“Here was music not as a text to be read nor a recreational drug to be consumed for mood management, but as an audible process of coming-into-being and fading-away. And, for a short while, listening turned into a state of pure receptivity: beginner’s ear.”
Having attended weekly lunchtime meditations since my sophomore year at Princeton University, I always looked forward to the three rings of the meditation gong at each session's end. Listening to those vibrations slowly fade within the silence, the calm, and the awareness offered by that setting... for me, few experiences are more stunning. I wanted music to be heard in such a way always, and becoming Outreach Manager for Princeton University Concerts shortly after graduating allowed me to realize this dream. In 2015, I established Princeton University Concerts’ Live Music Meditations series as a partnership with the Princeton University Office of Religious Life.
And suddenly, three rings of a meditation gong morphed into the Takács String Quartet performing Beethoven, or Sō Percussion performing John Cage, or Pekka Kuusisto improvising on electric violin. World-class musicians coming to Princeton University Concerts’ series who generously agree to participate in a Live Music Meditation offer an incredibly diverse array of music. Whatever music they choose to play, its immediacy within the setting of such focused listening has often brought both listeners and performers to tears. Musical genre and convention, our tendency towards passivity or judgment — all of that disperses into a pure, perceptive and receptive state of intense, present listening in which the sound that one hears is all that exists in that moment. Meditation brings us to a sort of inner-silence; I find that this silence can be full of music.
I am so grateful to my mentor, Princeton University Concerts Director Marna Seltzer, and to Princeton University Associate Dean of Religious Life Matthew Weiner, for being open to this concept and making it a reality. I look forward to many more Live Music Meditations at Princeton University Concerts in years to come, and to bringing this format to as many people as are willing to listen. I invite you all to join me, and hope that together we can listen to the incredible beauty around us with all of the attention and awe that it deserves.
(Photo by Cindy Liu, Princeton University Office of Communications)
(Photo by Princeton University Concerts)
“Those of us who shared this experience together took away a heightened sense of the risk-taking of great art, and the importance of sharing our emotions with each other with the materials of spirit that are uniquely given to each of us.””