Last evening was just the beginning of our NSxPoland ‘tour’. The children got up early to prepare themselves for another concert today. Unlike the first concert, our concert today was a lunch time concert in Florianka, a concert hall right next to Paderewski Music School.
Practice:
We started our morning lining up one by one to have one last touch-up with all the pieces with Ajarn Nat. He took some time to look at all the children to support them and make them feel more confident in their pieces as well as bringing the best out of those last few minutes. After everyone has played for Ajarn Nat, we continued with our rehearsal for walking in and out of the stage. Everyone had to know exactly when to walk in, bow, and walk out. This was the first time we practiced this ‘Nat Studio Style’ walking and bowing with our Polish partners. Our hosts were very impressed. It was very organized. This helped the children to feel calmer during the concert as they will know exactly when it would be their turn and what something would happen.
The clock kept ticking….tick…tock….tick…..tock….
By the time we realised, we only had a short break for lunch before we got change and head to Florianka.
The first look at the inside of the hall took everyone’s breath away. It was very beautiful white baroque style concert hall with a black concert Steinway grand in the middle. The children were so eager to perform in this beautiful hall. The sound was very nice too! The kids quickly went to the piano to try it one by one. I started to set up everything and waited for them to start.
What I find really amazing here in Poland, and that is so different from Thailand, is that people here really appreciate music. They respect the concert time. People always arrive before the concert time. So, by the time we were there, people were already there and more kept walking in until the start time.
Florianska:
Florianka was full. We had children from the Paderewski Music School, parents, our Polish friends, and general public that were there for these children. The concert went so smoothly. Kru Łukasz was our emcee today, introducing everyone and their pieces in Polish to the audience. The children played even better than the day before in Dobczyce. Just in one evening and one morning, they all improved.
Both Ajarn Nat and Włodzimierz Pabian, the director of the School told the parents how happy they were for the result of this almost one week long exchange programme, how ALL the children have improved and how ALL their friendship have flourished as well as their hope in seeing the continuation of this friendship between the children cross-culturally in the future.
Erazm Ciołek Museum
The concert finished at 2 pm. We quickly changed to go to our last art museum of our days in Krakow, the Erazm Ciołek Museum. The reason why I wanted the children to go these was mainly because of its beautiful altar pieces collection. It’s rare to find such a place that the children would be able to spend time to look at so many of them so closely. I let them roam free for an hour. The museum is not big and we could spend more time if we wanted to but that’s all we had for that day since the museum closes at 4 pm. The children were in awe with all the wood carvings as well as the paintings. The museum holds a collection of art works from 12th century to 18th century as well as orthodox Christian art. Moreover, Kru Nat and Namtan had more time to explain to the children of the section of the bible an artwork might have taken from to those who were interested in stories.
Today was our last concert in Krakow and it would be their last night with their host families. Some children were already complaining about it. They already fell in love with Krakow and its people. They didn’t want to leave their host families.