Yuja Dances

A couple of months ago, we went to see Yuja Wang performing with the Louisville Orchestra. She was amazing, inspiring, and delightful. In addition to playing the piano, she conducted one piece in the program. I found something about it humanizing, returning this deeply talented (and very hard working) spirit back to the realm of humans, where she is just a young woman, after all. That performance inspired today’s draft.

Yuja Wang plays the piano like a child jumps in a rain puddle but

she conducts like an infant feeling snow for the first time —

delight, apprehension, joy, fear, trust,

and the desire to escape.

She dances with the music, not leading it,

existing within it.

Her hand dips as the strings dip.

She two-steps with the clarinet, delights in the flute,

fairy lights of notes around her body.

Even in the worn red seats of the upper tiers

we can feel how much the players love her,

offering her the music so she can dance through the center of it.

They shower her with notes like rose petals,

shine their eyes on her like spotlights.

She stands in their warmth,

wanting only for each person in the concert hall

to see the wonder that is this orchestra.

Look what we have made here together —

Captured vibrations of air and layered divisions of time.

We are a concert hall of children holding fireflies,

glowing and blinking against the dark.