Violinist Jennifer Koh and bass-baritone Davóne Tines collaborated on “Everything Rises,” which premieres April 12 in California. Photo: Victor Llorente/New York Times
“When the bass-baritone Davóne Tines was starring in Kaija Saariaho’s ‘Only the Sound Remains’ at the Paris Opera, he stepped out of his dressing room and saw something surprising: another person of color,” writes Joshua Barone in Friday’s (4/8) New York Times. “It was the violinist Jennifer Koh…. She, an American daughter of Korean refugees, and he, a Black American, were outliers in a crowd of white people. There was, Tines recalled, ‘a line of connection … That … was the beginning of our relationship, which continued to deepen with the development of this piece.’ Tines was referring to ‘Everything Rises,’ an hourlong work that he and Koh have been collaborating on…. It has been a project of evolution and introspection, changing even to respond to racialized violence against Black and Asian American people during the pandemic…. It is premiering on April 12 at the University of California, Santa Barbara … ‘Everything Rises’ is a multimedia show with elements of theater, as well as a documentary in music (composed by Ken Ueno) about Tines and Koh: their experiences as people of color in a predominantly white field, their journey toward honesty about themselves and their audiences, and their explorations of their families’ history.”
