I came into the auditorium not knowing what to expect. I was excited to watch the show but that was probably because I had never seen an orchestra play live before and I wanted to see what all the hype was about.
At the end of the show, I was definitely hooked. I’m not going to pretend to know how to describe ElSaffar’s musical genius using technical jargon, so instead I’m going to dump this perfectly phrased quote from the UMS performance booklet here.
“The highest ideal in maqam music is to reach a state of tarab, or “musical ecstasy,” which results from the melting away of borders between a notion of self and other, as performers and audience revel together in the music.”
These words are no exaggeration. I SWAM in musical ecstasy. Whatever physical barrier stood between me and the music was washed away by their compositions. Not only was I bopping my head and swishing my body to the music’s rhythm, my body would also act up to the music’s dynamics. Whenever the performance built up a crescendo or when all the performers started to madly improv, my throat would clench, my heartbeat would quicken, and my back would go rigid. I only realized these effects after the performers slowed down, when I started to be aware of my surroundings again. (And the midterm I needed to study for fast.)
In that auditorium, I lost my sense of form: I became a serpent lulled by 17 snake charmers; a marionette pulled by tendrils of tangled rhythms; a grain of sand carried by a roaring river of sound.
Random highlights of the show and some of their recordings:
Jason Adasiewicz playing the vibraphone (like watching the Mad Hatter play the vibraphone)
Rajna Swaminathan and her mridangam (Whiplash vibes)
Amir ElSaffar’s trumpet solos (I now see trumpets in a totally different light)
(I forgot to record this part)
Orchestrated madness
