I’ve always been a fan of live music. I spent much of my early twenties going to pub bands and watching people ‘rock out’ on stage. But I very rarely think, “Hey, I should go see some classical music.” And that’s not because I don’t like it. I listen to quite a lot of in fact. But attending a live symphony is just not something that sits in the front of my mind. Based on my recent experience, it probably should.
My wife and I recently went to see “Joe Hisaishi in Concert: Music from the Studio Ghibli films of Hayao Miyazaki.”
There’s SO much to talk about from this experience. I could spend hours exploring the long-standing and marvellous collaboration of Hisaishi and Miyazaki – a perfect match of sound and vision. Or I could wax lyrical about the impact of Miyazaki’s storytelling – his influence on the way I tell stories. But for now, I want to focus on the orchestra.
When one hunded become one
I was struck most by the incredible power of a group of humans so in sync with one another. I was literally overwhelmed.
There were several moments of the performance that moved me so thoroughly that I had chills down my back and tears well up in my eyes. That doesn’t usually happen to me. Ever. I couldn’t help but ask myself why.
It turns out that sitting in that auditorium, listening to a group of humans dedicated so wholly and entirely to their craft, all moving in sync, contributing to a broader goal and achieving it spectacularly is a pretty privileged and moving experience. Sounds obvious, right?
Guided by this most iconic Japanese artist, the orchestra was such a shining example of how connected human endeavour can result in something beyond any individual achievement. It’s a thing that can ONLY be achieved through mastery at all levels. At a personal level, the musicians are clearly masters of their craft. And at a tribal level, the shared understanding of everyone’s place in the tribe and their willingness to contribute to making something greater than themselves.
I rarely process experiences as profound as this immediately. It was difficult to describe to my wife what I was feeling at the time. As we walked out of the theatre, I just kept harping on about ‘hopefulness.’
For me, Hisaishi’s music exudes hopefulness. It’s a feeling I get after every Miyazaki movie. That the world isn’t as cruel, or inevitably doomed as the media leads us to believe. And Hisaishi did it to me again. But this time the feeling of hope that I got from the music was paired with some surreal sense of being alive. A feeling of being a part of something. I just couldn’t put my finger on it at the time.
I wasn’t up there with 100 musicians. In fact, I’ve never collaborated with 100 people simultaneously on anything. But the experience and the days afterward have me thinking about our species and humanity again. A reminder that we’ve all got our own instruments, the ones we refine over the years of our life. It truly helps to consider our smaller place in the bigger picture. We contribute in our own way to further the tribe, just like different sections in an orchestra. Each piece is needed for a fuller, more luxurious experience for all.
So this is what I’ll take away from a night at the symphony – that the world isn’t that bad, there’s hope for us. And I’ll do my darndest to make life a bit better for all, even after I’m gone.