the Grabers: "Pieces of Thread"

On Thursday evening I picked up my Japanese college friend, Kaho, and we drove to Friends University in Wichita. We met our friend Kaori there.

Selfies

The Friends Orchestra performed the following:

Andante Festivo by Jean Sibelius

Oboe Concerto in d minor by Vivaldi

(oh how I love the sound of the oboe!)

Ave Maria by Franz Schubert

and

Toy Symphony - confusion reins among scholars who really wrote this.

Either Leopold Mozart (Wolfgang Mozart's father),

Michael Haydn (Joseph Haydn's brother)

or even an Austrian Benedictine monk, Edmund Angerer

Do you see the blue harpsichord? I LOVE the sound of the harpsichord! And being blue? Wow!

The main reason we went was to see our friend Chiyoko. Friends University professor, Dan Racer wrote a piece he named "Pieces of Threads" for the orchestra, based on his trio "Sojourning Threads" for oboe, viola and double bass. It is an installation art-music collaboration between our friend, who is a visual artist and this composer. It is meant to be performed at an art gallery beside Chiyoko's installation pieces. However, the orchestral version relies on photos of the artwork played on screen.

Chiyoko's visual art pieces is a series of four installation arts using the material of threads. They express the relationships with people based on her experiences as a 'sojourner', from living in the space between Japan and the United States. Kaori, Chiyoko, Kaho and I are all on that path of betweenness of our birth country of Japan and the US.

Chiyoko's art is inspired by metaphhors - in the Japanese language, the verbs related to threads such as to tie knots, to cut, and to get tangled are used idiomatically to express the conditions of relationships with people. Each of her pieces has its own theme:

"Akari" - A sojourner's search for the relationship with herself in the past and future.
"A Thread X A Thread" - Treasuring the moment of meeting people.
"Bloom" - A Sojourner's wish for world peace over war and separation of people.
"Gift" - A Sojourner's thoughts on meeting people - people are meant to cross our path for a reason. And I am so blessed to have crossed paths with Chiyoko, Kaori and Kaho and many other friends I have made!

We were all encouraged to take a piece of thread and attach it to her piece in the lobby. In this way, our thread will travel and connect with other people's threads from one exhibit to another.