Wong Yih-Chyn, violin - My life in AYO (Part IV - Tour)

AYO 1992 was also the year that I took the first flight of my life, when we left on 9th August 1992, from Singapore for our first overseas concert in Penang. That was the start of a wonderful and tiring but exhilerating 3-week performance tour, which took us to Kuala Lumpur after Penang, then Hong Kong, Seoul, and 5 cities in Japan: Fukuoka, Kumamoto, Osaka, Nagoya and Tokyo. In Kumamoto, every two AYO members were assigned to a host family, and all of us enjoyed Japanese hospitality. I remember my host family brought me to hot spring near Aso volcano, it was a very interesting experience! After being together for 6 weeks, all of us were very sad when it was time to part. On the second last concert in Nagoya, we had to say good bye to Mr David Alan Miller and Mr Young. I remembered Mr Young was so emotional during his performance of the Sibelius Violin Concerto. I was lucky to take a photo with him at the backstage of the concert hall in Nagoya, with his red-swollen eyes. All of us cried in the final movement of the "Pathetique", under the baton of Mr Miller, for the last time. After the concert, we had to walk to the subway station to take a bullet train to Tokyo, and whole troop of orchestra was all crying on our march to the subway station! At the last concert in Tokyo, we played "Nimrod" again, for the last time, to wrap up the whole 6 weeks of rehearsals and tour. It was inevitable that all of us cried on stage again. Up till now, I can still remember all these details.