I am doing photography this weekend for Festival Mozaic, which is a local musical organization that holds concerts and educational events throughout the year.
Scott Yoo, standing, plays violin in a performance/lecture for Festival Mozaic, in San Luis Obispo. Mr. Yoo is the Musical Director of the organization. He is playing here with Jason Uyeyama, violin; Madeleine Kabat, cello; and Ben Bartelt, viola.
My assignment on Friday evening was to make photos of a string quartet in a lecture-concert led by Scott Yoo, the Festival’s Music Director and one of its finest performers.
Yoo is also the musical director of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and Mexico City Philharmonic Orchestra. His accomplishments read like a modern-day Mozart in a world of performances.
Mr. Yoo was directing and playing in an intimate hall to a small audience. I was trying not to make shutter-click noises, except when it would not bother the performers or the players. I started on the right side of the room, with a long lens. I noticed that Yoo would play his violin, sometimes feverishly, then reach to his music stand to change the page of his music. But there was something different.
On Scott Yoo’s music stand was a white iPad with the pages of the string quartet he was performing. He would swipe the iPad when making a page change. Also on the stand is some printed sheet music that he used during the concert/lecture.
When I moved to the left side of the room, I realized that he was swiping an iPad that was on his music stand. Mr Yoo had arranged all of his music on the iPad, and was swiping between pages. It was the first time I have ever seen this in a musical performance.
I remember just 18 months ago when Time magazine asked an open-ended question regarding the iPad: What’s it for?