Stamford-based Orchestra Lumos will perform Music of Memory and Reconciliation at the Palace Theater on Feb. 22 and 23. WSHU’s Eda Uzunlar spoke with guest singer and instrumentalist Gabriel Kahane and music director Michael Stern about legacy, community, and how music mixes with other parts of our world.
WSHU: Gabriel, you're set to play and sing with Orchestra Lumos. You'll be performing the concerto that you wrote for your father with your father, conductor and pianist Jeffrey Kahane. Tell me more about some of what you're singing.
GK: Yeah, so I'm going to be singing a song called “October 1st, 1939, Port of Hamburg,” which is from an album called Book of Travelers, which is primarily about a train trip that I took in 2016 after the election in which I chronicled conversations that I had with passengers on those trains. I realized at a certain point that in order to feel comfortable telling other people's stories, I needed to tell some of my own story, and remember that my grandmother had written a beautiful and rather lyrical diary entry when she was coming to this country – first via Havana, and then New Orleans, and then finally Los Angeles where she settled and where my father was born and where I was born. In a way, it's a capstone to the piano concerto that my father is going to play, which also explores some of those themes.
WSHU: Let's talk more about some of those themes and the themes of these performances. We're talking about generational legacies, including immigration from different backgrounds. How does your music mix with these topics and with politics?
GK: For much of the last 10 years, a lot of my work has had something of a political dimension. I really believe to sort of, you know, tie these things together that, that the reason that our politics is so sclerotic is to do with the fact that we've lost the ability to just see each other as people. And I don't mean, you know, well-to-do white people looking at Black and Brown immigrants and, you know, seeing them. I'm talking about even just people within our own, you know, sometimes people on our block who we fail to see as fully human or fail to take the time to see as fully human. And in that sense, I actually think that this notion of giving tremendous attention in the act of music-making to the community building that happens in that room can be as political an act, if not a more crucial political act than, you know, railing about the climate crisis or racist immigration policy.
WSHU: Michael?
MS: Orchestra Lumos is not out to make – this is not a political rally. It's an artistic moment, right? Concerts are a celebration of art, but we are all living in this time and we are reflecting on this moment, and you cannot separate the two and the way to make that argument in the most compellingly loving way is in an artistic way – not by screaming at each other.
WSHU: Michael, I know you're bringing in a community music group as well: Intempo. They work with kids from immigrant backgrounds to create music education. Tell me more about that.
MS: Intempo is an incredible organization they're fighting the good fight with young people all the time. And the fact that we, as an organization, our orchestra can both support and participate in these efforts to try to bring young people closer, not only to the art itself but to the idea that making that art, making music, can actually make a difference. The other thing is that not only is the piece very relevant to the message of the concert, but the act of having kids so involved, with their musical awareness… You empower kids so much when you give them a voice, a musical voice, early on and allow them to express themselves. It makes perfect sense to have them included in this program.
