An update on current activities. I’ve received a couple emails asking why I’m not blogging so much. After making it through Chinese New Year here in Macau, China I was able to take a long overdue vacation and return to the United States for the first time in two years. (Beloved Skagit County, Washington USA [...]
“Curiosity is the most powerful thing you own,” he said. “Don’t put limitations on yourself. Other people will do that for you…failure has to be an option in art and exploration because it’s a leap of faith.”
“In whatever you’re doing, failure is an option, but fear is not.”
- James Cameron – TED Talks 2010
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There is a little confusion in China when it comes to Western holidays. For instance, on Christmas Eve the street was littered with confetti as people exploded party poppers at the stroke of midnight for the beginning of Christmas Day. And then Auld Lang Syne is playing on all the bar sound systems. Christmas Eve, [...]
What a trip. Someone posted this photo on Facebook. I think it’s 1982 at Interlake High School (Bellevue, WA) at a Symphonic Band concert. I am the third French Horn player from the right. I graduated the following year in 1983 first chair. So I think I was 15 years old in this photo. Leo [...]
In Christmas 2008 I received a donation given in my name. I made a nasty blog post about giving donations at Christmas presents which has gotten me a lot of hate mail.
The nasty blog post is here:
http://www.conradaskland.com/blog/2008/11/making-donations-as-christmas-presents/
But one person from the Great White North took pity on me for Christmas this year and has sent [...]
I get many emails from people asking variations of the question “How do I start a career in the arts?”. It comes from singers, writers, hip hop producers – all people who perform and create. They are starting out, they have a drive, they think they have what it takes but they are not sure [...]
November 12, 2009 was the celebration for the 500th performance of the ZAIA show by Cirque Du Soleil in Macau, China. Cirque founder Guy Laliberte flew in for the performance and toasted the artists and crew. Family and friends were also invited for the occasion.
Conrad Askland (ZAIA keyboards and assistant bandleader) and Guy Laliberte.
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I recently updated DNS on websites that are not active to point here to my personal site. Thank you to the person who emailed me about that. Over the years I had many websites on different servers and I didn’t update DNS on websites I wasn’t using. When those old IP’s were reallocated, new owners [...]
Continue reading about DNS Updates or How Did I Get To This Website?
Did you know that the latin root of ”to entertain” means “to hold between”? (Official dictionary definition at the end of this blog post). When an audience is no longer held, they are no longer being entertained. The mighty brass ring for any theatrical production is to keep the audience engaged so they are not [...]
View Conrad Askland – Cities I’ve Visited in a larger map
Had fun messing around with Google Maps. This is a list of cities that I have visited.
I keep messing it up – now I’ve got two maps posted, each with half of the cities I’ve visited. Arghh! I give up, it’s boring now…
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12 year old Shaheen auditions for the judges on Britains Got Talent 2009 singing Whose Loving You by Michael Jackson.
There’s a great lesson in this video clip. There’s a tendency to think of artists as having a certain talent level — like someone has great talent or mediocre. It all depends on the application; artists [...]
Continue reading about Britain’s Got Talent – Shaheen Jafargholi
I have had interesting discussions lately with friends on the subject of love and of our paradigms and world views of what that is. My journey has been both wonderful and painful. In the process a friend from the Great White North sent me this song which is new to me. I hope you love [...]
Continue reading about Nickelback – If Today Was Your Last Day
The Cirque Du Soleil ZAIA band, June 2009 in Macau, China. A rare moment where all the musicians are together for a photo opp.
In this photo: Eduard Harutyunyan (percussion), Jay Elfenbein (viol, dare I say cello, strings, bass guitar), Darrin Johnson (drummer), Olivier Milchberg (guitar, Turkish banjo, plucked strings), Maria Andersson (singer), Steven Bach (keyboards [...]
I’ve lived in China over a year now and I don’t know any Cantonese or Mandarin. Surprisingly it’s been difficult to find a private tutor for Mandarin. Cantonese is the main language spoken where I live (Macau and Hong Kong), but variations of Mandarin are spoken throughout China. I had an interpreter tell me the [...]
Continue reading about My First Private Lesson in Mandarin Chinese
This is my #1 favorite song in all of music. If you are interested in more information on this piece, I have a previous post with translation and background information here:
http://www.conradaskland.com/blog/2006/11/ave-verum-corpus-wa-mozart/
Ave Verum Corpus by W.A. Mozart.
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This is a thought on the language of music and how my personal vocabulary has changed since working with Cirque and working in China.
I don’t know if this would qualify as a “paradigm shift”, but I had an eye opener today. I had a friend send me a video of a music performance. It’s a [...]
Continue reading about Personal Evolution on the Language of Music
Freddy singing “before the next teardrop” and “wasted days and wasted nights” New Mexico State Fair 2003. Conrad Askland is playing keyboards with Freddy in this video. Not a great video, but just happened to run across it while surfing YouTube. Augie Meyers is also playing accordion with us in this video.
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Mmmmm…….another blog post about nothing that I am an expert on. Just an observation from my limited personal experience. This post is about my perspective of religion and Buddhism in Asia and the lay population. (“Lay people” are ordinary people like you and me. Members of congregations and everyday people. They are not church leaders, [...]
Continue reading about Asian Buddhism and the Lay Population
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