Cultural Committee

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DFW AACC outstanding year of Cultural Activities

Contact: Katherine Dress (Katherine.dress@verizon.net)
Chairman of DFWAACC Cultural Committee

1. Irving ISD engaged Irving DFWAACC members to teach conversational Chinese to 120 mostly Hispanic children and one or 2 black or white students but no Asians.The classes were held on Saturdays. A total of 30 hours to each child. Students ranged from kindergarten to 4th grade. At graduation, the children made a speech to the audience in mandarin welcoming them, telling them how much they liked learning a third language, thanking the ISD for their support, and asking for more opportunities to learn Chinese. They also sang songs in 4 languages. They are capable of making 100 sentences with what they have learned in 30 hours.This initiative was well covered by the press, including the Dallas Morning News and Irving local papers.
2. The Van Cliburn Foundation outreach to Asian community program. Since November last year, DFWAACC agreed to assist the foundation in their outreach or PR campaign to the Asian community. They have discovered an increasing number of Asians have mastered the western art form of “classical music” and excelled. The number of Asian applicants to their, once every four years, world competition increased dramatically. The Foundation found it necessary to bring awareness of this trend to the Asian community, and hoped in turn the community would be more aware of what the foundation has accomplished, and participate in their events. I was asked to help bridge the 2 groups as a PR consultant.

Several events were co-hosted by DFWAACC and other community groups that included a concert at bass hall featuring young Chinese pianist, the February auditions in Fort Worth for the 2009 competition. More than 200 people applied. 150 were selected to audition in several cities of the world, and 30 were selected to compete for the final rounds. Of the 30, 16 were of Asian origin. These were future selected to 12 for the Preliminary Round and 6 were of Asian origin. They were further sized to 6 semi Finalists of which 4 are of Asian origin.

Finally the world’s best won because of their love for music and their gift to share music

I am pleased to announce that the top awards for the Van Cliburn competition went to 3 wonderful artists who made the pianos sing of beauty to the world and enveloped us in their special worlds. The top 3 were chosen. There was so much to consider and the judges finally tied the first place. The top three just happen to be of Asian origin. There was no 3rd prize.

Instead, The charming Korean young lady, Yeol Eum Son, won the silver medal.

And the youngest competitor (19) Haochen Zhang of China and our own (since February ) blind superstar Nobuyuki Tsujii of Japan tied for the gold medal.

This is a very special moment for us Asians and we are very proud of their accomplishments.

In the final concert we were gifted with the consistent flawless, seamless and liquid recital of Nobu whose purity to music is magical.

Hoachen Zhang performed all his recitals with perfection and just floored everyone with his Prokofiev Concerto No 2 in G minor, Op 16 with the universal acclaim of “perfection”. His excellent manners and humility made him ageless rather than the youngest performer.

There were many more Asians in the audience.

Our press covered the Van Cliburn competition extensively

It is a great gift to the world that the foundation made the entire competition free to the world on webcast

To top it all off the magical knight in white representing beauty, music and purity of heart, the eternal Van Cliburn himself was there to greet one and all.

This was the experience of a lifetime. We accomplished our goals.