Tomorrow night we are performing a concert for the New Year called the Sylvester Gala Concert. I had originally assumed that this referred to a wealthy patron who sponsored the event, but after several references using this term outside of the concert context, I realized that "Sylvester" is the term the Japanese use for the New Year. Thanks to Google and Wikipedia I learned that it has Germanic origins in the December 31st Feast Day for Pope Sylvester I (315-345).
In honor of the Sylvester, our concert will have a lot of Taiko drumming and Rossini arias from Barber of Seville sung in Japanese. Context; always something made new. We rehearsed with the Taiko drummer this morning, a man transformed into pure energy when in action. It's incredible the feats of which a body is capable and how this has the ability to focus the mind with such force. It's amazing to hear his sound and power, and then to see him reduced to a human being while backstage, looking over the score. How many years of training brought him here?
The term Sylvester has obviously taken on new meaning in Japan since its Catholic origins. This is a concert to celebrate Japan, Hyogo Prefecture and HPAC. It is doubtful that anyone thinks of St. Sylvester here. We will be singing the Hanshin Tigers fight song embedded within the Radetzky March, instead. Whatever the provenance of the traditions we have and the terms we use, the place to which they bring us belongs to the moment in which we live. All the things before us conspire to bring us here. And it's incredible that they do, but here we are.
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