We are magicians...
written by Eliana Echeverry
Bahlest Eeble Readings Cycle 19 Fellow
We are magicians…
I’m not sure if it’s the sentence Gabriela says most often, but it’s the one that has stuck with me the most in the time I’ve known her... we composers are magicians.
Without noticing, it has become a mantra... We composers are magicians...
At first, I thought it meant that we could trick the sense of hearing and sound perception, inventing sounds that don’t exist in the physicality of a single instrument, but if you combine it with others, something new emerges, and voilà the magic happens!!...
We are magicians...
Then I thought that perhaps it was about time
We are magicians…
Perhaps we have the power to make it feel as if something was happening faster or slower, or that we could even, through music, stop the clock and remain suspended for a few seconds...
W e. A r e. M a g i c i a n s...
Or, as I have been learning lately, that we don’t shape sounds, but rather we give shape to time through sounds.
We are magicians...
But no... it wasn’t about anything technical, anything operational or "super-nerdy" about music... Today, after a year of living, of praying, of being in silence with the mantra... we are magicians (in fact, I have a post-it in my studio with those very words, so I don’t forget my magic, which sometimes feels elusive to me) I realized..
We are magicians was something deeper, yet more evident... we have the power of the alchemy... of transforming physical waves into music, of organizing random sounds and giving them "order," as the old dictionaries would say...
We are magicians...
No, it’s not that, it’s not about the physical world... we have the alchemical power to translate matter, waves, and sounds into emotions, into sensations. We have the power to transport someone to a moment in their past, making them remember and feel exactly what they once felt.
We are magicians...
We can craft these emotions, sparking empathy for a feeling or an experience someone has never personally known, yet enabling them to feel it as if it were their own.
We are magicians...
Magicians have extrasensory powers (or at least the ones living in my imagination) ... and it is a power that we artists also possess... we can see something that people look at but do not see, and apply X-rays to extract the essence, the importance of that apparently banal object or situation, and through art, make it evident—and in some cases, make it sacred.
THAT, I believe, is the true magic of art and the singular power of artists... to make you stop and dwell on the things we fail to notice in our daily lives; to pause before a work of art, a chapter of a book, or in those two seconds of silence just after an orchestra finishes a piece...
We are magicians…
and that is where the magic takes hold... in that heartbeat when we can make the audience see something they hadn't seen before.
I think of García Márquez and magical realism, and his claim that he invented nothing about Macondo—that everything he wrote about was drawn from his surroundings. And it’s true, but perhaps while those around him only glanced, he actually observed... I can see Monet and his Impressionist paintings of Parisian gardens, and consider them masterpieces because they show us the "auras" of what it feels like to be in one of those gardens—something Parisians take for granted... And I see the work of Beatriz González, who uses repetition as an intentional resource to expose the grotesque and absurd nature of violence, which in this mad world has simply faded into the backdrop of our lives.
We are magicians…
And what matters to me? I care about bridges, about dialogues, about those utopias held by people who believe that a vibrant interweaving of diverse individuals and cultures is possible. I care about conflicts; I care about violence, but I also care about different worldviews and the unique ways we perceive existence. I care about feminine power and the presence of the sacred across the world’s many cultures. I care about solemn rituals and the profound beauty hidden within the humblest of everyday things. I care about community spaces—places where people can go to share, to smile, to simply be for a while, without the mandate to be productive. I care about those expressions that don’t demand giant egos or the image of the "Great Master." I care about creating a kind of art, a kind of music, that can be heard by people who don’t speak my language, who don't share my cultural background, who don't know the music I listen to or create; people who don’t need to "know" about music to just go, listen, and connect on a deep level with what they hear.
And yes, there is a part of me that one day wants to be a Gran Maestra... maybe at 90, or 120... of course, my plans include writing a ballet, or several... I already have the subjects; I want to write eeeeeverything I can for orchestra, even an opera, and perhaps the score for one or several films... but in reality, deep down, what I truly crave is to be a magician... to be able to touch the soul of at least one person and create a connection with real people. If that happens on a grand stage with lights and pyrotechnics, that’s amazing!... if it happens in a community centre making music with a small group of people, that’s amazing!
What I want is to be a magician... to transmute sound into connection for anyone who dares to listen; to take those sound waves—the very fabric of the universe and of music itself—and shape them into the simplest, yet most powerful mechanism we have for tuning into ourselves: our emotions.
We are magicians…
Eliana Echeverry
Eliana is a Colombian composer, pianist and vocal coach. She studied composition at National Conservatory of Colombia and obtained a master’s degree from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. She also has a psychology bachelor’s degree from National University of Colombia.
She is a very eclectic musician and she has experience in jazz, pop music, Latin music and classical music. Her music and arrangements are often played in Spain, France, Netherlands, Colombia and the US.
She has been a private tutor for students of all ages and backgrounds and has 10 years of experience teaching piano and composition. She has also worked as vocal tutor for singers from pop to lyric repertoire and has worked with new talents in Latin-America, some of them are pursuing their careers as singers in the Latin music industry.