难忘的欧洲巡演之旅(Twenty-three)

(First time to perform my flute in a church, a dreaded moment full of nervousness)
A Journey of Flute in Central Europe
Emma Chen

It was the first time I performed a Chinese musical instrument in a church, let alone in the historic old town of Prague, Czech Republic. It happened in a hot summer afternoon of July, Shanghai Philharmonic Children’s Choir and Prague Children’s Choir were performing together in the music sanctuary Klementinum Mirror Chapel (church), hundreds away from the famous Charles’ Bridge. We were sitting on the last row of the church, waiting for the local choir to finish singing their songs. Afternoon sunshine penetrated the mosaic-glass windows beaming on their faces, reflecting to the heaven’s paintings on the high roof, making the whole scene even more holy and less real. Soon it was time for our performance. We filed across the hall along a narrow corridor to the right of the audience seats onto the stage, with people photographing and clapping. After singing for about thirty minutes, we came to perform our last song “Jasmine Blossom”, to which I would play my traditional Chinese bamboo flute to accompany. I walked out of the team, got my flute in the front of the piano and stood before the audiences. With no time I saw many parents in our choir waving, and many foreign faces smiling at me. A surge of nervousness suddenly seized me, my face burning. Carefully I picked up the flute and tired a sound, all seemed perfect. While I was performing, however, the flute broke its sound. I could hardly let it make a beautiful sound as it had originally. The sound was trembling and terrible, quite a disaster. I was embarrassed by this emergency but still played along. Luckily our director noticed this failure of sound and substituted the flute swiftly with an additional chapter of the choir. Whew, that was close! Anyhow, we successfully completed the performance, with many applauses received from audiences.


(The second performance in Mozart House witnessed my lessened anxiety)

Soon after a few days’ driving around in Czech and Austria, it was time for our second performance. This time, we were performing in the Mozart House, where Mozart’s mother and sister lived for many years of their lives. It is situated on the bank of Wolfgang Lake in the small town of Saint Gilgen, Salzburg. It is now a music musician open for public. There is a big wooden attic almost as big as all our rehearsal rooms in Shanghai added together. It was the every concert hall we were going to performance in that evening. Can you imagine those thick woods were hand built by Wolfgang Amedus Mozart’s own grandfather four hundreds of years ago? Wow! I thought, we were going to perform in a place where Mozart was brought up as a child and had often visited in his adulthood! That means, we were going to stepping on the same floor as Mozart did! How amazing. When we were rehearsing in the afternoon, our director taught me many tips (unfortunately I forgot many of them now) about performing. Finally, it was time for our performance to be seen and heard by Saint Gilgen’s community. When it was time to perform “Jasmine Blossom”, to my great disappointment and astonishment, I found out that the membrane of one of my flutes was broken! Oh not again! But what could I do? We had to finish the performance with only one flute (I performed with two flutes, one at the pitch of E, and the other F). With a shifty and seasoned conductor, accompanied by the flawless sounds of the choir, I played the only flute. The audiences didn’t seem to be bothered with any defect of the flutes, on the contrary, they liked our performance very much. We bowed adieu to them in the ceaseless applauses. But could I rely on my conductor and fellow choir members to save me every time? I vowed to myself that I could do better next time, based on lessons and experiences learned from these two performances.


(I made it! The melody of flute and choir echoed across the church hall, rippling the sound from heaven)

Several days later, it was time for our last performance, in Votiv kirche (church) of Vienna. We went into the church for rehearsal that afternoon. Guess what? There were people praying. And things that happened next was even weirder. When we started a song, I could acutely hear echoes of our singing! The original sounds plus the echo made the songs more melodious and lasting. How amazing! The church is made for concert with great acoustics! It turns out this church is one of the best choir sites in the World, only top choirs are allowed to perform here. We felt so honored. The evening of the show soon arrived. I discovered that Vienna Choir Committee members would perform before us. They sang very fine. Very soon we also performed to the end of the show. Stepping out of the line for my performance of the flute, I was not at all panic, or terrified, or frightened. I knew that it was me who could decide whether it was a success or a failure, not my director, nor my fellow choir members. And it was I who could perform well, no matter the flute membrane was ruined, unstable or even broken. I was the master of the flute. Staring at the director ardently, I started to blow the flute. It was no longer the harsh sound in the Mirror Church, or the silent whining in Mozart House. A sound of echo from the canopy and walls of the church surrounded me, the flute, the choir and the audiences, the flute sounded soft, amiable, and even a sense of grandeur. A stream of melodies flew from it, making my day and my whole journey of flute in Central Europe. After the performance, a local lady came forward from the excited audiences asking for our autographs. I silently moved away from her and the crowd, made a paper plane with one of show flyers, and flied it high up into the sky……
P.S. Photos of the Three Performance Sites:


(Klementinum Mirror Chapel)


(Town of San Gilgen)


(The Mozart House)


(The Concert Hall of Mozart House)


(Shanghai Philharmonic Children’s Choir and Votiv Kirche at the back)


(Inside of Votiv Kirche)