What role can classical music play in America, year 2022?

Pianist Miki Sawada travels to all 50 states with a piano,
performing in community gathering spaces,
finding what we have in common as humans
in this divided country.

Mission

Gather Hear Tour’s mission is to bring high quality live classical music to communities across socioeconomic and political boundaries. By taking classical music outside of formal concert halls - where not everyone might feel welcomed - and into community gathering spaces, Gather Hear uses music as a connective tissue that helps us find what unites us as humans. Gather Hear Louisiana (April 2022) was the fifth tour after Alaska (2017), West Virginia (2018), Massachusetts (2021), and Utah (2022). Gather Hear travels far and wide within each state in an effort to get to thoroughly know each place and its people. Gather Hear Tour is a project by pianist Miki Sawada.

​The goal is to tour all 50 states in this time of deep divide, when we can’t help but feel that there is no shared humanity across the nation. 

Gather Hear is constantly experimenting with the format of the classical piano recital, collaborating with theater director Daniel Pettrow (Gather Hear WV) and composers Brendon Randall-Myers (WV), Ariel Friedman (MA), and Elisabet Curbelo (UT) to create shows unique to each tour, with support from New Music USA.

Gather Hear Tour cherishes the relationships created with individuals and communities along the journey. It documents and shares its stories and findings on American life:

Watch the Gather Hear Utah and Gather Hear Alaska short films.

Read the Gather Hear Alaska blog series; watch the Gather Hear West Virginia vlog series.

Our Story

“As a classical concert pianist, I’ve always felt some discomfort when looking around a traditional concert hall. Why is it often the case that either I’m completely surrounded by a sea of gray hairs, or a house of empty seats? If this art form is not speaking to the majority of today’s population, why am I choosing to dedicate my life to it? How can I have more positive impact on the world around me? There must be a better way forward.

And then came the 2016 presidential election and the accompanying feelings of depression, desperation, and fear. My first question in its aftermath, as a non-American living in the US, was whether I should continue to live here. My immediate answer was yes; I am grateful for the opportunities granted me here and I love this country, despite all of its ugly problems both past and present. Then followed the perennial question - What can I do as a classical musician during this time? 

Now was the time to act. I took a step back from the topics classical musicians usually obsess over - aesthetics, skill, prestige, masterworks - and thought hard about what’s at the core of classical music. What makes it so special? The answer: the power to connect everyone that is in a room together, gently but insistently encouraging us to listen deeply, moving us through our emotions and senses, helping us find our humanity in the process. 

Well then, why should this magical power be constrained only to concert halls? By keeping the music in concert halls for the sake of acoustics and tradition, it seems to be excluding a lot of people. I started fantasizing what would happen if I drove around with a piano in a van, placing classical music in spaces that people love to hang out in, curating it in such a way that everyone had an entry point into this complex but beautiful music, and doing it all around the country as a tool to get to know people and places I may never get to know otherwise. Only a crazy person would think to do that.

And so that's what I’m doing, starting with Gather Hear Alaska in 2017 followed by Gather Hear West Virginia in 2018. At the end of this 50-state journey, I imagine the map of the United States lit up with hundreds of pinpoints scattered about - these are the places I’ve played in, where I’ve connected with individuals and communities. All those points will then be connected by a dense network of lines, as I physically travel from one place to the other. Not only that, but also as I share my journey with an online following, collaborate with local and national organizations, and pave the way for other artists to follow my route. After all that, the network over the map will be so dense and bright that we won’t be able to see state lines anymore. 

- Miki” (written in 2019)