Christmas Letter

Dear Friends,

Long ago, the King of England was taken with a cold and the royal physician determined that it would be good if a bottle of whiskey were placed by the King’s bedside so he could take a little as needed to ease his discomfort. It was thus decreed and a bottle placed nightly at the king’s bedside. In due time the king recovered, completed his reign, died, and was succeeded by kings and queens for two centuries, during which time the bottle was faithfully replaced nightly at the Royal bedside. Finally, in the mid-20th century, Prince Philip discontinued the practice which had continued for two hundred years simply because no one had been told to stop. This is a good description of the Kelley Family Christmas letter. In the beginning there seemed to be a need to communicate information regarding the children. But they are mostly grown by now and lead lives distressingly like adults. About the only rationale’ I can come up with for continuing to write is that this may be a kind of public service, since many people have a suspicion that the lives of others are somehow more interesting than their own. This letter is my small contribution to putting that suspicion to rest, at least in the case of our family.

Karen finished high school this year. Or was that DJ? It’s all very confusing. As many of you know, DJ was homeschooled and the burden of this was mostly borne by Karen. As we were coming down the homestretch in the Spring Semester, Deej was taking a class at the local college which was required for him to graduate. This was the first class in 4 years in which we could not monitor his actual daily progress and the fragmentary information we could glean was not encouraging. Then came the excruciatingly quiet days after the final exam as we waited for Deej’s grade to arrive in the mail. This was like the iconic scene at the end of the movie “Apollo 13” where the astronauts, hurtling earthward in their crippled spacecraft, are out of communication as they experience fiery re-entry. Will they survive or will they crater? Then the envelope finally arrived and...he got a “B!” (cue orchestra crescendo) We had a mighty graduation celebration for DJ which doubled as Karen’s retirement party from her career as an educator.

DJ is now a first year student at Glendale Community College. He participates in the college group at church and plays drums for church services on occasion. Meanwhile, he is also in a band named “Abigail.” Their velocity is “fast” and their volume is measured on the Richter Scale. And that’s just their “Unplugged” album! At present there are no girls in his life except his mother. While Karen was with me in Japan for a month DJ got a glimpse of the future. He lived rent-free in a house stocked with microwaveable food, had a low-emissions car, a CostCo card and medical care, all paid for by someone else, thus preparing him for the coming reality of life in California. The global financial crisis is hitting the freelance dog-walking world especially hard so his economic forecast is being revised downward.

As for Karen, I have enjoyed watching her read a book for pleasure, cook food that interests her, sew for fun, have coffee with friends, and find her way back into other activities she had put aside while we had kids to deal with. She toured with me in Japan and Korea for a month this year and it was reminiscent of our carefree pre-kid days except with very different food. We both continue to enjoy helping out at church where we can and spending time with the people we have come to love so much here in California. We have now been married 32 years, a new record for both of us.

Those who know me know that I dislike home maintenance chores of any kind. When a light switch breaks I assume that is a sign from God telling me not to go in that room when it’s dark. There is evidence that I am descended from nomads who simply moved rather than having to clean up the bones and trash around their teepees. Anyway, after procrastinating on painting the house for a couple years, shame finally got the better of my aversion. There was further motivation in the form of a terse comment from Pastor Jack, to the effect that he would help me. In due time (and with the help of many kindhearted friends) the house was painted and we even had some fun along the way. Now, about the light switch...

Last summer when gas approached $4 per gallon we knew driving 7,500 miles to Michigan and back was probably not going to be an option. The Kelley family sent a token representative (me) to the traditional Michigan Summer on the lake and that was that. I celebrated my auspicious birthday (08/08/08) playing the trombone in my daughter’s basement and traumatizing her cats.

In November, while sitting in a Starbucks in Tokyo a guy I’d previously seen there a few times struck up a conversation with me, asking what I did there in Japan. When I told him I was an orchestra conductor he responded, “You hide it well.” This is a comment that seems best not to over-analyze, I find. But since I was disguised as a guy who had just gotten out of bed and wanted to be left alone to read his paper and drink his coffee I could understand where he was coming from. I just finished my 6th annual orchestra tour (Japan/Korea) for Disney and we’re looking to possibly add China in ‘09. Kompai!!!

Daughter Kate and #1 Son in Law Greg have been married 3 years and are thriving in Lansing, Michigan. Kate will graduate from Michigan State this Spring. Greg is on staff at Trinity Church. My parents are still active, living in Northern Michigan in the summer and Florida in the winter.

You will note that despite the mess we seem to be making of things that the sun continues to rise as scheduled, the stars move in their courses, the seasons progress. God provides seed for the sower, rain in its season, and feeds the birds of the air. His common grace is heralded daily by those who are not too distracted to see it. We may mess up but God never does and this is a time to take comfort in that. “At the right time” God sent His Son to live among us so that we might live forever with Him. Thank God for His marvelous gift!

Grace and Peace,

Brad, Karen and DJ Kelley

"You Hide It Well..."

This morning I was approached by an American guy as I sat at one of the Starbucks near the hotel. I learned that he had been in Japan for 31 years and was presently teaching Latin, of all subjects. He asked me what I did and I said “I am an orchestra conductor.” “You hide it well,” he replied. I was disguised as a guy who had just gotten out of bed and wanted to drink his coffee and read his newspaper in peace. But his comment pleased me and I replied “Thanks!” I take pride in the fact that I am well-schooled in the “tools of ignorance” - the shovel and pushbroom. It makes me appreciate what I have. It also gives one hope that if a guy from my background can grow up to be an orchestra conductor, who knows? Someday a black man may grow up to be the president of the United States.

Autumn in Tokyo

Tokyo is one of the most livable large cities I have ever visited and here is one reason. In the heart of the city the Koishikawa Korakuen Park is 17 acres of peace.

Mistakes Were Made

I am often asked if I ever make mistakes when I am conducting. The answer, of course, is yes. In any given concert I make hundreds of decisions and give innumerable cues and am bound to get some of them wrong. By “decisions” I don’t mean that we’re making this up as we go along. The purpose of rehearsals is to set tempos and establish our approach to any given passage of music. But we are not machines and every time we go on stage the outcome is a little different. This is especially true when we are accompanying singers. I am also inclined to get into bad habits, especially when I am tired. I may let my arms get too low and then catch the tip of my baton on the edge of my music stand and send the baton cartwheeling through the air or have a particularly nettlesome conducting problem which gets inside my head and causes me grief. Then there is the random screwup which cannot be anticipated.

In my view, if there is ever a moment of doubt or confusion during a performance it is my fault. A poor cue from me can cause a good player make a mistake, since he may have a difficult entrance which is made more difficult by my lack of clarity. In my defense, some music is...unmusical. A given passage may arbitrarily compound rapid meter and tempo changes, added or dropped measures because it was originally composed as underscore to accompany action on screen. There is no melody or internal logic per se. In this case my job is to put the downbeats in the right place and reassure musicians who may have had a lengthy time out that this is, indeed, the place where they are to make their fortissimo entrance. The most terrifying moments come when, in spite of my best efforts, the orchestra gets out of sync with itself. Say, the intricate interlocking harp far stage left is out of sync with the pizzicato strings to my right, thus sounding like musical popcorn. Or the fortissimo percussion passage lands a 1/2 beat early of the rest of the orchestra. Though I may not have created the problem I do have to fix it. This usually amounts to picking a side and sticking with it until everyone else finds us. To me this may take an eternity but in actuality may take 2 seconds and no one but those involved have any idea of the drama onstage.

To keep this in perspective, often after a concert I will be kicking myself over some dumb mistake I made and will ask Karen (who sees us every day) if she noticed it. Invariably, the answer is no. The kind of mistakes I’m talking about would not be discernible from the audience. But of course, the orchestra knows. Since the majority of our communication is through the eyes they know if there is even a moment of doubt that may not show up in an actual gesture. Having sat through hundreds of hours of rehearsals and concerts they read me like a book. The standard we are all seeking is perfection, which, of course, is never achieved.

The Musician

Disney on Classic plays the nicest, most prestigious concert halls in the cities we visit. We are preceded and followed by the most famous names in the international music scene. At the Sejong Center in Seoul last week we followed Jose Carreras (one of the famous “3 Tenors”). The backstage walls in Niigata where we perform are emblazoned with a Who’s Who of artistic autographs from John Adams to Zubin Mehta. My dressing room in Osaka has autographed personal notes and photos of Herbert Von Karajan and Karl Böhm on the wall. It freaks me out to think that Von Karajan’s dressing room is now mine. I don’t even want to contemplate who has preceded me at Suntory Hall. It's too intimidating. I often suspect that when I tell people who actually know me what I do for a living they either don’t understand what I’m saying or they’re saying to themself, “Really? You? But you’re so...average.” There is the old saying that an expert is an average guy with a briefcase, far from home. That certainly applies to me. I’m about as average as they come. My parent’s weren’t musicians, I went to the public schools and had a very undistinguished career at an undistinguished college. In the display windows at the halls where we are appearing are the the posters of distinguished artists who will be appearing after Disney on Classic leaves town. Violinists, pianists, singers of every type, all looking so very sincere, so very well coifed, so very...artistic. I watch our concert master even as he is tuning up. The way he walks onstage, bows to the audience, his hand as he grips the bow. Then I look at me. I look at myself on the podium and it looks to me like I’m shaking a hammer handle at 60 people. Regular guys know about hammers.

It is also said that an expert is someone who has made every mistake possible in a very narrow field. This also applies to me. Spectacular, public error has been my teacher from day one. I have bombed so many times they should name a B-52 after me. Most people with any sense at all would have quit, and in fact, 99.9% of all the aspiring musicians I started with have gone back to being band directors, selling insurance, fixing automobiles and other real jobs. Meanwhile, here I am, sort of like the girl who came to LA to be a waitress but all the jobs were taken so she became an actress. A regular guy in a world of guys with 3 names.

Waiting Around

Milton wrote that “They also serve who only stand and wait.” He must have spent some time on the road. It is ironic, or at least counterintuitive that when you are traveling you spend the most time waiting. You may be waiting in different places but are waiting nonetheless. Airports, train stations, hotel lobbys, taxi stands. Waiting to board your airplane, waiting for your room key, for sound check, for your clothes to dry, waiting for someone to pick you up. Waiting to be told how long the wait is going to be.

Yokohama

I will always remember that I was in Yokohama during the election of 2008. This city is quite close to Tokyo and our hotel was just a couple blocks from the Chinatown area and also the harborfront. So it was fun just walking around, not to mention offering some great Chinese food. Just as many Anglos may mistakenly view all Hispanic cultures the same, they are, in fact, very different. The same is true of Asia. Japan is not Korea, is not China, etc. The Korean audiences make a hooting noise when they applaud. The Japanese clap like the ocean and have a lot of stamina. Three wonderful days in Yokohama came to an end with a great concert last night. We're off to Kanazawa!

The Dark Night of the Seoul

I'm headed back to Japan in the morning after 6 days in Seoul, Korea. We had 5 great concerts here, had a wonderful party and met some great people. Our promoter was fabulous and we had wonderful, supportive sponsors. Sejong Center is a jewel. Korean passengers on the subway offered help to us in finding our way. People would walk up to us as we were looking at our city map to point us in the right direction. A guy on the subway got up to give Karen his seat and then moved the lady next to her so I could sit there! On the other hand I have been pushed, bumped, jostled, and muttered at by passersby, cab drivers and shopkeepers. Waiters have cordially ignored my gestures for service and our Korean interpreter openly gave me a bad time on stage. I know that it doesn't help that I don't speak a word of Korean and that it is unfair to expect the real Korea to fulfill my theme park expectation of what I wish Korea to be. It is what it is. Living just a few kilometers away from a nuclear-armed nutcase (Kim Jong Il) doesn't help things either, I'm sure. I'm processing all this and hoping to have another go at it if I am able to return next year. I hear China is even more free-wheeling so maybe this is preparation for that someday. On to Yokohama!

Parties/Speeches

To many Westerners the Japanese may have the reputation of being stoic, almost Spartan in their cultural outlook. It is true that on the street, subway or other public places the average Nihonjin keeps to himself. But peel back the aloof public veneer and you meet a group which is deeply social, enjoys laughing, eating, drinking, and singing. In this setting no one is more fun to be with. There are events in hotels where everyone sits at tables and enjoys a meal which are more staid affairs. But the ones I’m talking about are at a restaurant or izakaya (family restaurant/pub) where everyone takes off their shoes and sits on the floor at long tables. In addition to abundant laughter, food and drink each gathering includes speeches. If there are dignitaries present the speeches may be limited to them. Each will be enthusiastically applauded. But if it is “just us” then EVERYONE makes a speech. This may be 60 people or more! In this scenario the speech may just be a line or so but each is greeted with wild cheering and clapping. This can take some time but hey, who’s in a hurry? The evening concludes with a traditional farewell cheer which sends everyone out into the night in fine spirits.

True Companions

As a young man, one of the ways I knew I was ready to get married was that I had a desire to share my life’s experiences with someone. I was an itinerant musician, traveling around the country doing shows, concerts and what have you. I was happy, doing exactly what I wanted to do. But at some point it just seemed that the interesting places I went, people I met, food I ate, and diversions I enjoyed all lacked that something that comes from sharing it with someone. So when Karen Rogers came along I knew that I had found that someone. She has been my traveling companion ever since, enduring the rough road and the smooth with grace and (mostly) good humor. Now here we are 32 years later. I’m still an itinerant musician doing shows, concerts and what have you. Back in the day the view we shared may have been a huge dead cow and a jackknifed semi in the middle of a country road that was blocking our way to a gig in Nebraska. Or the back side of Roy Clark at show after show after show. Today it’s Mt. Fuji out the window of the bullet train or green tea with gold leaf floating in it. But the experience is basically the same. I can honestly say that back in 1976 neither of us would have given much thought to where we would be in 32 years. But now I know the answer; Seoul, Korea.

Yahama Music

On Monday Karen and I continued west as the cast returned to Tokyo. The reason was an invitation to tour the Yamaha instrument factory in Hamamatsu. The city is beautifully situated on a plain with mountains off to the North and the Pacific Ocean to the South. Others must find it accommodating because Honda, Suzuki and other famous Japanese corporations have facilities there as well. We got a presentation on some of the advanced acoustics work they are doing and then had a chance to see where they make the instruments for which Yamaha is famous. It is interesting to see a whole room full of people looking down the barrels of bassoons, hammering discs of brass into trombone bells or handmaking $40,000 flutes. My enduring image is of a trombone slide technician, sitting amidst state-of-the-art laser and other high tech manufacturing methods adjusting trombone slide tubes by bending them over his knee!

Gunma/Shizuoka

It was a relief to get on the road for Gunma and Shizuoka. Everyone was a bit done in from our labors at Disney so it was a quiet, restorative ride to Gunma as a dozen people read, listened to music, looked out the window or napped. I observe that people who succeed at what we do have certain qualities in common. One is a natural curiosity and an interest in new experiences. They tend to be up for trying new foods, visiting new places and having new experiences. They are self-contained to the extent that they usually have something to hand that they are reading, listening to, or working on. One inescapable part of being on the road is that there is a lot of just hanging around in airports, dressing rooms and train stations waiting for the next thing to happen. So patience is a virtue. We all live very closely together so other basic adult skills such as being on time and having some consideration for the sensibilities of others are paramount to having a smooth happy tour. We have been blessed to have talented people who are also good people and I hope it will always be thus.

Some of the cast had remembered that the Gunma audience was quite responsive last year and so it proved again as they gave us a thunderous ovation at the end.

Tokyo Disney Sea

The last several days have been a blur of activity and so I’ll try to just hit the high spots in order not to annoy either of my readers. On Thursday we checked out of the Tokyo Dome Hotel and headed out to Tokyo Disney Resort. Disney on Classic (our tour) is collaborating with Disney Resort to help celebrate the 25th anniversary of Disney in Japan. Disney Resort now includes Disneyland, DisneySea, several hotels, a shopping mall and a new Cirque’ du Soliel theater. A cool monorail circles the park and shuttles guests between several stations.

The event was an invitation-only series of 4 concerts in the Broadway Theater at Tokyo DisneySea. This was all a bit nostalgic for me because I did the soundtrack for the show that opened that theater in 2001. Many of my friends still work there and seeing them brought back happy memories of the hours we spent together creating that show. But bringing a live concert event into a theme park setting is a bit like teaching a dog to walk on its hind legs. It can be done but the results may look a bit artificial. Theme park shows are meticulously planned to exclude anything unexpected or improvisational. Once installed, they don’t change. By contrast, live concerts allow performers latitude to create (within limits) based on the needs of the moment. Every day is different and the show grows and develops with each performance. Theme park shows are brief - typically 20-30 minutes, whereas our concerts are 2 1/2 hours (including intermission). I must confess that the theme park need for control elicited a bit of the inbred rebelliousness which American performers exhibit when they feel they are being are dictated to. So there was a bit of a “dance” as we all tried to figure out the best way to bring these two together. Then there is the “Mickey Factor” which means that we’re all working for Mickey. But when all was said and done the live symphony orchestra, singers, large cast of Disney Characters including Mickey and Minnie created an irresistible hour of entertainment for those lucky enough to get a ticket. I’m not sure it was a good concert but it was an entertaining hour nonetheless. We did this 4 times and called it a (long) day.

Japan is a Whole Other Country

I am often asked during interviews here in Japan and by friends in the US what the differences are between Japanese Culture and American Culture. Needless to say, this is hazardous terrain to cross since judgments of this type can easily be read as condescending or chauvinistic. Worse yet is the “Dixie Chicks/Jane Fonda Syndrome” where one visits another country and uses the opportunity to bash their own. I was born in the USA and plan to die there. In between, I’m spending a big part of my life in Japan and would not be doing so if I didn’t like it here a lot. So I have no axe to grind on the subject. Having said that, one thing which must strike any first-time visitor to Japan is the the high quality of public life. Tokyo is a city of spacious, well-maintained parks, clean streets, graffiti-free buildings, bridges and overpasses. Commercial areas feature open plazas with fountains, greenery and an abundance of places to sit and relax. Customer service in Japanese Post Offices and Train Stations, not to mention restaurants and shops, is uniformly excellent. There is a vibrant street life where the young and old mix freely. That is not to say that there are no seedy areas of Tokyo but rather to emphasize that the overall character of the city is amenable, open and accessible to the public. In my experience, the same could be said of every large city in Japan from Sapporo to Nagasaki. The cultural investment is in public life and they bear the financial implications of that in the form of higher costs. By contrast, we Americans prize our private spaces. We love our spacious homes, backyard swimming pools and tennis courts. Many of our garages are larger than the average Tokyo apartment. We enjoy infinite choice at low-cost “big box stores” in exchange for rudimentary customer service. We are less-concerned about public facilities and, in fact, bridle at the costs associated with schools, fire stations, and roads, not to mention “luxuries” like public parks and recreational areas. This is because our cultural investment is in the individual. So which is better? I have lived in an apartment in Tokyo and would find that a difficult adjustment to make in order to have a graffiti-free walk to the train station. But when I go through airport security in Japan and am consistently treated with courtesy by the personnel there I can’t help but be impressed. So the Japanese tolerate higher costs in order to sustain their public culture and we tolerate a poorer public life in order to have more control over our financial destiny.

Tokyo Day Off

Having come through a hard week of rehearsals culminating in 3 shows I'm ready for a break in the action. So now two days of R&R to let the mind and body recover. For me that means being alone, reading, praying, napping, and having some experience of beauty, preferably outdoors. Modern life is so full of distractions that most people have little time or inclination to extract meaning from the experiences of daily life. The 21st Century presumption is that in order to know something one simply needs to Google it or find out what Oprah thinks about the subject. But one cannot Google wisdom. It only comes by seeking it over a long period of time. So I'm gonna spend the next 2 days doing just that. (Prov.2:6)
でわまた.

Katsushika Symphony Hills

We have reached the stage in the process where we have reached the stage.  By that I mean that until yesterday we had been in a rehearsal room at Tokyo Opera City but now have moved to the site of our first concert at Katsushika Symphony Hills, a suburb of Tokyo.  I was greeted by the familiar backstage experience - dimly lit, with the smell of mifog and electronic equipment and the quiet conversation of stage technicians.  The orchestra members are there, tuning or looking over problematic passages in the music. The hall is a bit small (1318 seats) but will serve as a great place to have our final dress rehearsal and first concert.  

Putting it Together

Today was a long day with the orchestra, reading through the stack of music comprising this year's program.  They are consummate professionals who work hard from the first downbeat to the last cutoff.

Musical Breakthrough in Japan!

Adolph Sax may be famous for combining the single reed with a brass instrument and Mozart may have introduced the clarinet to the orchestra but musical director Brad Kelley of Disney on Classic will be memorialized for bringing the Jew's harp to Japan.  Pictured here, Hatsu, percussionist with the Tokyo Philharmonic Neverland Orchestra demonstrates her impeccable approach to the instrument for the camera.  To be featured on "The Great Outdoors" the instrument figures to be a sensation when it is unveiled to the Japanese public at the inaugural concert in Katsushika next week.

Disney on Classic Arrives in Tokyo

JAL061 arrived as scheduled on Friday evening and deposited me, along with about 400 other souls at Narita Airport.  The cast from New York were all there as I emerged from immigration and sent up a tepid cheer, mostly because they were tired of waiting.  Being together again is like a reunion with the normal members of your family.  6 of the 9 of us did the tour last year so we sort of know where each other's toes are, if you know what I mean.  You don't want to annoy someone you may need to watch your stuff while you you go off to look for a bathroom.  The nostalgia continued as we walked into the lobby of the Tokyo Dome Hotel, our "dome base" last year as well.  So we're off on the adventure again.  37 concerts in 9 weeks.  Stay tuned.

Departure - 7 Days

It is October 2nd and in a week I will be heading for Japan for 9 weeks.  There are some odd aspects to leaving for that long which only become apparent after you experience them.  For one thing, there are a surprising number of codes, passwords and other vital pieces of data carried in one's RAM memory which we remember because we use them daily to retrieve phone messages, get cash from a bank autoteller, log on to various internet accounts and such. This data can erode and even be lost over months of disuse.  ("Did I include all four digits of my wife's birth year or just the last two?  Did I get the century right?"  "Did I use my Mom's birth maiden name, her adoptive one, or both?" "Did I capitalize my favorite dog's name?") It's also a bit odd getting back in the car here after some months of driving on the other side of the road.  Another aspect is going from being "all that" on tour to "who's that?" when I get home.  When you enter a restaurant in Japan it is common for every single employee to welcome you ("Irrashaimase!").  As you might imagine, that is not so common here in Southern California.  I remember after being in rehearsals in Tokyo that we would go to a nearby restaurant and watch the evening Disney fireworks show as we ate our dinner.  At home the only fireworks are if I don't put my plate in the dishwasher.  So now I'm spending my days preparing to conduct 90 minutes or so of music, figuring out if my tux shirts still fit, and getting the house and cars in shape to function in my absence.

Somewhere in Tokyo

Somewhere in Tokyo is an old-style composition book with 10 years of journal entries.  One of those Holstein Cow,  mottled black-and-white cardboard-covered jobs with the cloth tape binding they used to use in school.   Killing time, as one so often does while traveling, I must have left it sitting somewhere, distracted after riffling through my Japanese vocabulary cards or searching the Japan Times for baseball scores or other news from home.  For some reason I always wrote in it using a fountain pen. With its decade-long list of names, places and events, it is amazing how often I wish I had it back. It was not always kind in it's portrayals but I think it was more revealing in what it said about me than what I said about others.  The person who found it would have seen that I know a lot less now that I thought I knew 10 years ago.  Anyway, it was my traveling companion for 10 years and now it's gone.  So this blog will replace that for the time being. I always considered my journal as private (though it was open to my wife, of course) but events have shown that presumption to be false.  The Bible says that there is nothing hidden that won't someday be revealed, so this will get a jump on the process.  Please enjoy.