Belgium and Me
[On the occasion of "Shine Weeks" held from 8th to 19th September, Prof. Yuzuko Horigome, one of the Japanese women active in Belgium, wrote an essay supporting "Shine Weeks".]
Belgium and me
Prof. Yuzuko Horigome
Violinist
Professor at Royal Conservatoire of BrusselsSeptember 2014
I arrived in Brussels on 28th April 1980. I was going to participate in Queen Elisabeth Competition. After enjoying fully blossomed spiring flowers in Japan, my first impression of gray Belgium was dismal. People walking on the street had their coat collar turned up.
Rue de la Valle was my destination. I climbed up to the attic room and looked out of the window. How much I had yearned to see that view! But I could not imagine that Belgium would become my "pieds-à-terre", home-ground.
It was my second time abroad. I had applied for the Carl Flesch International Violin Competition in London in July 1978, but failed to pass the first round. My father was seriously ill at that time and he passed away in August.
The Elisabeth Competition was my personal challenge. "Practice in case of the worst situation" and "Do everything I can" were my themes. I was 22 years old, just graduated from the university.
I felt satisfied with my passing the first round of the Queen Elisabeth competition, it was a sort of revenge against the unfortunate memory of London. Then it was required to play a new unpublished program for the semi-final and final round, and I prepared it while confined in the Queen Elisabeth Chapelle. "Please have a good rest" said the lady of the Chapelle, I remember her word with gratitude. The final took place in Friday and we waited until the midnight of Saturday to hear the results. I had believed that participants' name would be called from the bottom of the list, just as in Japan. When my name was called first, "Uzuko Origom"(it always sounded strangely), I got confused with the thunderous applause of the audience and radiant smiles of the jury. It was only after somebody pushed my back to the center stage that I realized my winning the first prize. It was the end of May.
Then I started living a terribly hectic "soloist life" which I had never expected. Maestro Seiji Ozawa kindly told me "all the laureates disappear in 5 years". I tried very hard not to disappear and survive at least 5 years. Languages were difficult, always traveling around, enormous stress just like the debut stage…. My life was full of first experiences in the first places. During my struggle, my host family in Brussels and friend abroad supported me a lot as well as my family in Japan. They are always my good friends after 30 years and more. Their children are now married and have new babies.
I also lived in Paris. In my school days in Japan, I dreamed of living there. My father also had fantasy about Paris; he studied French in his youth. But the reality was such that I had to quarrel with people in the post office or shops always in French. That made me very tired.
I lived in London too. I had a manager, London was international and they had many things in common with Japan which is also an island country. But people were very critical to my poor English. The moment I started speaking a few words, they started to categorize me in their class hierarchy. I had no time or power to study English anyway.
Then I was invited to play at Marlboro Chamber Music Festival in America. I made a lot of friends there and started living in New York! At that period, 1 US dollar was 300 yen. New York was the center of the world. After I went to some gorgeous concerts, it turned out that socializing there could be so superficial and frivolous chatting didn't suit my personality.
I always came back to my sweet attic room in Brussels.
After learning from my experiences, I finally found a place to settle down as my "home" in Brussels in 1989. Little children of Drymael family asked their mother "why is Yuzuko leaving?" She replied "listen, everyone leaves home when they are grown up". Indeed, I was 31 years old!
After 10 years of my "soloist life", I got married and children were born. My husband is a Belgian musician. He used to play the violin at Liege Orchestra and I can trust him to carry my violin. When my two children were small, I picked one on my back and took a hand of the other, with my other hand holding the violin. It looked like a circus show, but I wanted to bring them everywhere. My husband, sister or parents took care of other baggages. Those are my great memories.
My children came with me back and forth between Japan and belgium. They went to many different kindergartens and made good friends. Some of them still visit us when we're back in Japan. It was since their primary school that we've settled in Brussels 15 years ago. I continued playing on the stage, but tried to have more time with my children. That's how I started my teaching career at Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel. Raising children was a good experience for me because now I can apply it to educating young musicians. Both requires to keep patience and imagination.
My children went to French speaking schools where teachers should be respected and children have to be serious to study to pass the examinations. The feeling of it was similar to my experience of Japanese schools in the 70s, therefore I had almost no culture shock in spite of the language barrier. I only regret that my presumption, "my French has become perfect!", was far away from the reality even after the two times of helping my children with their homework in the primary school. Even now, I am irritated by my poor vocabulary of French words, limited expressions and failing to learn Dutch that I have started later when I got much older. I ask myself "how many years have I lived here?"
When the parents were away for business abroad, the children were taken care of by a lady called Thérèse in the neighborhood, or rather she came over to our house with her dog Moca! Thérèse accepted other children too and they formed "Army of Children" with their ties stronger than real brothers and sisters. They still get together in their happy days or sad days. Thérèse supported my family so much.
Now that my children are 20 and 17 years old, I feel my job is done for the moment. Although it's an accomplishment as a mother, I feel a bit sad at the same time.
Sometimes I imagine neglected possibilities of my life. Would I become better off if I had come back to Japan? Could I practice more to have better career if I had lived in London?
Brussels has given me opportunities to live a normal life, such as shopping grocery and cooking for my family. Here I enjoy all the seasons in nature with my children, picking up chestnuts in the wood and cherishing the enormous cherry blossoms just in front of my apartment. Time flies and 34 years has passed. I could not have achieved my musical career without the support of my family and the warm heart of Belgian friends.
My journey continues. I am proud to be a traveling musician. Since I returned from an international violin master class at Cambridge Trinity College, I have spent intense 1 week of practicing the violin without doing any housekeeping. How can I sit back and relax after being surrounded by inspiring violinists of all ages? I turn the new score pages to master my future repertories.
* Website: http://yuzuviolin.com/jpn/index.html