Audrey King: Bargemusic is a boat-turned-music venue that bobs up and down next to the bustling Brooklyn Bridge ferry stop. It gives me a vague “platform nine-and-three-quarters” vibe, in the sense that it’s clearly visible if you know what you’re looking for — but if you don’t, it basically doesn’t exist.
And there, I experienced the most magical live music that I have in a long, long time.
My brother and I went to see pianist Yuliya Gorenman perform a trio of classical pieces: “Widmung” (“Dedication”), “Ständchen” (“Serenade”), and the “Scheherazade” symphonic suite.
Now, how can I describe this experience? First, I’ll say that what I love about art is how it kicks you into a place above everyday existence. For a moment, you transcend all human confusions and troubles and foibles to a beautiful place where everything makes sense.
When Yuliya played, she transported me to this magical luminous plane. I felt as if I were traveling across millennia of stories and lifetimes. I dedicated myself, I proclaimed my undying love at dawn, I tensely navigated turbulent seas till at last my ship was dashed to flotsam against the rocks.
It didn’t hurt that the concert was at dusk, and during her performance, the setting sun gilded everything from the piano keys to the very dust floating in the air, with a perfect outline of gold.
Yuliya’s skill was such that she played her own arrangement of the “Scheherazade” suite from memory — she’d transcribed it entirely in her head, never bothering to write it down. And at the end, she graced us with a brief piece she performed solely with her left hand, with such a sensitive complexity that it sounded like a whole orchestra.
I left that concert feeling humbled yet inspired. Knowing that the muse is alive and well, floating among us, blessing us with its fleeting presence, and occasionally guiding our hands to make art that saves us all. ❖
Lightning Bug’s No Paradise album is out now.