I practiced some basic French before I left, but I neither spoke French nor knew anyone in Paris who could help me. Did you at least know a little French for when you got there? So you didn’t have much time to plan for the trip. Because this was my first time going to Europe, I wanted to stay there as long as I could. The generosity of this grant allowed me to be flexible in planning my trip, and I wanted very much to bring back what I discovered and learned in Paris back to the United States. I didn’t think I would win, so I was more than thrilled when I received the grant. I applied for a Mu Phi Epsilon grant, which offered a music student the opportunity to study in Paris. Toku Kawata: My trip to Paris came unexpectedly. This was you, on your own, in a new country, researching an influential composer. He shared his experience with CU-Boulder's College of Music.Ĭollege of Music: This wasn't exactly a study abroad experience. The Opera house is the embodiment of magnificent excess.Toku Kawata, a third-year piano performance doctor of musical arts candidate, spent a month in Paris this summer to research 'En Vers' by Japanese composer and sometime Paris resident Akira Miyoshi. The architect, Charles Garnier, worked from the principle that more is always better. So on the fateful day, we arrived early, and spent some time looking around the Opera house. There's more to say about the music later. Gorodish turned to me and asked, 'Is this what we're going to see?' Yeah, it's that kind of music. Judging that we would enjoy the show more with some familiarity, I bought a recording and spent some time listening to it. Gorodish make the call, and she said go for the moderately-expensive seats. It turned out that given the constraints of scheduling, and our desire to see a show in the grand Garnier opera house (which was half the point), our only option was to see Gluck's Alceste (which I had never heard of).Īnother decision to be made was whether to go for the moderately-expensive seats or the super-expensive seats.

You can buy tickets for the Paris Opera on-line.

Alceste opera garnier