SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 24
It rained all morning as it had rained most of the day before. The change of weather changed my mood. I was feeling the pressure and exhaustion of our adventure and missing my personal creative life in Vancouver.
“Just do a drawing a day,” said Jenny when we were in London. That would have helped me for sure but I didn’t have time. My body was feeling stiff, too, from no yoga or stretching. Chloe and my conversations could be boring because we were always together. And then, and most importantly, it was Thanksgiving weekend and I am always feel blue on holidays.
I’m whining.
FREE PIANO CONCERT IN INTIMATE SETTING
We stayed in Turro all day. A walk along the canal and running errands, then we went to a free music concert.
The performance was in a modern, low-rise, white apartment building in Turro. We caught the elevator with a young couple, also attending the private concert, and the four of us arrived together as the last guests. A shiny, black grand piano sat in the middle of the open, a two-level contemporary office space. 27-year old Andrea Tonili, sat on the bench as no more than ten people, the audience, scattered on black leather chairs and stools. At first, we thought our seats were the worst because rather than being positioned to see Tonili’s hands, we looked over the piano at his face.
But then the lights were turned off, the room went dark, and he lit a candle. His long face was lit by the flickering glow. His thick, long blonde hair was pulled into a knot at the nape of his neck. While playing, his face remained downturned and in the tea light candlelight, it was hard not to think of the many images we’d seen in the last days of Christ. Between pieces, he spoke and, at one point, read from his just-published book of memories. We couldn’t understand the readings, but his tone was wistful and passionate, and weunderstood enough to know that his father passed away only a few years before.
My favorite piece was slow and simple, minimalist, gentle and so sad. As I listened, I imagined a golden leaf drifting into the darkness of the room, then being joined by more leaves until there were so many the room glowed in a golden. haze. But then the leaves began to land, and as they did, they disappeared. One fell into my open palm. I held it a moment, believing in new things to come, then blew it away like an eyelash for good luck.
The Tonili piano concert was similar to our experience at the Pierre Huyghe exhibition at The Serpentine Gallery in London, an experience dependent on an interaction between performer, audience and imagination.
