02/23/2025 Senior Center Performance

Authored by Elena Chen

Group photo featuring( left to right): Rien Chen, Elena Chen, Grace Ma, Cielle Chan, Chloe Li, Odin Young, Chloe Wong

Every time we go to the senior center to perform, it feels special, but this time, even more than usual. We were celebrating the Lunar New Year, and Chloe Wong brought in some decorations for the show. When we got to the senior center, the seniors were already seated and waiting for our performance to begin, and they all looked pretty excited for us to begin. We started setting up the instruments and getting ready for our pieces.

To start off the show, Cielle, who was also the performance host for the day, sang Après un Rěve, a French song by Gabriel Fauré. Even though French wasn’t Cielle’s main language, she still nailed her song perfectly, and the pronunciations were immaculate. Her voice touched everyone, and later, a lady came to us and praised the loveliness of it.

Next, I played Bach’s Invention and Sinfonia Number 8 on the piano. I enjoyed playing Bach’s piece, and I played with its signature Baroque style. It was also apparent that the audience enjoyed Bach’s pieces, as they applauded loudly.

After I played my piece, Chloe Wong played June by Tchaikovsky, also on the piano. All of a sudden, I recognized it. At first, it didn’t seem familiar, but then I remembered—my ballet teachers used this piece all the time for exercises. It was kind of satisfying realizing I’d known it all along. It is a very quiet piece and Chloe played it well.

Following Chloe Wong, Chloe Li played her two piano pieces, 映山紅 and an Etude by Chopin. The first song was tailored to fit this time’s theme, the Lunar New Year. It was a traditional Chinese song, and almost all people of the same ethnicity recognized it immediately. Her second piece was very challenging, and I was amazed at how fast she could play the piece, and with great accuracy as well.

Cielle then returned to the stage, giving the audience some more information about the Lunar New Year to the audience, and explained that we prepared some Asian themed performances for the following performances. Cielle started with an extremely famous Chinese song/poem, dan yuan ren chang jiu, a poem by Su Shi, a great Chinese poet in Song dynasty, which some Asian people even knew the words to and hummed along. I noticed that an Asian lady came downstairs to listen to this song, originally sung by Denglijun, a relatively famous Chinese singer. It was probably a memory of a generation!

After Cielle’s performance, I played my third piece on the piano, The Cowherd’s Flute, which was another Chinese song. It was a pretty happy tune which mimics a Chinese cowherd playing his flute while riding on the back of his cow. It seemed like everyone was enjoying the song.

Rien, the second last performer, played Umi no Mieru Machi on the piano, also known as “A Town With an Ocean View,” from Kiki’s Delivery Service, a famous Japanese cartoon by Hayao Miyazaki. Rien enjoys this piece very much and learned it at his spare time. This piece was very relaxing, and everyone in the room enjoyed it very much.

Finally, Grace, our last performer of the day, played Battling the Typhoon on the Guzheng, a traditional Chinese instrument. Battling the Typhoon was also a Chinese song, following the theme. Everyone, including me, couldn’t take their eyes off the special performance, as most of us had never even heard of this instrument before, much less ever seen it in front of them. In my opinion, it was really interesting to be able to see how people played the rare instrument, and the sound vibrated across the whole room, which really was a nice touch to Grace’s performance. Everyone was amazed, and some of the seniors asked what the instrument was called later on during the game portion of the event. Some of them just stopped by after the performance to say how amazingly she had played it. It was not only the instrument that attached us, but also the excellent music. It made us sometimes happy and sometimes nervous. Grace definitely controlled our feelings by her wonderful playing, it was a very impressive performance!

After the show, as usual,  we asked if there were any people whose birthdays are  in February. This month, we got quite a few people. Some of the ones I remember include Elaine and Mary, and Mary’s birthday was on February 13th, the day before Valentine’s day! All the performers came together and sang happy birthday to the seniors, while Rien played the piece on piano.

Then, we transferred all the seniors to the activity room, where we played Bingo together. Today, Odin and Sherry joined us as new game hosts. They were quite friendly and got along very well with everyone.

One of the seniors in particular won many of the Bingos, and she was called Barbara. She also had a positive attitude the entire game, and she also liked helping others and making them laugh.

Overall, this time’s event was a bit more special than the others, as I was able to remember many more of the senior’s names, and their personalities too. Again, I hope they are still happy and well by the time we come back next month!

Group photo featuring(left to right): Sherry Huang, Alice Ouyang, Grace Ma, Elena Chen, Rien Chen, Marcus Lee, Odin Young

Performers: Grace Ma, Cielle Chan, Chloe Wong, Chloe Li, Rien Chen, Elena Chen

Game Hosts: Marcus Lee, Alice Ouyang, Rien Chen, Elena Chen, Grace Ma, Sherry Huang, Odin Young

Performance host: Cielle Chan