
  5. After Aleko. After the performance of Rachmaninoff's one-act opera entitled Aleko (gypsy).
  6. After Bolero. It is rather boring to hear this dance music by Maurice Ravel. Repetition of the same tune! However, this music becomes complete if accompanied by different dances. I do not know whether it was the composer's original design.

• Minsk Opera House. I have been there many times since 1994.
  1. Entrance to the Minsk Opera House. People are dressed nicely (1994).
  2. Spanish Dance in Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. This photo was taken while the dancers were acknowledging the applause after the performance of the Spanish dance in Minsk's opera house (May 2002).
  3. Two singers for the Minsk Opera. I met them at the Minsk National Museum in 2011.

• Yerevan Opera House in Yerevan (Armenia 1998).
  1. Opera Plaza in front of the Opera House. Many things go on at this opera plaza.
  2. Another view of the Opera Plaza.
  3. Armenian Reporters. When I was there in 1998, there was a demonstration against the government plan to sell their wine factory to France. I met these reporters. They wanted to hear about Bill Clinton's personal life when I told them I came from the United States.

• Opera House in Riga (2010).
  1. Good Life. Opera means Good Life in every country.
  2. Sculpture of Three Women at the city park in front of the opera house.

• Hungarian State Opera House in Budapest (2008).

• Smetana Hall in Prague before a performance of Mozart's requiem (2001).

• New York Pops Orchestra performing at New York's Central Park (July 2004).
  1. Close-up View of the stage.

• Sydney's Opera House, linked from Wikipedia.
  1. La Traviata in Sydney. With a Korean student at one of the bay-side restaurants in Sydney (Australia). In the background (across the bay, not seen in the evening) is the Sydney opera house (one of the most famous buildings in the world). One hour earlier, we were in the opera house enjoying Verdi's La Traviata (July 1998). It was a hot July month, but it was cold in Sydney. We were dressed for the winter weather.

• Teatro Massimo Vittorio Emanuele in Palermo, Sicily (2010). This is Europe's third largest opera house (after the Paris Opera House and the Vienna Opera House). Many international musical events take place in this Theater.
  1. Front View of the Theater. This building is located at the Verdi Plaza in Palermo.
  2. Traditional Transportation to the Theater.
  3. Palermo Concert Hall is one block away from this Theater.

• La Scala in Milan is regarded as the most famous opera house in the world.
  1. Stage scene after a performance of Bela Bortok's "Blue Beard's Castle" (May 2008).
  2. In 2000, this opera house went through a major renovation in recent years. It looked like this in 2000.
  3. The interior is now very neat and elegant (2008).
  4. Verdi's statue is the main lobby. Donizetti and Bellini.

  5. The entrance is blocked by a trolley car (2008).
  6. Leonardo da Vinci overlooking the opera house, from the da Vinci square cross the I was there in 2000.

• The Opera Theatre of Rome is within a walking distance from the Termini.
  1. Another View of the Theatre.
  2. The main lobby before the performance.
  3. Pietro Macani's plaque was on the wall of the main lobby.
  4. Prokofiev's Romeo was on the program. I did not buy the ticket, because I saw this ballet twice before in Russia. Once in Kazan (1999) and once at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg (2010).
  5. Members of the Opera orchestra were having a relaxing moment before the performance, and I was talking to them. I told them I saw the same ballet at St. Petersburg's Mariinsky theatre in 2010. They told me not to brag too much. They were going to St. Petersburg after their performance in Rome. It is always a pleasure for me to talk to musicians.

• Lincoln Center in New York. The Opera House is in the center between the New York State Theater (left) and the Avery Fisher Philharmonic Hall (right). This photo was taken in 2004.
  1. Christmas Tree at the Lincoln Center. In the background is the Avery Fisher Hall (2007).
     
  2. Avery Fisher Hall for Symphonies. Daytime view.
  3. Metropolitan Opera House.
  4. Juliard School of Music.
  5. Cafe Fiorello. Many people come to this Italian restaurant after their events at the Lincoln Center. You can meet some interesting people here, often from your own hometown. Here is the restaurants webpage.

• Paris Opera House. Front view.
  1. Evening view of the Opera House.
  2. Unusual View of the Opera House.
  3. Entrance Lobby.

  4. Inside the Opera House before the performance of Adolphe Adam's Giselle (July 2000).
  5. Chandelier on the main hall.
  6. Verdi's Bust on the Second Floor.

  7. Front Steps of the Opera House. An interesting collection of people.
     How do I look there?
  8. One of the Golden Statues on the roof.
  9. Three Generations of French Ladies at the book shop of the Opera House.
  10. Click here for more about this opera house.

• Covent Garden means the Royal Opera House to those who have never been to London, but it is a district of London with many theaters and many eat-and-drink places. Let us look at some photos.
  1. I was inside in 2004 to see the ballet entitled "Mayering" originally produced by this opera house based on an Austrian love story and music by Hungary's Franz Liszt.
  2. I was sitting next to a ballet student from Japan. She was ambitious, and she must be an established ballerina by now.
  3. Thomas Beecham's bust is in the main hall way of this opera house. The gentleman in this photo is one of the producers for BBC, and his wife was with him. He told me the bust is of Sir Thomas Beecham. He became very happy when I said he was the conductor of the London Symphony.
  4. The Covent Garden is London's central area with many theaters. It is a fun place. In 1993, while I was walking alone, I met Vladimir Man'ko (my Russian friend), and we had fun time including meeting these young musicians on the street.

• Concert Hall in Kazan. Kazan is a Volga city between Moscow and Ural Mountains. It takes one hour to fly from Moscow to Kazan. Both Vladimir Lenin and Leo Tolstoy spent their times at Kazan State University. Lenin could was expelled from the University because he was only interested in a Marxist revolution. Tolstoy was interested only in girls and dancing. He was also expelled.
  1. Another View of the Concert Hall.
  2. In November of 2010, I was inside the Concert Hall, and took this photo before the performance of the Kazan Symphony Orchestra.
  3. World War II Veteran. In addition to music, I enjoy meeting interesting people. This elderly man fought at the battle of Kursk during the war, where the bitterest tank battle took place. I asked him whether he was in a T-34 tank. He said No. He was shooting his Shpargin (short) machine gun while running around between the tanks. He is so proud of the medals he earned that he is carrying the medal certificates, and showed them to me.
  4. Like to a WWII ccombat scene?

  5. The Government Building of Tatarstan. Kazan is the capital city of Tatarstan, and the concert all is in the same area.
  6. The Opera House is also in the same area. I was inside this opera house in 1999 for Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet.

  7. Click here for photos from Kazan.

• Daughters of the American Revolution. This is an organization of women who are descendents of those Americans who made direct contributions to the Independence of America from the British rule. It is of course patriotic and conservative organization, but it is quite capable of adjusting itself to changing times. This building has a large music hall called "Constitution Hall."
  1. The Alexandrov music group is a very important component of Russia's Red Army. This group came to this hall and presented a brilliant performance.
  2. I was there and took many photos.
  3. Applause. Those Russian performers are accepting an enthusiastic applause.
  4. American Uniforms. Three of those performers were wearing American uniforms. They were reproducing the meeting of the U.S. and U.S.S.R army units on the Elbe River in 1945 during the final days of Hitler's rule in Germany.

• Musicians in London. I met them while walking from Covent Garden to Piccadilly Circus. I was walking with Vladimir Man'ko whom I met unexpectedly in front of the Covent Garden Opera House (1993).
  
  1. Musicians in Cocoyoc (Mexico, 1994). Accordion and Guitar!
  2. Vienna 1997. Accordion music.
  3. Hungarian Band. I like band music. I was indeed happy to march with high-school students (Pecs 2002).

  4. Troubadour musicians at the Cabaret du Roy in Old Montreal (Canada 2004).
  5. Ukrainian Folk Musisians in Kiev (October 2006).
     Traditional Ukrainian Instrument.

  6. Musicians on the Charles Bridge in Prague (2007).
  7. Musicians in Athens consisting of Russians, Ukrainians, and Moldavians (October 2010).
  8. Singing Priests in Kazan (November 2010).
• Proschanie Slavianki. Russian military march I used to hear from my high-school band.

• Flamenco Dancers in Madrid, at one of the flamenco night clubs (1992). Here is another photo.
  1. Hungarian Dancers. Hungarians love to dance. Dance scenes like this prompted Johannes Brahms to compose his Hungarian dances (Pecs, July 2002).
  2. Russian Dance during the reception for the participants of the first Sakharov Conference in Moscow (1991).
  3. Folk Dancers in Guadalajara, while attending the 4th Wigner Symposium in Mexico (1995).
  4. Fire Dancers at Krakow's Market Square (Poland 2007).
  5. Stalin Organ. This is a very unusual instrument. This photo was taken in St. Petersburg (Russia 2003). I was accompanied by a young Russian lady with a broad understanding of music. Here is a photo of myself with her in front of the Mariinsky Theater.

• The Hofbrauhaus is Munich's most famous beer-and-sing place. You should at least one evening there if you are a cultured man. I went there three times. The first time, it was great. The second time, it was OK. The third time, it was a disaster. Thus, you should go there and have a great time once, but you should go somewhere else next time. There are many other great places in Munich.
  1. Dancers on the stage.
  2. Musicians on the stage
  3. Singers and dancers during their recess (June 2004).
  4. One of the Singers. She sold me two tape cassettes containing her songs (1994).
  5. Another Singer ten years later explaining her songs on a CD (2004). After the business, we had a formal portrait.
  6. Hofbrauhaus during the Oktoberfest, and its band stand.

• Cranes are dancing. If I like music somewhat excessively, it is due to my Korean background. Indeed, Koreans are music crazy people. During the 6th century, a Korean musician developed a string instrument and played it. The music was so attractive to cranes in the sky that they came down to the ground to dance to the tunes of this musical instrument.
  1. Here is the photo of a Korean lady playing this instrument at a meeting of Korean senior citizens in the Washington area.
  2. Click here for my photo with a Korean student who can play this instrument. Her instrument was made in North Korea. Korea used to be one country until 1945, and both Koreas share the same cultural background.

• When did I become interested in classical music? It was 1948, during the final year of my elementary school period, there was an art festival. There my female classmates performed a dance to a wonderful music. I did not know its title until later years. It was the "Over the Waves" by Juventano Rosas (Mexican composer).

  This is still my favorite music. While I was dining at Vienna's Augustinerkeller restaurant in December (2000), I asked this accordionist to play the Over the Waves. I was there again in 2006 and asked him to play the same music.

  Let us hear the Over the Waves.

  1. Over the Wave by the UNAM (National Univ. of Mexico) Orchestra. The "Over the Waves" was composed by a Mexican composer Juventino Rosas.
  2. by another Mexican orchestra.
  3. Over the Waves, played by the Red Army Band.

  4. Accordion Music.
  5. Over the waves with male voice.
  6. Another male voice.

  7. Over the waves by London Symphony Orchestra.
  8. with dances.

• In 1950 and 1951, I started liking other classical waltzes. I picked up many waltzes from Japanese radio programs. I learned that Johann Strauss wrote many waltzes. In addition, I liked
  1. Waves of the Danube by Josif Ivanovici (Romanian).

  2. Skater's Waltz and
  3. Estudiantina by Emile Waldteufel.

  4. Invitation to Dance by Carl Maria von Weber. In the spring of 1951, I made a radio set with four vacuum tubes. This music is was the first signal I picked up from Japanese broadcasting with my radio. I was in the southern coast of Korea to avoid the Korean war battles.

  5. Dance of Snow Flakes and
  6. Waltz of Flowers from by Tchaikovsky's Nutcrackers.

  7. Spanish Bride from Tchaikovsky's Swanlake.

  8. Chopin's Waltzes. Piano music of course.

  9. Faust Waltz by Charles Gounot. This used to be a favorite song by my high school chorus. Click here for the music I used to hear during my early high-school years.