BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
What happens when you combine live classical music with yoga?
We have no idea.
Neither do pianist Sally Whitwell and cellist Sally Maer. The two will perform in the experimental Classic Flow – a restorative yoga session with a live program of Arvo Part, Faure, Mozart, and Sally Greenaway, along with a work Sally Whitwell wrote just for Sally Maer. “There were tears in my eyes, the first read through together of that one! It is very special indeed,” Maer shares.
Why do you think classical music itself is a good fit for yoga and meditation?
MAER: There’s such an intricacy to yoga and to classical music, both with an outcome that should feel effortless and light although the process for both is extremely hard work and requires commitment and concentration. These practices have so much in common!
WHITWELL: The fluidity of some (not all!) classical music is a very good fit. I think it will very nicely complement the feeling of all those endorphins coursing through one’s blood stream.
This seems the type of concert that directly reflects contemporary human needs – finding ways to wind down from our busy lives. What are your thoughts on the relevance of this concert?
MAER: When you practice yoga, you start to understand that your body is different every day – a pose you found easy to balance and reach yesterday just seems very hard today. It was only when I started practising yoga that I started to forgive myself for not being perfect at the cello every day – that passage that came so easily yesterday, why had it lost its edge today? Well, because today is different! So yoga taught me more about how not to sweat it than anything else.
WHITWELL: It seems a wonderful way to connect peoples’ minds to their physicality. All those things really should be connected. I suspect that the inclusion of classical music may have the potential to take that connection one step further into something emotional.
You’ll be providing the ‘background music’ in a way – but can you explain the integral role you’ll have?
MAER: It’s quite a special job, to perform alongside what is essentially another art form. Two worlds colliding for a greater and heightened experience of both the music listening and the yoga practice. So in this sense, neither is in the background.
WHITWELL: I’ve played piano for a lot of ballet classes over the years and during the preparation for this event, I’ve been thinking a good deal on how similar this is to playing for dance classes. The way that the music breathes and flows is really integral to dance, and I have a feeling this might end up being the same.
How will you avoid slipping into meditation yourself?
MAER: There have been times on stage when I can slip into a dreamlike state, playing music that resonates completely with my mood, my understanding of the music and the joy of performing it. In general though, the performer is working hard to create this feeling for the listener. It’s an interesting paradigm!
WHITWELL: You know, I do sometimes worry about that ‘zoning out’ thing when I play the music of Philip Glass, because it has that actively meditative feeling about it. I find that once I’m in it, I become hyper-aware of where I am on my little journey at that exact moment. Playing music is like the kind of meditation that focuses you inwards, rather than takes you away somewhere else.
More information on Classic Flow here.
Image supplied.
