DNA: The Role in the Community

“The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety” - Felix Mendelssohn

What is music? Since the age of eight, music has been an integral part of my life. During this time, I have increasingly come to the conclusion that music is a universal language with which we are all born and of which we are capable of consistently developing a deeper understanding throughout our lives. Language is communication, and communication can bring unity.

The idea of unity has always been a key motivation for me personally as it gives me hope for freedom of existence in different communities. But what is particularly exciting is the way in which music in particular can encourage unlimited access to the world of cultural heritage and enhance our curiosity as opposed to fostering prejudice.

It is worth emphasising Mendelssohn’s above use of the word ‘variety’. This word makes me think of getting out of your comfort zone, which for most people is not necessarily their idea of fun. How many times have we all disliked and dismissed a painting, exhibition, piece of music, opera, film etc, only for something to later mentally click into place, allowing us to reconsider it with a fresh perspective? Sometimes when you do not understand what you are experiencing at first it does not necessarily mean that you do not like it. The great example is Martin Eden from Jack London’s’ novel whose behaviour to defeat the invincible and conquer the tips of philosophy is striking. It is unlikely that Martin ‘enjoyed’ the moments when what he just read made no sense to him but paradoxically he continued this journey and, in the end, was rewarded. I believe that the main and important tool of his was a sense of pure curiosity to the new and unknown. This principle works everywhere and to embrace new and culturally enriched music is not an exception, in fact it can be a hard task to accept the unusual.

My aim with this project is to become a kind of conduit for the music community, helping us all as musicians to explore new ways of expressing our music to our audiences. Having spent my life moving from one country to another, studying music from completely different perspectives, and learning four languages, I would like to demonstrate the wealth of different musical traditions around the world albeit with a new way of expressing these through a series of musical recitals.