Prokofiev - Romeo and Juliet

This recording is from a live performance at Leipzig's Mendelssohn Academy in the summer of 2014. A piece very special to me. I first heard the NEC Symphony play this suite during my freshman year, and I fell in love with it right away. I learned the solo piano version and have since then, throughout my undergrad years, grown with the music through many, many experiences (both musically and personally).

The last movement here is my favorite. There's a section before the coda where the horns are playing the main melody - it always brings me to tears.

Romeo & Juliet (1884), by English Victorian painter & illustrator, Sir Frank Dicksee

"Why do we always cause the greatest hurt
to the people we love most?
I wish the world was a kinder place, where
we could one day finally do a good job of loving
and protecting the people precious to us, I wish
pure and sincere intentions meant something, I wish
we didn't have to mess up and make bad choices and hurt each other
and hurt ourselves in ways we never intended, I wish
love just made that little bit more sense.
I wish just loving someone that deeply and that painfully
is enough of a price for some decent happiness.
I wish I could still cry when I'm in pain.
I wish the suffering would stop.

Just freeze,
for one more moment,
just go away for one heartbeat, to bring us
back to that time when everything was the way it was always supposed to be
for one more second.

what did we do to deserve this."

Tong Wang

Tong Wang is a Canadian artist leading innovative initiatives across areas of performance, research, and community engagement. Her projects explore the role of art in relation to identity, culture, and current social-political issues. As a soloist and chamber musician, Tong has performed with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, Red Deer Symphony Orchestra, and ensembles across North America and Europe. As a multidisciplinary artist, she has written the libretto of a new opera, “Labyrinth of Tears”, funded by the Canada Council, FRQSC, and SSHRC, participated in the Napoule Arts Foundation Residency in France, and published an award-winning photo-essay in the literary magazine Carte Blanche. Her other projects include the creative performances “Song of Praise”, “Ghiblilane”, “Once Upon a Pumpkin”, and research on the aesthetic of “cuteness” in popular and classical music. Tong recently toured a recital on multiculturalism, “我们Us” in Lunenburg, Montreal, Basel, and presented the interactive concerts “We’re Not Really Strangers” and “My Neighbours Totoro and Claude!” at the Verbier Festival. In 2022, Tong launched the Windwood Music Festival in Airdrie, Alberta to engage with and support rural farming communities through classical chamber music. In 2023, Tong will be touring with Duo Perdendosi across eastern US & Canada, as well as with Duo Incarnadine in Turkey and China to premiere a new commission by Alice Ho, Four Impressions of China. Using diverse mediums, Tong aims to share the power of art to reach across time, languages, borders, and cultures to connect people and kindle a shared understanding.

https://tong-wang.com
Previous
Previous

New sketch - Camino Cielo

Next
Next

Thoughts on words