Hello Home
Newsletter version here.
“Home isn’t always a place, is it?”
Well, sometimes it is. Other times, it’s the people. The smells, tastes, sounds, memories, stories. A longing, a desire, perhaps a loss, perhaps a pain. Perhaps a bittersweet warmth.
Hello, Airdrie, Canada. When I first saw the maple leaf flag at the Calgary airport, tears rushed to my eyes. I’ve been back for 12 days now. 4 concerts, 1 masterclass, 2 hockey games, countless homemade feasts, the exasperating, derpy, yet ridiculously heartwarming birthday celebration, simply awed greetings to the Rocky Mountains … and a most unexpected trial - a disillusioning reality check that became a profoundly necessary blessing in disguise. Here’s to our “Everything Bagel” story.
What is home? What does home feel like?
These are the questions we kept exploring during our Windwood Music Festival community concerts for elementary and high school students, senior citizens, and immigrant family friends.
After repeated attempts that fell flat, time and again - unable to connect, unable to embody the music, unable to express or engage or understand why our message was not delivering, I finally began to grasp what it’s all about.
We were stuck in our own heads. Our own limitations, fears, doubts, hopes. But what are we actually trying to do? Why share this music? Why bother telling our story? Why does any of it matter? Sure, it matters to us, these stories of homecoming, but why you? Why people who might not even know or care about us?
So we began redesigning the experience. To turn you, the audience, into our storytellers. To remember what we always wanted to do: co-create, foster connections, build community. To really listen, and hear, and pay attention to each other.
And then, during our salon concert, we finally had a taste of that hard-earned magic. That spark of emotion when it does work, when our intentions do translate something untranslatable about our shared humanity. We could feel the laughter, we could see the evidence in your tears, in your voice, your heart-wrenching stories, your handwriting, your eloquent poetry. It was the most tender and endearing feeling, the energy, atmosphere that filled the whole room. This is it. This is what we worked so hard to facilitate, to channel, to play a tiny yet beautiful part in.
It’s quite simple, really.
Experiencing this music is about exploring what home means for each of us individually, and allowing ourselves to be moved collectively by that feeling. By the nostalgia, the joy and the pain, love and grief, happiness and sadness. Everything. Allowing us to notice and remember again what we miss, where we want to be, how beautiful that all is. Even if we don’t find the answers, even if we cannot return to that place, or if home was never a safe place to begin with … we can still all bond over this deep longing for home. That in itself is more than plenty.
If we can imagine it, we can create it. Even if only in fractured pieces, in moments, even if just here together during this hour of musical utopia, we can grow towards the values and principles of home. Of kindness. Of simply existing together. Company, community, kinship.
“Music allows us
to remember a feeling,
and to feel that feeling.”
So, hello everyone, hello home.
Nice to hear you, nice to feel you, nice to remember you, again.
Dear home, with your complexities and paradoxes and shortcomings and unpredictable mood swings and all, thank you for allowing us to redefine, rediscover our magic - stronger, bolder, more real, more ridiculous, more free and rooted than before. Again, here’s to our growth, our continuous, endless, infinite journey.
It takes both sides (or a multitude of sides) to co-create a home. So please help us spread the word. We promise to show up, and we hope you will meet us halfway. And let’s see what happens.
All my relations,
Tong
“Da Capo: A Story of Homecoming”
“Da Capo'' is the story of how two young people from diaspora populations navigate complex personal identities, find kinship within each other, and continue to nurture an ever growing and changing relationship with homecoming through the power of music, art, and community. Featuring works by Ho, Ramnath, Baker, Kats-Chernin, Hisaishi, Beethoven, and Fauré.
April 2 Montreal
April 3 Montreal
April 5 Toronto
April 6 Ottawa
April 7 Ottawa
April 11 New York
April 13 Providence
April 15 Washington D.C.
April 21 Cary N.C.
Program
Part I “Finding Ourselves”
Elena Kats-Chernin - Eliza’s Aria
Ludwig van Beethoven - Violin Sonata No.1 in D Major, Op.12 No.1, I. Allegro con brio
Alice Ho - Four Seasons “Spring” and “Summer”
Kala Ramnath - Aalap and Tarana
Part II “Finding Each Other, Again”
Joe Hisaishi/Wesley Chu - Legend of Ashitaka from Princess Mononoke
David Baker - Blues (Deliver My Soul)
Earl Wild/George Gershwin - Embraceable You
Part III “Coming Home”
Gabriel Fauré - Violin Sonata in A major, Op. 13
Tong Wang and Maitreyi Muralidharan first met as bunk mates at the Brevard Music Festival in 2012, and promptly lost contact, watching and supporting each other’s life journeys from afar. 10 years after, they rekindled their friendship in Montreal, where they decided to work together as part of Trio Eudaemonia. Their similar approaches to music and art as a window into a beautiful world of connection, passion for food and community building, and love of working together sparked the beginnings of Duo Perdendosi. Both coming from conservatory backgrounds, they recognized a need for classical and contemporary music to move away from convention and towards connection. In 2022, they created the Windwood Music Festival to collaborate with like-minded artists and share the power of music to connect land and people. Maitreyi and Tong will embark on their first tour, “Da Capo,” in April 2023, participate in a residency at the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance in June, and return to Airdrie, Alberta to lead the first official season of the Windwood Music Festival from August 13-27. Outside of performing, they enjoy cooking, writing, and each other’s company.
