"Ensemble" Concert at Bay Street Promotes Peace and Unity

[caption id="attachment_61420" align="alignnone" width="576"] Lutz Rath. Kristi Kates photo[/caption]

By Michelle Trauring

When Lutz Rath picks up the telephone, he is a bit gruff.

"Hold on just a moment, I'm just listening to this idiot Donald Trump," the German cellist grumbles. "Let me turn it off."

The background noise abruptly ceases. “What a …,” he mumbles in his gravelly voice. It is no secret where his allegiances lie, a position that will be echoed during his upcoming concert, “Five Nations Ensemble,” on Sunday at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor—a performance promoting unity, peace and awareness the only way he knows how.

"I'm not interested in the usual concert business. I want an unusual program," he said. "I have a history of that."

The former Sag Harbor resident will bridge artistic and geographical gaps with an unexpected slate of talent—from French harpist Melanie Genin and Japanese violinist Eriko Sato to Russian model Ullie De Osu and Chinese calligrapher Red Square—who will perform alongside one another and Mr. Lutz.

“At this point, artists have even more responsibility to make even better art and confront even more. We have a cultureless government,” said Mr. Lutz, adding that he will perform work by Hanns Eisler and Bertolt Brecht―both of whom were questioned by the House of Un-American Activities in 1947—as well as a poem by Kurt Schwitters, whose work was forbidden by the Nazi regime. “My concern is always to bring in some sort of political aspect to a program, and I always like to combine art and music because, mostly, musicians and painters are so separate from each other. They live in their own worlds and they don’t go beyond that.”

The cellist will break down that wall with Red Square. Their relationship is a unique one, the calligrapher said, and she can perfectly recall the moment it started.

“I still remember so clearly that moment we met,” she said. “We both felt the energy of the connection, like an old friend you haven't seen for ages. Our passion for art and our desire of the new immediately established our friendship.”

Together with Mr. Lutz and Ms. Genin, Red Square and Ms. De Osu will give a performance never seen before—a combination of “Neo-illusion calligraphy;” a recitation of “Heart Sutra” in three languages; and a human canvas. It will be real, transparent and honest, she said.

“Ullie De Osu, who is half nude, completely shaves, meditate, like a monk: She will be my paper, so that the stage is the temple,” she said, adding, “I have to let go, to give entire myself to the moment. To be the moment, to allow my body, my hand, to become the hand of God to write the meaning of the moment, to revel the energy, vibration, emotion, mind and spirit of the moment through the ink. The spontaneousness, the consciousness, the openness, the transparency of the creating and creation.”

“I personally think the role of art in today’s political and social climate is the mother—the mother of the people who are waiting for something new,” she continued. “An innovation. A revolution.”

"Five Nation Ensemble" will be held on Sunday, March 12, at 3 p.m. at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor. Tickets are $25. For more information, call (631) 725-9500, or visit baystreet.org.