Photo: Róbert Hegedüs
Mariann Őry
15/08/2024 07:00
How do you combine Eastern and Western traditions in your music?
My approach is to try to be very faithful to my memory and my experience. Before I moved to New York, I was trained in Chinese opera and eastern rituals. After I came to New York, I was trained in all kinds of western classical music, from classical to modern. Those things became equally blended as one. I cannot physically separate my early experience from my later experience. All of those memories come to mind as one. The way I write music is a reflection of my life experience. It's not the only approach to making music, but since it is so totally connected to my tradition and experience, it's the only approach I know. The most important aspect of art is finding your roots, because your perspective is what makes art so interesting.
Does you aim to promote understanding between East and West through music?
People all say music is an international language, but sadly, we witness many man-made barriers and boundaries in the dissemination of music. In a world where East and West inextricably become one, I hope that my music might help transcend man-made barriers and strive to build an invisible bridge that joins antiquity and the future, East and West. In diverse cultural settings, the search for individual character and deep spiritual thought is still the best asset in artistic creation. Finally, I hope our friends in society at large support and encourage music creation, not only my own, but of my peers and the younger, talented generation of new composers, because they are our future.
You have repeatedly said that Béla Bartók has influenced your music. What caught your attention in the Hungarian composer's music?
We are always looking for something unusual. Bartok’s methods were fascinating to me, and I am sure to many composers, who were trying to find their voice by discovering new sides of an experience, but meanwhile always trying to embrace your tradition. To me, tradition has been one of the most important things, always. That’s where everything came from. Because of my attitude, I always feel very excited about each piece, because with every piece I’m always trying to find a new direction and a new way to look at tradition. From there, like Bartok, I find going back to tradition will always be the purpose for invention. For example, I find writing for the conventional string quartet, or writing for the conventional orchestra, I find if you compose or if you look at the traditional orchestra from another angle, another tradition, it becomes an entirely new orchestra. It’s like Stravinsky looks at his orchestra differently from Mahler, who looks at his orchestra totally different from Debussy. That’s how colorful this musical world is, was, and will be.
What was your experience of Hungarian music scene?
I have very fond memories of the performance of my Nu Shu, harp concerto, here. We had such a talented young harp soloist that jumped into the solo role very last minute. She will brilliant. The audiences also were so wonderful – the clapping tradition is really quite amazing! Good people, good food, good life. I am honored to be back.
What is the significance, uniqueness of the Buddha Passion's Hungarian premiere?
To me, in the last thousand years from Bach to Michelangelo, it seems all artists are working from passionate stories, from Western culture and their ancient stories. But, actually I find few music stories from Buddhist compassionate philosophy, from an Eastern spiritual approach. So, I feel this music, these stories, are very important as this time is truly a time for West and East to become one home of ours – just like Buda and Pest! We must learn to share passion and compassion.
This performance is an immersive experience, when I conceived my Buddha Passion opera it was out of these six cave paintings that I selected from 1500 years ago. So, to me, when I hear my music, I hear the caves. I hear the transposed and transformed sound from the paintings. I am retelling ancient stories, bringing out the music from the painting. And that is a very special experiment for me. I am going back and forth…reality and dream. Reality and dream, meditation and real life. And with this production, audiences will actually see the caves come to life on stage using multimedia and animation.
In 2008, you were commissioned by Google to compose the Internet Symphony, which was performed by the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, and you have given concerts where the audience contributed to the performance using a mobile app. How is the "consumption" of symphonic music changing today? What are the needs of today's listeners?
Technology has very shamanistic applications. If we can use it following a very simple, spiritual belief…Technology can be magical. Otherwise, it doesn't matter how complicated the production could be, if you leave no freedom for performers and conductors, by the end all those complicated changes will make you feel nothing, and no lesson will be delivered. I hope that if I can combine technology and tradition, technology can be humanized and can help rejuvenate tradition. I think everything is opera, many layers of messages with a dramatic result. I hope if you pay a little bit more attention, you'll see the many layers of images, sound etc, coming together as one. Through those classical performances, we can learn a lot about what we're going to do in the future. Ten years ago, I started recording my childhood memories, making music with water, paper, stones and ceramics. This was after I had spent too much time studying the mechanics of western classical music, and I wanted to spend some time outside of this modern society. I wanted to be a barefoot child running through rice fields in the beautiful landscape of my childhood. Later on, I thought, why not just add a modern aspect to it? From this, I realized technology is not just to help you make new things, but to dig tradition deeper.
The author is managing editor of Eurasia