Postcards from the Pandemic presented by Eugene Lee / July 31, 2022

PROGRAM NOTES While I think “Han” captures well how Asian-Americans feel about the explosion in Asian hate crimes during the pandemic, it’s also energizing to see community organizations galvanizing response to the onslaught: encouraging and streamlining the process of reporting incidents, collecting and publishing statistics about the prevalence of attacks, educating Asian-Americans (especially the elderly) on how to protect and defend themselves, and running public awareness campaigns (such as in New York City) with headlines such as “I Am Not Your Scapegoat” and “We Belong”.

I chose images that first give you a taste of the amazing natural beauty of Korea, then transitioning into photos of racist graffiti, images of victims or sites of attacks, and finally community esponse.

I would like to personally thank Stephen Hough for making his arrangement available to me. I discovered a video of him performing it as an encore in a concert in Korea, and found that it wasn’t published and available on his website. I contacted his agent asking if the arrangement was available anywhere, and Stephen Hough replied personally and attached a PDF of the score within a day. Thank you Sir Hough.

Mykola Lysenko (1842 - 1912) / Elegie Op. 41, No. 3 When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, I knew I had to find a piece to speak to this topic. Social media was immediately flooded with performances in support of Ukraine, including “Prayer for Ukraine” by Mykola Lysenko. Lysenko (1842 - 1912) is considered the “father of Ukrainian classical music” not only because he composed in a distinctively Ukrainian style, but also because he dedicated much of his time to ethnomusicological work, researching and transcribing Ukrainian native music and folk instruments.

This piece is from Lysenko’s “Album from the Summer of 1902” Op. 41. “Elegy” means “a lament for the dead”, but in this context I think it’s a lemant also for the people of Ukraine - not only the over 5 million who have fled Ukraine, or the 7 million displaced within Ukraine, but the millions more whose lives have been shattered by the invasion.

The images start with some of the beautiful landmarks of Ukraine before the invasion, and then photos of the ravages of the war. But I wanted to include images of hope and resilience, including how the global community has responded with support, and images of strength and resilience from inside Ukraine (including Patron, the heroic bomb-sniffing dog). We close with images of children - representing both sadness as well as hope.

I know that many of you have already made a generous donation to Nova Ukraine, and I sincerely thank you for that. I encourage you to visit their website novaukraine. org to see videos and blog posts about their excellent work and inspiring projects that your contributions help fund.