Chapter Three
YouTube leads its own life: once a video is posted, you don’t have much control over who watches it and how far it reaches. I had posted “Handel hits the Road” and “Handel At Home” and thought it already was quite an adventure. I could not suspect what would happen next.
I was traveling to São Paulo, Brazil for a concert during a festival called Virada Cultural: a one-day festival with many stages and different art forms. The plan was to play a normal concert on a standard stage with works by Schumann and Fauré. However, the Artistic Director had seen my videos and thought that I might fit his own project. He was working with an activist who wanted to bring music to the people and he asked me: “Daria, are you afraid of heights?”. I replied: “Well, no, not that I know of. I do not really like stunts. But I am on a mission and the weirdest things have happened to me so let’s try this”.
My triptych is finished, and I am satisfied with the outcome. Many people who did not know keyboard music by Handel have been introduced to it. I still receive many messages from people who did not really listen to keyboard music at all until they heard Handel. But my life with this composer as well as so many others will continue and the experiences and interaction with so many people opened up a lot of new thoughts and possibilities. I like seeing if one can be drawn into music like I am always drawn to it. And I like finding the stage that fits best for different music, because that is also an interesting challenge. I believe it is possible to communicate this in both the modern world of today as well as on the most beautiful of places: the concert stage.