Online on-demand video at https://www.musicofremembrance.org/watch-and-listen/veritas.
Shinji Eshima’s Veritas is a profound meditation on the terrible consequences of religious intolerance in all its forms. The muses who inspired the composer include the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the poet Charles Baudelaire, and the cellist Pablo Casals. Rousseau’s motto “Vitam imprendere vero” embodied a commitment to speaking truth. Baudelaire’s skepticism about the inevitability of human progress, a century and a half ago, still resonates in a world where people continue to kill one another. Casals saw in his musical life a platform to speak out against Spanish fascism and other repressive regimes.
Casals’s legacy includes his role in resurrecting Johann Sebastian Bach’s six extraordinary suites for unaccompanied violoncello. Casals famously gave each suite a one-word description of its personality, for example calling the first suite “optimistic,” the second “tragic” and the third “heroic.” In Veritas, Eshima reimagines Bach’s second suite as a duet, in turns haunting and jarring, for cello and double bass. The work also incorporates vivid visual images of sculptor Al Farrow’s works from his “Vandalized Doors” series, with large doors that Farrow created from actual munitions – like bullets, shell casings and weapons – to resemble the damaged entrances of a mosque, church and synagogue.
Shinji Eshima has composed over 30 works, including ballets, operas, hymns, choruses, solos, chamber pieces and soundtracks. He also is an admired double bassist, performing for almost four decades in the orchestras of San Francisco Opera and San Francisco Ballet. He has taught classical bass at San Francisco State University, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Stanford University, San Francisco School of the Arts, and University of California Santa Cruz.
Sculptor Al Farrow is admired for provocative works that bring new meanings to the materials he uses, and that offer incisive observations about contemporary society. He has had numerous solo exhibitions and group shows, and his work is in many important public and private collections around the world. Video designer Kate Duhamel, an award-winning director and film producer, created the media component bringing Al Farrow’s sculptures to life for Veritas.
Music of Remembrance commissioned Veritas in 2018 and introduced it in 2019 at Seattle’s Benaroya Hall with cellist Walter Gray and double bassist Jonathan Green, both members of the Seattle Symphony. You’ll see that premiere performance here.