The year 2011 has been off to a great start! Yesterday was my first performance for the year 2011 and it couldn’t have been with a better bunch of peeps or place – I performed Beethoven’s first Romance and Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen (or ‘Gypsy Airs’ if you don’t have spell check) with the San Francisco Symphony in the beautiful Davies Hall.

Being a celebration for Chinese New Year (Year of the Rabbit is what’s coming!) after the concert was where the real fun started.  After signing a few CD’s and being given a balloon-shaped violin by a friendly fan, I was escorted to their stunning City Hall for the “Imperial Dinner”.  Boy, was there royalty there… For those of you who might not know, San Francisco is basically right next to Silicon Valley which is where all the giant dotcoms gather and make magic happen.  I met one of the founders of Youtube, Steven Chen; and also the head of Monster Cable Products (you know those cool headphones “Beats” by Dr. Dre that EVERYONE is wearing these days? The ones that can rip out the sickest, fattest beat? Yeah – the HEAD MONSTER was there); and even Jerry Yang, founder of Yahoo was there.

Basically I was super ‘excites’ to be meeting all these awesome people. Plus the city of San Francisco is probably the most charming city of the United States, its hilly terrain, slightly European design, fashion sense – all reminding me of my hometown back in Australia.

Posted in: Blog

Tagged: Chinese New Year, Davies Hall, Monster Cable Products, San Francisco Symphony, Steven Chen, YouTube