From our Artistic Director, Joe Williams:
Kazuhito Yamashita is out of this world, and he’s back in Austin.
Our next International Series Concert brings together Yamashita’s incomparable virtuosity with the masterful etchings of Francisco Goya.
Matt Hinsley and I couldn’t contain our excitement, so we sat down to chat about why this concert is a once in a lifetime experience.
Check out the conversation below. Find tickets for Nov. 10 & 11 and more info here.
Full Transcript:
Matt: How can you be ready? It’s impossible.
Joe: Right, exactly. Are you ready, Matt?
Matt: I have been so excited about this concert for so long. We have this spectacular talent in Kazuhito Yamashita coming to Austin to do something that only he can do, in only the way that he can do it, and bring to life in a moment this extraordinary interpretation, this extraordinary art. We are gonna experience something totally unique, transcendent, superhuman, it’s gonna be an event in Austin. And in a hall that seats 300 people.
I was first talking to Kazuhito about coming back – this will be his third time coming to Austin and right out of the gate, this was his suggestion: to play the 24 Caprichos de Goya [J: the Tedesco Caprichos de Goya in total, which I think no one does.]
Matt: Tedesco was the teacher of some of the great film composers of our time.
Joe: John Williams, Henry Mancini, basically the people that taught us how to experience digital media through music. Mr. Star Wars himself learned how to do this from Tedesco.
Matt: His language evokes ideas in music, it paints pictures with music, it takes ideas and themes, and in this case images, and brings them to life in music in such a demonstrative and expressive way.
And the subject matter is the 24 etchings of Francisco Goya, and these etchings are so deep, and the deep social commentary that’s timeless…
Joe: So what we get to hear in this concert is Tedesco interpreting Goya’s masterful etchings, with a language that is already part of our vernacular. We have Goya who is making etchings, pointing at the aristocrats, the religious figures, and the public, and showing our foibles, our problems, with this amazing wit. It’s very sharp critique of society. We actually get to hear and experience and see this artwork the way it’s supposed to be. Cause we’re going to look up and see these amazing projections of Goya’s etchings while Yamashita is playing them, and stay in that space of imagining the composer looking at that etching, how we feel about that beautiful piece of art, and then hear this amazing landscape of music.
Matt: And in a way, what Tedesco brings to us in 24 Caprichos de Goya is an elongation of experience in sound of an image which you can see instantaneously. You see the image in a moment, we experience the music over 4 minutes or 7 minutes with all these peaks and valleys in that experience.
You could crawl into this experience from so many angles – from social criticism, from art, art history, from music, music history, just guitar awesomeness. It’s gonna be one of those events you wanna crawl into multiple times, you’re gonna wanna come back, and actually you can! Because it’s gonna be happening twice, once on the 10th, and once on the 11th at the Blanton Museum Auditorium. So this opportunity to experience something this deep, this powerful, I’m looking forward to both times. Can’t wait.
Joe: Can’t wait.