15 September 2024
Mawlamyine, Myanmar

This post begins with this rather atmospheric photograph, but it ends, predictably, at some news and plans. The first two weeks as (Acting) Director of the Academy of Music have been even busier than feared, but with the responsibilities comes something to work or strive towards, some meaningful contribution that regardless of my general unsuitability for administrative work, I can certainly take on.

Rain-soaked (frankly, quite flooded), looking like something from a century or two ago, this is the Salween river, one of the longest in Asia in fact, but little known given that it spends its almost three thousand mile course in some of the least explored regions on the continent, charging through the inhospitable Tibetan Plateau, down the steep gorges of Sichuan, through the mysterious Shan hills, and out through the surreal landscapes of the Kayin and Mon states of Myanmar. It’s not particularly navigable much further up than this and serves little commercial function, though it was the pathway that the Burmese, and many other Southeast Asian peoples, first migrated down from Tibet to the rice paddies and limestone mountains of southern Myanmar. They probably couldn’t have believed their eyes staring at the verdant, rocky outcrops studding the countryside like ships; it’s hard to believe my eyes that a place like this still exists.

It will be a very different picture in a few weeks’ time given that the world premiere of Otherhood (2022) is now approaching; the date and time are set, at 5pm, October 6th, at the Camerata at Finland’s most important performance venue, the Musiikkitalo. I’m worried about this piece, given that it confronts one of the most beloved genres in classical music, the lied recital. All thirty minutes of it, with still not-properly-tested technology, and a lot of complicated and experimental ideas- what will it actually sound like? I have no idea. I wrote it across oceans, as always, and it breathes the musty air of Mumbai as much as the chilly mornings of my home in Oakland, California. It lives in a weird in-between of past and future, and, just like Taneli Viljanen‘s wonderful poetry, it is neither one, or another, but both, and neither, everything and nothing. Staring out onto the river delta as the sun sets in burnt orange hues, a far cry from the muted tones of the afternoon, one sees the great terror and beauty in what is truly unknown.