BETWEEN EAST AND WEST
A Musical Journey Across Continents
A musical travel report across the continents of Asia, Eastern and Western Europe, and America with the Versus Vox Ensemble.
The project explores the tensions between East and West. Diverse traditions and cultures are musically explored and interpreted.
The idea for the project “Between East and West” grew out of the composition of the same name by Dijana Bošković for the Versus Vox Ensemble, inspired by a poem by Jalal ad-Din Rumi:
©Eric van den Brulle
Jalal ad-Din Rumi
What should I do? I do not know myself:
I am neither Christian nor Jew,
Neither Zoroastrian nor Muslim;
Not from the East, nor from the West,
Not from land nor from sea,
I am not of Nature’s soil
Nor of the celestial spheres…
My place is placeless,
My trace is traceless,
Neither body nor soul —
I am of the light of the Beloved.
— Jalal ad-Din Rumi
From this place “where no place is”, a listening journey unfolds across the continents. We experience Asia, Eastern and Western Europe, and America through classical and contemporary music, literature, and soundscapes.
Music
Maki Ishii, Fikret Amirov, Dijana Bošković, Johann Sebastian Bach, Leonard Bernstein, Paul Creston
Text
Jalal ad-Din Rumi, Selvarajan Yesudian, Alexander Pushkin, Rainer Maria Rilke
Soundscapes
Dijana Bošković