DTH: You said in the program notes that “Bach and Beyond” is an attempt to form a connection from the past into the future. Can you tell me a bit more about what the audience should expect?
JK: There are all these different layers in which the music goes from light to dark and back into light, so there is a kind of journey, but there is also the idea of changing how we listen to music.
DTH: What do you hope people will take away from the performance?
JK: I guess its about just reconnecting — the video in the program is about having forgotten to laugh. It’s this beautiful metaphor about teaching us to connect to emotions that we believe we have forgotten. I think that’s the whole purpose.
DTH: Tell me about Bach.
JK: There is something about Bach that’s amazing. What’s nice about this program is that through its course it changes how you hear and how you play.
It still feels as though God came down and wrote through his hands — there is something so transcentident about it. The ending piece is about the human struggle to find peace.
There is a theory that Bach was away traveling and didn’t hear about his wife’s death until he returned.
It’s a memorial and you can kind of hear his struggle to find peace. I often think that its one of the most incredible pieces ever written they don’t even know if it was ever performed during his lifetime, so there is something so personal about it.
Jennifer Koh performs at Memorial Hall this Thursday, April 14 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $10 for students, and $20 to $55 for the general public.
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