By Kai Curry
Northwest Asian Weekly
“We all make music somehow, in our homes, in our communities…we are all connected through the power of music.”
So said Seattle Symphony President and CEO Krishna Thiagarajan as he talked to the Northwest Asian Weekly about the importance of this year’s “Celebrate Asia,” which took place at Benaroya Hall on March 20.
Two years ago, this annual festival showcasing Seattle’s diverse Pacific Rim communities, as it was described by Thiagarajan, marked the last in-person event for the Symphony prior to COVID-19 lockdown. Now reaching its 14th iteration, it was hard to ignore the pandemic-related implications as “Celebrate Asia” was back to help us come outside our homes again.
“We are trying to create inspiring and empowering moments…The times we are living in are so fraught with stress and anxiety, we want to leave you with a moment of hope…to be able to manage all of that tension,” said Thiagarajan. War wages in the Ukraine, and we’ve been at war as a country, maskers and non-maskers, pro- and anti-vaccine, while incidents of hate have risen. But at “Celebrate Asia,” we come together as a city, to “strengthen bonds” as Deputy Mayor Kendee Yamaguchi explained in her introduction; and to strike a balance between the beauty and destruction of Mother Nature, as Symphony composer-in-residence, Reena Esmail, hoped.
That dichotomy is in us and our planet. The evening’s program explored this theme through four compositions that each represented musically the rising and falling of fortune just like the waves of the ocean, which can be both soothing and treacherous.
The opening piece by Toshio Hasegawa, titled “Meditation,” is about the “power of water,” Thiagarajan explained. While on the other end, as the closing piece, was Claude Debussy’s “La Mer” (“The Sea”), which “explores a romanticized, beautiful nature of glistening, lapping waves,” Thiagarajan continued. “We wanted to bring [an] arch from all the aspects of what that means and tell a whole story.”
Listening to “Meditation,” the audience was on edge as pounding drums and high-pitched strings vividly called to mind the approach of a storm—specifically, the tsunami that hit Japan’s shores as a result of the “3-11” earthquake 11 years ago—another somber anniversary.
“La Mer,” inspired by something more benign—Katsushika Hokusai’s famous painting, “Under the Wave off Kanagawa,” or “The Great Wave,” expressed the swelling motion of the ocean and the relationship familiar to Western Washingtonians of sand and sea. The mountain—for us, Mount Rainier; for Hokusai, Mount Fuji—peeks out from the clouds when it wants to—or capriciously, suggested Singaporean guest conductor Kahchun Wong, whose movements were jaunty, his hands as expressive as the instruments he directed through each permutation of sound.
This year’s “Celebrate Asia” was a particularly visual synesthesia of music. You could listen to each finely crafted detail, watch the musicians giving their all, or simply be caught up in the associations provided by the pieces. During the U.S. premier of Tan Dun’s “Trombone Concerto: Three Muses in Video Game,” one could imagine grand natural vistas, or a marching army hoisting bright-colored flags. There was a jazzy element juxtaposed with familiar strains of quintessential Chinese instruments.
Master trombonist, Ko-Ichiro Yamamoto, delighted the audience with challenging breathwork and sounds many had never heard come out of a trombone, while moving his body to the rhythm of this surprisingly danceable composition.
The interplay between the star soloist and conductor was one of the most enjoyable parts of the concert. During the third piece, Kala Ramnath’s beautiful smile charmed as she followed Wong’s lead before coming in with her own rich Hindustani violin in the world premiere of Esmail’s “Concerto for Hindustani Violin and Orchestra.”
According to Esmail, the piece explores five elements of the natural world—space, air, fire, water, earth —that can be destructive when out of balance, yet beautiful when balance is restored. All were hypnotized by this musical journey through climate change, and the havoc wreaked upon our planet, which ends with a “note of optimism,” said Esmail—a prayer of atonement, sung by Ramnath. The piece received a standing ovation, as did the Trombone Concerto. At program’s completion, conductor Wong graciously spotlighted every section of the orchestra as the audience applauded.
“March 11, 2020, around 11 o’clock,” Thiagarajan remembered. The Symphony had been rehearsing “for 45 minutes or so, and I had to walk into the Hall, interrupt our conductor, and orchestra and tell everyone, ‘You have to go home. The governor just put out the mandate,’ and we all had to go into lockdown.” How far we have come, yet not out of danger yet. The usual bevy of pre-concert entertainment was pared down to minimize close contact, and masks were still required inside the concert hall. At the start of the concert, Thiagarajan announced the Symphony’s joining with the “Yellow Whistle” campaign, which calls out anti-Asian hate, and encouraged everyone to pick up a whistle to employ in the case of witnessing a hate incident.
The celebration was paired with pain, yet how vibrantly the Seattle community endeavored this day to pull itself out of the gloom, hesitantly, remembering, but also moving forward. While it rained outside, inside was a rainbow of women in bright saris and their best scarves, young girls in sequined dresses, and men in shined shoes and suit coats, or their best guayabera. As we entered, red and yellow lion dancers cavorted with the audience, their spangled eyes blinking flirtatiously.
As we exited, everyone looked to the second floor where the taiko drums beat.
Once again, “Celebrate Asia” had helped an audience find harmony in disharmony and, as Thiagarajan described, create “an understanding between cultures” and “a bond between communities.”
“Celebrate Asia” 2022 will be available to stream on demand from Seattle Symphony Live for a full week through 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, March 27.
Kai can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.