Originally published on La Scena Musicale (April-August 2020). French translation can be found here.
Author: Carol Xiong
Thomas Yu: Periodontist By Day, Pianist By Night
Originally published on La Scena Musicale (April-August 2020). French translation can be found here.
Xian Zhang: A Conductor to Watch
Originally published on La Scena Musicale (February 2020). French translation can be found here.
Potential for Absolute Pitch: Revisiting Old Assumptions
Originally published on La Scena Musicale (November 2019). French translation can be found here.
Hank Knox: The Paradox of Baroque Music
Originally published on La Scena Musicale (November 2018). French translation can be found here.
We Do Not Hear What They Heard – Tuning and Temperament Through the Ages
Originally published on La Scena Musicale (November 2018). French translation can be found here.
U of T Faculty of Music Turns 100: From Humble Beginnings to World Class Institution
Originally published on La Scena Musicale (November 2018). French translation can be found here.
Infusion Baroque – Old ”Infused” With New
Originally published as cover story for La Scena Musicale (November 2018). French translation can be found here.
MID-AUTUMN LIGHTS
It’s been a hot minute since the last video post, but this one is just in time for Mid-Autumn Festival. If you are in the mood for admiring a lantern festival and happen to be in the Montreal area, look no further than this year’s Garden of Lights, on now until October 31, 2018!
I’ve visited this display for the second year this year, and thought I would share my experience for those of you who are wondering if it’s worth it or can’t make it in person. Happy Mid-Autumn Festival everyone!
MID-AUTUMN MOON
The green heat of summer has cooled into crisp blue afternoons. Cicadas have given way crickets. A shaft of the setting sun slants through the window, the white hot sting of months past now mellowed out into a golden glow. All things are waning, except the moon.
The moon has grown: brighter, rounder, yellower. When I squint, I can almost touch the Yutu (Jade Rabbit) pounding immortal elixir for Chang’e under the osmanthus tree. How long have they been up there? The legends say 4000 years. Now, with the moon so close to Earth, they might just land lightly if the jumped. If they jumped — they’d certainly be in for a shocker.
And so for now, they continue their lunar exile, their likeness commemorated on ever-elaborate moon cake tins and kept alive by our collective imagination. When the Americans walked on the moon, the space team joked that they’d “keep a close eye out for the bunny girl.” In the years since, the Chinese have sent Chang’e 1, 2, and 3 into the heavens, and in 2013, landed a moon rover named Yutu.
I crane my neck to the side of the railing of my narrow porch on the 43rd floor. The moon has slid around the corner and is hiding behind some identical high-rise. It’s been almost a year since I’ve looked up. The lights below are always so much brighter.
I take a bite of the mooncake. A glob of sweet, greasy lotus paste nearly gags me as it sticks to the roof of my mouth. I wash it down with a swig of scalding pu-erh. The tea smells of home, but the mooncake tastes like florescent-light supermarkets. They swirl together as I work off the last bits of stickiness with my tongue.
Past and present, memory and longing, an artificial limbo between the lights above and below.
