By Daniel Buckwalter
The reasons for migration from one country to another vary. There’s civil war, an invasion from an outside military, persecution — ethnic or religious — and economic opportunity, to name just a few.
Whatever the reason, the stories of immigrants fleeing their homeland can be harrowing as well as touching. There is angst and genuine foreboding. They are the stories of wave after wave of men, women and children lapping at the shores of many countries seeking relief, most especially in recent history the United States.
But also Australia, and Delgani String Quartet took a deep dive into that country’s stilted and most recent immigration past on May 3 and 4 at First Church of Christ, Scientist in Eugene with the performance of the late Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe’s String Quartet No. 16. It was part of the program titled Far From Home, and Delgani’s season finale.
Delgani — violinists Anthea Kreston and Jannie Wei, violist Amanda Grimm and cellist Eric Alterman — were joined by Stephen Kent on the didgeridoo for a five-movement journey of Afghanistan refugees who were fleeing the Taliban and U.S. bombing in the early 2000s.
Caught off guard, Australian officials passed laws retroactively limiting, if not outright eliminating, Afghan refugees from its shores. If they made it, there were detention centers deep inside Australia where men were separated from their families.
One of the most notable cases of Australia dragging its feet with the Afghan refugees happened in August 2001 when an Indonesian fishing boat carrying 433 asylum seekers was en route to Australia’s Christmas Island. Its engine failed in international waters, and the Australian Coast Guard called on a Norwegian freighter nearby to conduct a rescue operation.
Twenty years later, in a retrospective piece by Oliver Lees for Aljazeera, it was noted that a dozen people were unconscious on the fishing vessel and several had dysentery. A pregnant woman was suffering abdominal pains.
The rescue ship languished. Australian officials wanted the refugees back in Indonesia. The refugees pleaded to be taken to Australia. The story made national headlines, riveting Australia, and, finally, the government negotiated with authorities in the Pacific island of Nauru to have the refugees’ application for asylum processed at detention centers there. The Australian government called it the “Pacific Solution.”
None of this was pretty, and Sculthorpe’s music reflects that. Kent brought to bear the deep, throaty sounds of the didgeridoo in the first movement (Loneliness). There was the screeching fury of the second movement (Anger) and the tearful pain of the third movement (Yearning).
Trauma is the title of the fourth movement, and while it may seem strange to list trauma late in a piece, I get it, because it does take time to process the pain and name it.
Freedom is the fifth and final movement, though it’s a tepid freedom with not quite the serenity you might associate with the word.
That serenity, that security, was played out after intermission with Antonín Dvořák’s String Quartet No.12 in F Major (American), a four-movement ode to the vastness and richness of this country — and its immigrants.
Two short pieces began the program — Kent Darnielle’s From Where You Have Been Falling, with touches of East African rhythms, and Ian Wiese’s And Churn, a tribute to the Armenian genocide during World War I.
All of it was a wonderful kaleidoscope for classical music fans in Eugene and a reminder that Delgani String Quartet plays music that challenges and educates it audiences. If you missed either of the two Far From Home performances, you can watch them virtually at Delgani.org.
