Friday, November 24, 2006
Off to the Airport
On our way...
After three years of planning, Southwest Chamber Music left on Monday for our Cultural Exchange trip to Cambodia and Vietnam. Our group is 21 persons, including musicians, conductor, composer, spouses, and friends. In addition to our group, there is another group of eight Board members and donors who will travel alongside the musicians, enjoying the sites and attending our events.
Guitarist and KPFK radio host John Schneider will travel as our media correspondent, and will be posting to the blog once we arrive in Cambodia.
We are all meeting at Los Angeles International Airport on Monday evening to check in for our flight on Singapore Airlines. We stop briefly in Taipei, continue on to Singapore, and arrive in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Wednesday afternoon. The longest flight is 20 hours, and we won't count how many actual hours it will take us to fly from Los Angeles to Cambodia. Our check-in involves our instruments plus the extensive percussion instruments, in special cases, needed for the compositions by Chinary Ung.
We have been helped greatly by Global Spectrum, travel specialists for Southeast Asia. They have designed the special tour for the Board and Donor group, and also helped us arrange our airline tickets for the entire trip. Marcia and Susan at Global Spectrum have been invaluable, navigating our needs in loading all of the instruments and troubleshooting weight and size restrictions.
Helping us overseas are people in each city where we will be staying:
Amrita Performing Arts in Phnom Penh is presenting our concert on December 1st at the Chenla Theater, and arranging our Master Classes with students from the Royal University of Fine Arts. Fred Frumberg, director, and Rith, his assistant, have been our liason with the University, procured extra instruments needed, publicized the events, and taken care of our hotel and transportation arrangements.
The World Culture Expo in Siem Reap will present our concert at the Main Expo Site on December 3. We have communicated with many people at the Expo, and currently our contact is Suon Sovann. He has made all of the concert arrangements, provided for our hotel, meals and transportation, and will help us tour the Temples of Angkor on our free days after the concert.
And, traveling with us in Cambodia will be Chinary Ung's sister Helen Ung, who will make certain that everyone else does a good job on our behalf!
The Hanoi National Conservatory has so many people helping us that it is impossible to thank everyone here. Ms. Thu Nga Dan of Southwest Chamber Music has facilitated our Master Classes, rehearsals with the Vietnamese musicians, hotel, transportation, and concerts at the Conservatory and Hanoi Opera House. She has arrived early to meet with press and media, and finalize all of the arrangements.
All of the people described, and many more, above have helped make this trip possible, and we thank them!
The bags are packed with our concert clothes, the instruments are in hand, and it is time to go - Southwest goes Southeast!
After three years of planning, Southwest Chamber Music left on Monday for our Cultural Exchange trip to Cambodia and Vietnam. Our group is 21 persons, including musicians, conductor, composer, spouses, and friends. In addition to our group, there is another group of eight Board members and donors who will travel alongside the musicians, enjoying the sites and attending our events.
Guitarist and KPFK radio host John Schneider will travel as our media correspondent, and will be posting to the blog once we arrive in Cambodia.
We are all meeting at Los Angeles International Airport on Monday evening to check in for our flight on Singapore Airlines. We stop briefly in Taipei, continue on to Singapore, and arrive in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Wednesday afternoon. The longest flight is 20 hours, and we won't count how many actual hours it will take us to fly from Los Angeles to Cambodia. Our check-in involves our instruments plus the extensive percussion instruments, in special cases, needed for the compositions by Chinary Ung.
We have been helped greatly by Global Spectrum, travel specialists for Southeast Asia. They have designed the special tour for the Board and Donor group, and also helped us arrange our airline tickets for the entire trip. Marcia and Susan at Global Spectrum have been invaluable, navigating our needs in loading all of the instruments and troubleshooting weight and size restrictions.
Helping us overseas are people in each city where we will be staying:
Amrita Performing Arts in Phnom Penh is presenting our concert on December 1st at the Chenla Theater, and arranging our Master Classes with students from the Royal University of Fine Arts. Fred Frumberg, director, and Rith, his assistant, have been our liason with the University, procured extra instruments needed, publicized the events, and taken care of our hotel and transportation arrangements.
The World Culture Expo in Siem Reap will present our concert at the Main Expo Site on December 3. We have communicated with many people at the Expo, and currently our contact is Suon Sovann. He has made all of the concert arrangements, provided for our hotel, meals and transportation, and will help us tour the Temples of Angkor on our free days after the concert.
And, traveling with us in Cambodia will be Chinary Ung's sister Helen Ung, who will make certain that everyone else does a good job on our behalf!
The Hanoi National Conservatory has so many people helping us that it is impossible to thank everyone here. Ms. Thu Nga Dan of Southwest Chamber Music has facilitated our Master Classes, rehearsals with the Vietnamese musicians, hotel, transportation, and concerts at the Conservatory and Hanoi Opera House. She has arrived early to meet with press and media, and finalize all of the arrangements.
All of the people described, and many more, above have helped make this trip possible, and we thank them!
The bags are packed with our concert clothes, the instruments are in hand, and it is time to go - Southwest goes Southeast!
# posted by Southwest Chamber Music @ 10:43 PM 
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We're counting the hours since you left! Now it is almost 24 hours since your first flight took off, carrying some of our favorite people in the world, wonderful precious musicians. Hope your flights are going well, and we are anxiously awaiting your first report. Our love and good wishes to you all, thanks for all the wonderful concerts here at home-- Cambodia and Vietnam will be graced by your presence, and may your adventures be rich and wonderful. hugs from Lynn's Pasadena family, Kathy and Rick Wilson--
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