((PKG)) SONIC BLOSSOM
((Banner: A Gift Between Strangers))
((Reporter/Camera: Gabrielle Weiss))
((Map: Washington D.C.))
((Courtesy: National Portrait Gallery, Sonic Blossom Performance))
((Lee Mingwei, Artist and Creator of Sonic Blossom))
My mother would play (Franz) Schubert’s lieder (songs) for me when I was running around the garden to quiet me down, but she’d play it in a very soft volume. So I would say, please turn up the volume for me, I couldn’t hear Schubert singing. And she just said, “Well, honey, you just need to be very quiet and sit down and you can listen and hear Schubert singing.” So that was a very beautiful moment of me spending with my parents and my siblings hot summer nights in Taiwan.
((Singing))
((Lee Mingwei, Artist and Creator of Sonic Blossom))
So when I was taking care of her when she was ill, I played the same Schubert’s lieder for her, for the next three weeks we were in the hospital together, and that was the idea, using Schubert’s song as a gift between strangers, instead of between people we know. ((Singing))
((Lee Mingwei, Artist and Creator of Sonic Blossom))
When Sonic Blossom is on, the singer will be wearing a costume which is made by those two pieces of obi. So, the singer walks very stately and slowly through the gallery to make his or her encounter. But when she selected the person she might say, may I give you a gift of song and then invite this person back to the chair, turn around and just sing one of the five Schubert lied that she chooses.
((Singing))
((Lee Mingwei, Artist and Creator of Sonic Blossom))
Before the show opens, I will come back for two or three days to work with the selected singers for this project. Although I am the originator of the idea, but I don’t have the talent to carry it out. So, you’re all the demigods who will help me to bring the gift from Schubert to this world. It’s really quite amazing, in a way, Schubert is collaborating with us.
((Singer))
This idea that we are this living breathing…..
((Lee Mingwei))
…..Yeah, you are.
((Singer))
…..piece of art. It’s a new mentality for me.
((Lee Mingwei, Artist and Creator of Sonic Blossom))
…..Most of the people thought that you were miked or it’s lip- syncing or something. No, you’re not. You’re just doing it live and it’s an incredible gift for most of us really.
((Singing))
It is my task to help them get ready for this work because it’s unusual. So, I would say to them the first time you do Sonic Blossom, it’s the most difficult. It gets easier and easier. So, do not give up. You see how you yourself become a part of the work. So, the tension lies between the singer and the receiver.
((Singer))
Please come with me. Thank you.
((Greta Mosher, Visitor, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery))
I was just invited to hear this song by this beautiful opera singer.
((Singing))
((Greta Mosher, Visitor, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery))
There was so much tension in the way she looked at me and then my responses to her. But, what she had coming, what she, you could see by her face, what she was going to bring to the table and it was gorgeous.
((Lee Mingwei, Artist and Creator of Sonic Blossom))
Originally, I thought the singer is giving a gift to the receiver.
((Singing))
((Lee Mingwei, Artist and Creator of Sonic Blossom))
However very quickly I realized, the gift is returning back to the singer at that very moment when she or he sang the song.
((Singing))
