I witnessed an extraordinary work of “performance art” on Monday night (Sept. 29). The Cincinnati ensemble concert nova, now led by Brianna Matzke, presented the Cincinnati premiere of “Borrowed Landscape” by Dai Fujikura, to texts by the German playwright duo Tauchgold, at the Mercantile Library. Concert nova presented it as a memorial to the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in partnership with the Peace Resource Center at Wilmington College.

“Borrowed Landscape” tells the stories of three remarkable instruments and their owners, all connected to the war. There was a famous Stradivarius violin, which had gone silent in Budapest, a double bass from Poland, which was being restored years after its former owner had fled the Holocaust, and a Baldwin upright piano, which had survived the bombing of Hiroshima, although its young owner, Akiko, had not. Fujikura orchestrated his piano trio for violin, bass and piano according to their stories.Read More »