#190, It Came Just the Same, Part III

December 11, 2017

 “There is a difference between existing, living and thriving. To exist we need food, water, shelter. To live we need to love and be loved, and to feel good about ourselves. Music and arts help us to thrive.”

Dr. Dijana Ihas of the Sarajovo String Quartet

A bow is drawn across the strings of a violin, and a familiar tune echoes off the walls and fills the room, reminding you of a song you have heard in holidays past. You are in awe of the talent of the artists in this orchestra, and your mind is carried away with memories of another December, of time spent with family, of special friends who have impacted your life, or of reasons that this season is special for you.  Then there is the thunderous crash of what could be drums or electric guitars overwhelming the peaceful melody, and your eyes and ears are captivated by bursts of fire and flashes of light. The whole room shakes, but the violinist plays on uninterrupted by the collision of so many sights and sounds. If this show was in an arena or concert hall, and you were watching the Christmas performance of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, then this performance may be as awesome as you had anticipated. But what if those were not drums you heard, and you were not seated in a great concert hall, but instead found yourself seated in rubble. There is no electricity, no heat, and those flashes of fire and of light shatter the remaining glass in the windows, and the powder of crumbling plaster falling from the ceiling and walls fills the air as the building is shaken to its’ core. Back at your home there is very little food, no luxuries of any kind, and if you had seen a movie or magazine reflecting the holidays in other parts of the world, the materialistic version of the holidays full of gifts and plane trips would seem so far away from the reality where you live. And now you begin to wonder, can there be any holiday spirit here amid all this chaos? Bombs are falling, flames shoot toward the sky, and buildings all around you are pummelled by the violence that has seized your city for months. Then to your amazement, even in all that chaos, the artists play on. Somehow amid the explosions and the rumbling of the foundations you hear the sounds of Arcangelo Corelli or Franz Schubert, and you see those trembling fingers continue to move across a violin or cello as if all in the world were still ok, and you think that perhaps there is a spirit of the holidays, and a sense of love and respect, that has made its’ way to this small crowd huddled in fear in a dark, war-torn city.

Thousands of miles away in the United States, a group of hard-rock musicians arranges a song dedicated to those fellow-artists of that far-off land. Their song gets no airplay and little notice early on, but when this rock band launches a Christmas themed show, this piece becomes one of their most famous works. That rock band named Savatage would launch a Christmas show in the late 1990’s under the name Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and TSO has become a holiday tradition across the country in just a short number of years. Their musical creativity, accompanied by a lot of fire and light, has created a following that led to multiple platinum albums and gross ticket sales of over $50 million per year. Their show, limited to only two months per year, is one of the highest total attendance concerts in the nation, outdrawing acts that are able to tour and perform for many more months. And that song they composed, Sarajevo 12/24, has become one of their fans’ favorite songs. They often perform it twice during every concert; during the first half of their show which tells a story of a young girl who is lost and far from home, and again during the closing numbers of the show.

Sarajevo 12/24 is a symbolic representation of a real war; one conveyed by an orchestra straining to play “God Rest Ye Merry Gentemen” against the thunderous rock band sounds of “Carol of the Bells,” accompanied by pyrotechnics and a laser light show that will rival any. We had a chance to see that song performed again the other night when Trans-Siberian Orchestra visited Kansas City.  The song takes you back to a meager holiday season in a city under attack; a musical bridge back to a time when artists defiantly played on as their city crumbled around them. The Sarajevo of their song is the one that from 1992 through 1994 underwent the longest seige of any city in history, as the old Yugoslavian nation broke up into Bosnia and Croatia. The Sarajevo of this time, once a majestic city and even an Olympic host, lost over 200,000 people and saw its’ residents endure 3 ? years of constant bombing and gunfire. But out of all that pain, there were remarkable stories of people who continued to go out and try to make a difference, people who believed in their city and their neighbors and who refused to allow evil to triumph. Those were likely the stories that inspired the hit that was first launched over 20 years ago by the band Savatage. I had the opportunity to ask Trans-Siberian Orchestra musical director Al Pitrelli how they discovered these stories, and he told me that group founder Paul O’Neill was constantly reading and looking for stories of inspiration, and that he had discovered in his reading the stories of these artists whose commitment to their people was so remarkable. In some interviews Mr. O’neill specifically mentions the inspiration of a lone cellist, heartbroken at the violence he sees gripping his city, sitting in the rubble playing for his homeland. Other articles suggest that cellist is a composite of several stories involving the Cellist of Sarajevo and the Sarajevo String Quartet. These are powerful stories of the strength and resilience shown by people who were so committed to their work, and to the people of their land, that they placed their own lives and safety second to their calling to lift up those about them.    

Vedran Smailovic was a cellist in Sarajevo who had performed with the Sarajevo Opera.  During the early days of the siege, a mortar shell fell into the middle of a crowd gathered at one of the city’s bread lines near his apartment, and 22 people were killed. Rushing to the scene to help, he was shocked at the site of the innocent people who died while just waiting for food. The next day, probably still in shock but refusing to sit idly by feeling helpless, he dressed in his formal evening wear, and according to a New York Times article of that June, carried his chair and his cello out into the rubble where that bakery had stood. Playing Albinoni’s Adagio where chaos had reigned just hours earlier was no doubt an unexpected sight for the two frightened people who passed by. But he was undeterred by the threats of bombs and snipers, so he played there daily for 22 days. When interviewed, he responded “you ask me am I crazy for playing the cello? Why do you not ask if they are not crazy for shelling Sarajevo?” As he likely began to realize the encouraging impact his music had on those frightened residents, he continued on getting dressed in his tuxedo and playing at bombed out churches, theaters, and schools for the next two years. Humbly downplaying the significance of his brave endeavor, Mr. Smailovic in a 1992 interview stated “I am nothing special, I am a musician, I am part of the town. Like everyone else, I do what I can.” In a 2008 interview reflecting back on those days, Mr. Smailovic said “I never stopped playing music throughout the siege. My weapon was my cello.”

Elsewhere in Sarajevo, Dijana Ihas, Miron Strutinksi, Momir Vlacic, and Kamenko Ostojic were continuing to practice their work as part of the Sarajevo String Quartet. One day, they were asked to come play at a synagogue that had been bombed. According to an interview from 2012, they saw this as a “chance to show the world that while buildings can be destroyed, our spirits could not be broken.” As listeners’ eyes filled with tears, Dr. Ihas said “I realized then that music is more than just decoration in life. It’s a necessity. Something that helped us keep our dignity and kept us feeling human.” Going out into the city to play was dangerous, however, and by September, the first violinist had been killed, and by October the second violinist had also been killed. Dijana Dihas’ parents pleaded with her to join her friends and leave the country, certain that she could be next to fall prey to the violence of war. But she would not leave. In her letter she stated “I couldn’t imagine to leave the country that gave me all that really matters (a great education, freedom, etc) during the time when my country needed me the most.”

Amid all the horrors of war, as the bombings continued on day after day, Dr. Ihas explained that people still came up and thanked them for their music, which they said helped them feel like human beings again despite the hard living conditions.  Residents would exclaim that the music helped them feel like they were in Paris or New York, which was probably a welcome escape from the dreary days of hunger and the destruction wrought by the war. Even the police and military invited their group in to play, because as she explained to me “they too are human beings and they needed to nurture their spirits.” In her book “ Sarajevo Roses,” Ann Marie de Preez Besdrob describes attending one of these concerts where the quartet had walked to a theater that had no electricity or candles, and was pitch dark. She states that “the shelling of the city center was increasing, and explosions echoed around the theater. Nobody batted an eye, neither the audience nor the musicians, who didn’t miss a note and serenely continued playing their well-rehearsed Mozart, Gounod and Bach, accompanied by the background thunder of exploding shells.”

On February 6, 1994, the quartet gathered to play for a crowd that included Bosnian President Izetbegovic to commemorate the life Suada Dilberovic, a young woman who was the first civilian killed while crossing a bridge early in the siege. In an interview with Zvonimir Separovic, a former foreign minister from Croatia, he describes how the group played Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden,” while in the market another devastating attack was taking place. As the darkness spread across their land, they defiantly played on, providing hope and encouragement to people who had so many reasons to give up.  Dr. Ihas described to me how she learned during this brutal period in her country’s history that “music and arts are crucial to human lives and are equally important to survival as is the food, water, or shelter…. we are, in addition to being physical beings, also intellectual and spiritual creatures and our intellect and our spirits need nurturing that music and arts provide.”

Pausing to reflect on the holiday season in our own country, it would be easy to overlook just how many opportunities we have at work and at home to make a difference, and to take those opportunities for granted. We are inundated with news stories attempting to focus on all that is wrong in our land and all the reasons we have to be discontented. It could be easy at times to wonder how the spirit of the holidays can exist in a time of such division. And yet, even in the midst of all those horrors of war in Sarajevo, the holidays made their way to the humble homes of the hungry and the oppressed. Dr. Ihas described how families gathered during the holidays in quiet celebrations that brought them together to sing in homes and churches. While bombs continued to fall and snipers fired from the hills, The Sarajevo String Quartet would play works such as Corelli’s Christmas Concerto for people who remained committed to light during days of such darkness. In conditions that we would consider unimaginable, people found ways to express their love and concern for each other. If the spirit of the holidays could bring them together, even in a city under siege, when all seemed lost and the world was consumed in darkness, couldn’t it do the same here?

Stories like these of Vedran Smailovic, Dijana Ihas and others surpass the holiday season, and their lessons could fill a book of instructions to carry us through the year. Imagine turning your life’s work into a way to make a difference. Your work can provide you just as many opportunities to make a difference in the lives of those around you, and you only need to be courageous enough to commit to that difference no matter what obstacles lie in your path. The String Quartet happened to make change with an instrument, and Mr. Smailovic climbed onto the rubble bearing only a cello. Whatever work you do can be just as powerful, because the instrument is not as important as the heart of that person who bravely climbs out into the world, determined to make that difference. You may not head out to greet the world each day bearing a viola or cello, but may instead display your skills with a computer, a hammer or welder or saw. You may serve in a restaurant, answer phones, fight fires, teach a class, or drive a truck. What you do is not as important as how you do it, how you wake up each day determined to hear the stories of those you meet, and use your example at work and at home as a means to make their world better. You have the power to encourage customers, co-workers, neighbors and friends. Can you imagine any customer or any co-worker not wanting you to make their world a little better, even if just for a moment? You do not need a cello, you simply need to believe.

No matter where you are and no matter what your present situation, that spirit of the season can find you, and can leave a lasting impression that will guide you throughout your year. It found its’ way to people huddled in the rubble of a bombed out city who did without food or electricity for years. Throughout history, during times of war, times of famine, in snow-covered mountains or on dry, dusty trails, that belief that what one does can make a difference has often prevailed. I cannot imagine sitting in the chair of a Dijana Ihas, gazing out at the hollow eyes of a hungry crowd seated on the cold, broken concrete of a bombed-out building, and for month after month finding the words and music to inspire and give hope. But she, the members of her quartet, Vedran Smailovic, and so many others throughout history have found the strength and courage to reach out, extend a hand, and lift up those around them. When the times demand it, these inspirational stories are proof that we have the capacity to do far more than we ever imagined. We can make a difference, not only in December but throughout the year.

As Dr. Ihas quoted, from the words of Margaret Meade, “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.”

This may be your season, your time and your opportunity to have an impact on another. Perhaps as you are shopping, or just driving down the road listening to the radio, you will hear Trans-Siberian Orchestra in the coming days, and that will remind you that a singular act, no matter how seemingly small, can change the world for someone else. There are people all around you waiting for someone to make a difference. It might just be you.

 Randy

Sources:

www.pacificu.edu Story of Sarajevo String Quartet,

Sarajevo Roses, Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob,

1994 EIR News Service, Interview with Zvonimir Separovic, Vol. 21, No 10, 3/4/94

Readthespirit.com Vedran Smailovic: Cellist of Sarajevo Still Moves the World, Daniel Buttry

NY Times, The Death of a City: Elegy for Sarajevo, John F Burns, 6/8/92

The Oregonian, A refugee of war, Pacific Univ professor Dijana Ihas teaches music to heal an inspire, Deborah Bloom, 12/31/12

 Photo source: google images and personal photos at TSO