As machines and humans engage in an increasingly high-stakes battle for creative supremacy, it feels extra important to talk about what truly moves people on an emotional level. Even if it’s almost impossible to identify just what it is that truly moves people on an emotional level. But that’s what’s so fascinating about it. We can really get into the good stuff when we explore the delicate machinations of the uniquely human tendency to express abstract concepts through tactile sensory elements — whether visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory or gastronomic.

We’re special, is what I’m saying. And we should celebrate that specialness by basking in how all of our human senses are involved in any sort of artistic endeavor. And that’s as true for the artist as it is for the audience. Because it’s in the transmission of ideas and concepts from originator to receiver where all the possibilities dwell.

There are so many different ways to create and interpret a work of art. This is especially true of live performance. Every time someone mounts a stage of any sort and delivers a rendition of a creative work for a group of people who will absorb it, some kind of magic happens.

This is something I’ve been thinking a lot about since I’ve had the pleasure of encountering several versions of a music and story weaving experience called Salon Séance. It all began when I met Mari Lee, Co-Founder, CEO and Artistic Director of Salon Séance at a conference where I was seeking a quiet corner and some real conversation. I am so glad I chose the spot I chose, because now my life is changed.

As I got to know Lee on and off-stage, through her performances with Salon Séance and also the New York Philharmonic, I began to understand more about how the world’s finest musicians learn how to play — not just technically, but perceptively. Starting from a very young age, the most talented artists in the classical music sphere where Lee plays are taught not just how to play their instruments, but also how to listen. Beyond the notes and tempo of a composition, they learn to hear references to the layers of history and theory that inform the way a piece is written, played and intended to be perceived.

“The technical aspect of playing an instrument is only a tool for expression,” Lee explained. “Most of the work is in finding meaning behind the notation and markings on the page — the story, the emotional journey, the gestures — and exploring what they mean to you. And that’s where listening in the broader sense becomes so important. It requires listening with your mind, your soul and your body to fully experience it.”

All too often, this specialized deep listening can seem like something only a small section of any given audience can really enjoy. Particularly with classical music, where the common perception is that only the most knowledgeable audience members truly know what’s going on within the complex sounds flying all around them in acoustically perfect performance halls. But for Lee and others who play this music, the hope is that more people could feel that sense of connection and understanding — and experience the full emotional resonance of what they’re hearing.

This feels particularly important when talking about a music form burdened with a persistent storyline that it’s struggling to attract new audience members. But what Lee and others are endeavoring to share is how exciting these traditional forms of music can sound in new contexts. After all, what we call “classical music” today is some of the most emotional and moving work of the human soul from across the centuries — these movements were written to move you.

So, how can we convey the original passion, the motivating idea behind a piece of music, through a new experience of hearing a work by the “dead composers” everyone’s frowning on these days? Can we enliven the historical background that’s usually contained in the concert’s program or on the internet somewhere, and combine that with the performers’ own deep knowledge and understanding of a piece’s meaning to get the story across in a more engaging and immersive way?

To do that, we might need to revivify ancient souls and texts. And maybe those historical voices and ideas could become part of a modern-day, multi-sensory performance. Together, those elements could really redefine the concept of listening and provide audiences with a more immersive experience (which everyone seems to want these days).

Alright, so that’s an intentionally leading description of what happens with Salon Séance performances, which are an ever-evolving series of experiential concerts based on the idea that performing is an act of channeling the work and feelings of other people’s compositions. Or to elaborate further based on its official “About” description, this collaboration between world-class musicians, directors, designers, researchers and audience members aims to reveal “timeless human stories through music, storytelling, and interactive ritual, cultivating a sense of connection and meaning that is unique to each person.”

Now we get back to the start of this article and say that it all starts with listening — and using every sense to listen. “What I’m trying to do with the Salon Séance experience is to get audience members closer to what it means to listen deeply to the stories — the universal message that exists underneath the sound we hear through this music,” she explained.

When you can listen deeply to a piece of music, you become a part of it in a way that sometimes feels challenging when it comes to classical music. But that’s exactly what Lee is trying to solve. Ever since her early days as a music student, Lee has enthusiastically shared welcoming context for the lofty works of music that she was studying. In her teenage years, when she had a momentary pause in her training and was temporarily working in the kitchen of a restaurant — she changed the hearts and minds of her fellow dishwashers and cooks through a series of email explainers that shared her passion for classical music. She left there having convinced her new friends that this music wasn’t just for snobs. It was for real people.

“Somehow this process of trying to understand each other, and doing it through music, really helped the workplace culture in a way. And I knew that in that moment that was what I wanted to do for life,” Lee recalled.

That started her on the course to where she is now. Every chance she gets, Lee is asking the uninitiated (myself included) what moves them about music. But also, along the way, she’s investigating her own perception of the world and the rituals from her upbringing. By understanding her unique perspective, she is now striving to create performances that use those gestures and traditions as entry points to give every person in the audience their own connection to the music.

As she delved into the history of rituals and traditions from her childhood — origami, Zen meditation, incense ceremonies, and other practices that evoke meaning from action — Lee discovered a common thread. In each of these, “listening” is a key element.

With Zen meditation, it’s about listening to the self. And in a thrilling coincidence, Lee discovered that with incense ceremonies, the ritual contemplation of scents is actually called “listening to scent.” Because, Lee explained, first of all you can’t see scent, and it “evokes different memories. It’s not stationary, you’re going from one place to another in your memory. So when it triggers something within you, you have to listen to that.”

All of this new understanding has “really changed my approach to listening and what that means, because it’s so much more than hearing sound,” Lee said. “You have to activate your mind. You focus on all the feelings and the voices that you hear within yourself and then align that with what you hear outside to make sense of it. So, whether you’re folding origami cranes or you’re meditating or you’re doing an incense ceremony, you are listening in different ways by activating different senses. The purpose of including these activities in Salon Séance is really to slow people down so we can focus on listening. But listening in the broad sense, so that you end up also finding your own meaning.”

By exploring the many influences of perception, Lee is forming ideas about how to inspire deeper listening in others. The result is a progressive storyline of Salon Séance performances that engage audiences through a combination of gestures and actions, thoughts and meditations, and all while enjoying a performance by world-class musicians.

The ideas that make Salon Séance leap off a stage and into the energized hearts and minds of audiences are also useful in any aspect of life where we might actually find deeper fulfillment if we were really pay attention. At work, school or in entertainment venues, it’s a combination of sensory inputs that add more meaning. And even if you don’t know how to play music, you can know how to listen.

Photo Credit – Ronald Ji