A Mini-Schubertiad at the Music School

On Sunday October 6th

   in Thailand. Thirty-five people crowded into the downstairs reception salon to listen

   to Chiang Mai resident musicologist Jean-Pierre Kirkland give an illustrated lecture

   on the life and times of this great and much-loved composer.  

There are always two

major ‘Schubertiads’ annually in Austria, but never before had anyone attempted to

reproduce similar in Thailand. So this was another first for the Music School.

Franz Peter Schubert lived a short but highly productive life – he wrote 600 songs,

9 symphonies, piano sonatas and many other pieces for solo piano as well as many

other well-known chamber pieces such as the famous ‘Trout Quintet’, featured in JP’s

lecture. He also set some of his songs for choir and wrote 6 settings of the Mass as well

as around a dozen operas – and this parochial man lived in Vienna for only 31 years

before his death in 1828. In addition, JP gave the audience a range of illustrations from

Schubert’s songs including a live performance of one such song performed by Christa

Klunsch and accompanied by Ajaan Santi. Ajaan Santi and one of his staff, Night, also

played a four-hand arrangement of the popular Marche Militaire to an appreciative

audience. The evening was a great success as, at the end, the audience spilled out into

the street for drinks and nibbles. So this was another first for the Santi School of Music!

2556 Santi’s Music School hosted the first-ever ‘Schubertiad’