March daily: David Portillo and Yasuko Ouro
Music and identity in Roxy Grove Hall
Music can heal us in a number of different ways. Sometimes, great words are set to a tune and a rhythm, and the slowed-down, regular flow of the text helps you clock it in a different, bone-deep way. Sometimes, the aching beauty of a melody’s arch or a harmony’s shift grabs your ear or pulls at your breath, lighting up your insides and changing your heartbeat. Other times, it’s just purely sonic, the sheer energetic flow of sound from a throat or a reed or a bow, or the shocked, resilient vibration of something newly struck crossing the air and shaking you to the core.
Then there are times this all happens at once.
Tonight in Waco we had exactly that, thanks to tenor David Portillo and pianist Yasuko Ouro. They gave us ninety minutes of unerring, carefully spun, generously offered beauty. Which is enough, and rare, and special all on its own, but they didn’t stop there. They could have offered their program, a gorgeous blend of music from multiple centuries and cultures, without saying a word, and we would have been entertained, impressed, and physically changed by the experience of listening to them. Instead, they shared with us their connection to the music, and talked about why they had chosen it.
Because of this, we know that David didn’t just sing Handel’s “Descend kind Pity, Heavenly Guest” because it’s a tenor aria or because it’s lovely, but because the words touched him in a pitiless time. He and Yasuko could have performed Guastavino and Grever with not a word about the composers or the language, and we would have loved the beautiful music and the charming performance. But instead, we got to know about David’s personal connection to the language and culture of these composers of the Spanish-speaking diaspora, and about the duo’s pride in Maria Grever’s status as a woman composer.
The set of songs by living composers, set to texts by Harlem Renaissance poets, could also have delivered without comment, standing on merits simply musical. But how much we would have missed had the performers edited out their pride in the inspiration of the Harlem Renaissance, or in their connection to the identities of the poets and composers!
You might say that they didn’t simply “respect the office” of the concert hall. By that, I mean that they didn‘t simply present repertoire to us. Classical music used to teach us that to disappear into a repertoire was a measure of respect. That old philosophy said, here are the Great Works: learn them, offer them, and they will make you and your listeners better.
Okay. But.
Consider: Robert Schumann is part of the Great Works club, and Maria Grever is not. Can you tell me that Jurame is a lesser song than Mein schöner Stern?
(I mean, for me, this is so why not both)
So is it „woke“ or „DEI“ to program Grever? Or just if you talk about why you programmed her music?
Here’s another angle. The newest pieces on the program, Will Liverman‘s Love and the Butterfly and Matt Boehler‘s Fruit of the Flower, are stunning in every way: major poetry, aching lyricism, masterful word painting, arresting piano writing. They‘re everything you could want in a song. What if you read about the songs and learn that Will Liverman is a Black man working on a whole album‘s worth of poetry by Alice Dunbar Nelson, and that he‘s set the poetry of Paul Dunbar as well? What if you know that both Countee Cullen and Matt Boehler are gay? What if you find this out because the performers tell you?
Is that identity politics?
What if you know that these creators‘ identities were inspiring to the performers whose work has just touched your heart? Does knowing this stand in the way of your heart‘s reaction?
I sat in a hall tonight and had my senses captivated by great music-making, and that was enhanced, deepened by the performers‘ sharing the why behind their programming - their human connection to the words and music they chose. They shared not only their connection to one another in the moment as they made music, but also their connection to creators, both from their circles and from other times and places. And all of this was brought into their connection with us.
Diversity matters. Inclusion matters. Not in some box-checking way, but because variety is the spice of life, because deepened knowledge deepens pleasure. It only made my Swedish grandma‘s cardamom cookies better to know that the spice came from India. Who has ever said about delicious food oh please, don‘t tell me where this ingredient is from, that‘s so woke or yeah I‘ll eat it but just don‘t, like, call it something that makes me think about how it comes from somewhere else in case that makes me feel bad?
Two great artists did their thing and talked about identity tonight at Baylor. I am so grateful, inspired, and heartened.
thanks for reading.