- I've always seen it this way.

When our politicians and pundits fail us, artists have often led the way.

When words offer less meaning than music, artists have always led the way.

When things seem at their worst, it is the artist who have oftentimes offered hope.

- The last concert we did was before the pandemic, was March the first, 2020.

Well, I've been counting days exactly to the very opening night.

It was 557 days.

We opened October 8th, 2021.

We opened with a very strong program that really put the spotlight on diversity.

And we've commissioned especially for this program, this concert, Michael Abels' Emerge.

The other piece is Voodoo Concerto by DBR.

This is a perfect program that combines the standard repertoire like Beethoven's 7th, and really to showcase our orchestra with very new music.

On the opening night the orchestra made a European entrance which is a slow entrance for the whole orchestra to come in in order by, by rows really.

Very funny.

One of the musicians asked me do you really think the audience is gonna keep applauding for us this whole time?

Because it's gonna take at least five minutes for the whole orchestra to enter.

I think they will.

And I was right.

Really the opening night the audience gave us as far as I can remember the longest applause for our orchestra ever.

When the orchestra slowly entered stage they just kept applauding without any stop.

And it was so warm throughout.

There's not even like dimming or anything in sound.

It was amazing, I was very touched.

I was backstage on the side.

I was hearing this and I couldn't believe my ears.

(applause) (applause) - The first movement of my Voodoo Violin Concerto is called "Filter", and it began with this notion of how I play the violin.

The violin is about moving the bow along the string, but my violin, I've always approached it a little differently.

That I move my bow closer or away from the bridge.

And when I'm doing that it causes the sound to sound like a filter, an electronic filter.

It makes my violin sound electric.

And I wanted this movement to sound big and audacious and welcoming.

But I also wanted this movement to really highlight what I'm doing with an electro-acoustic violin.

I'm plugged in and I'm using a series of pedals and I'm moving my bow in a particular way so that my violin sounds, well not like a violin but it sounds more like an electric guitar.

One of my, I have two great guitar heroes in my life Jimi Hendrix and Prince.

And in so many ways I wanted to find a way to combine the music of Jimi Hendrix, Prince, and that great Italian virtuoso Paganini, all together in a new way that could be a new way of playing the violin.

So I invented a technique called "filter" and throughout the movement I'm filtering.

I'm moving my bow in a way that makes my electric violin sound like an electric guitar.

And you really hear it when the drums come in and the bass comes in and everything comes together not as much as an orchestra might sound but the way a rock band might sound.

And that's filter.

In the second movement of my Voodoo Violin Concerto, it begins with the piano and the name of the movement is called "Prayer".

And I was really thinking about my mother.

Every Sunday she would drag my family to church.

And the thing I remember most was we had a small choir, we had the priest, and we had a woman on the piano.

And the thing that I love most about, well church on Sunday was that I had an opportunity to hear that woman play the piano.

It meant a lot to me actually.

And I wanted the second movement of this piece to begin with the piano and to begin with something simple.

The entire movement is really built on three chords.

And those three chords are played over and over and over again.

And what I'm doing is I'm scaffolding the sound.

Every time an instrument comes in, they're doing a variation on those three chords.

And I was also thinking about the music of Bach.

I was thinking about how Bach's music is incredibly contrapuntal, And by that, I mean he's having many musical conversations all at once.

And if you do your job right it kind of comes together as like a musical puzzle or tapestry of sound.

And my role in that particular movement is to, well in some ways to be an order.

Is to give musical lines and to give a constant sense of, of speaking directly to the chords and the variations on those chords that are always happening.

I keep thinking of that movement as a type of chamber music, as an opportunity where I'm really thinking about color, and I'm thinking about timbre, that is the color of sound and in a time in our country where color and race and culture and conversation oftentimes collide.

The second movement of this concerto is, is I think the kind of conversation I wish I could hear out in the real world.

The third movement of Voodoo Violin Concerto is called "Tribe".

And it begins with a particular rhythm.

And one by one each section of the orchestra comes together playing that rhythm.

And that rhythm to me sounds the way a ballet company or a football team or a marching band might move.

It's very tribal.

And that rhythm builds and builds and builds into new rhythms that start to spiral out.

And it's kind of a return to the first movement but it's a different kind of dance.

And I'm trying to really think about how the orchestra moves, how the orchestra sounds, how each section can come together and generate their own sense of community and movement.

And as the scaffolding of these rhythms build this kind of collective sound if you will, everything stops, and it's just me playing solo.

And the piece ends the way it began.

In celebration and in a kind of wondrous way of the orchestra doing what it's, what it does best, playing and making together.

There are moments where there's a call and response, where I play something and the orchestra improvises what they heard.

And as a matter of fact there's an opportunity for me to call out to the entire audience.

And they have an opportunity to respond too.

This piece is a unique opportunity for the orchestra and the audience to actually come together and make music and have fun (applause) - Throughout the pandemic we've been reminded by our culture that musicians or art is not essential, which in many ways that I felt unfair in a way, because we are very essential.

I think all human beings need nurture in music, in art, in your thought, we need that.

And music, classical music particularly it's a product of that.

And if we say that's not essential, that's almost like denying our nature, that we're human beings.

We need to have thought, we need to have feelings.

We need to express our feelings through music and or expression either, That's any kind of art.

And for younger generations, I know like for my own children, they may not think, yet, that that's classical music.

That's really far from how I live my life.

But it actually isn't, it shouldn't be.

If you are as a, to young people this is, if you are given the opportunity to hear it without any pretense, without any- anything scaring you like okay I'm gonna drag you to a classical concert.

You're gonna sit there for two hours and don't even move or anything like that.

Don't scare them off.

Just simply let them listen, that's it.

And they will love it.

But not many people are given that chance.

And it is our jobs in some ways to offer that to as many people as possible anywhere we go.

Whether it's children, especially children, or to any anybody, if you are given that opportunity I always believe.

For example, in the parks in the summer, people come with a, you know picnic, with a blanket and you just need to be there and hear it.

That's all you need to do.

Don't overthink, don't overprepare.

You don't need to know if that's a sonata form or anything, doesn't matter.

But what's important is that you listen and you try to feel what the music's trying to tell you.

That's all that matters.

That first step if you do it, it would immediately pull people in and attract, especially to younger people I think.

It's direct.

And I do not believe classical music is a dying art form at all.

Just like any, just like painting, like art, it will never die.

It will never die because it belongs to our spirit and our thoughts.

Last year, all the orchestras around the world planned an anniversary year for Beethoven but all canceled.

So we couldn't let Beethoven go that easily.

So, Beethoven's 7th is also one of my favorite symphonies of his out of nine.

It's really my, very very close-to-heart piece of music.