My big realization
Guest User
Dear friends,
I had a big realisation about a year ago.
A longing, a thirst, an agitation was gnawing inside me.
I knew there was something I wasn’t finding.
I was in the middle of an amazing musical season and looking at an even more incredible lineup for 2019-2020. How could something still be missing?
My story was supposed to be about how my mother - daughter of refugee parents in Taiwan during a politically troubled period in Taiwan - defiantly broke all the rules, raised her three children alone, moved to the USA with them without knowing how to speak English, and succeeded in making them ALL Ivy-league-educated professionals with extraordinary careers.
Was it the “mercurial” quality, the excess of the “water” element that the Chinese fortune teller had seen in my astrological makeup disrupting my equilibrium? After all, my parents had chosen the character “Hwa” for my name. Meaning the "birch tree" and written with the grounding “wood” radical, "Hwa" is supposed to counteract the excessive “water” element. Okay, I did meet my husband over the Siberian sky in a Tokyo-Paris flight, but I have since settled down in my beloved home in Besançon, France, and living my dream life as a violinist:
- I was touring with fantastic musicians like the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Mischa Maisky and performing at prestigious places at Lucerne Festival, Elbphilharmonie, Paris Philharmonie…
- I was a proud member of Victor Hugo Orchestra under the fantastic artistic direction Jean-François Verdier and Ensemble Tetraktys, amazing ensembles based in in my home city Besançon, whose INCREDIBLE, award-winning work make Besançon one of the most musical cities in France
- I was living my dream career: associate concertmaster and tenured professor, but also the flexibility to tour as a soloist and chamber musician
- My international solo project, my experimental string quartet, Quatuor Impact, and the New Music Workshop I founded, were bustling with new prospects
- I am nurtured and supported by my beautiful family
- The amazing education I received from Juilliard, Columbia, Harvard, Conservatoire de Paris continue to nourish me.
It was so confusing to me, how could there still be a missing puzzle piece?
In the middle of an intensive creative residency, I finally stopped and reflected one night. Once I took the time, I began to write out what I longed for. Everything came together very quickly.
I knew what it was - as a creative, I realised - I hadn’t created the unique thing inside me that I knew was there all along. I realised I had a longing to put together all that I have learned to serve my local community:
My music-loving neighbors, my children’s wonderful teachers, my adorable students, my former students who are now awesome, budding professionals, my incredible colleagues at the conservatory, my doctors who are also amateur musicians, my long-time audience and supporters, my warm-hearted fellow Bisontins who have adopted me and nurtured me as an artist.
What I want to do is to bring together what I have learned, what I heard and performed around the world, and share with each and everyone of you.
Out of this realisation I am sharing with you that I’ve created a music festival:
The name is “Playing On The Edge - POTE.”
Why Playing On The Edge and what is POTE? That’s coming in the next newsletter!
Meanwhile, what are you longing for musically? Drop me a line if you want!
Warmly,
Szuhwa
