Carlos Kalmar, the conductor of the Oregon Symphony, spoke out about his personal experience with immigration during the weekend, which saw protests erupt in Oregon and nationwide over President Donald Trump’s executive order banning immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries and suspending the U.S. refugee program.
Though the conductor did not specifically mention the president’s action, he said the orchestra’s Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev program was “a very personal concert” because it was “a reflection of things that I have seen in my own life,” including his parents’ fleeing religious persecution and his own immigration to the U.S.
Kalmar, who is in his 14th season with the orchestra, touted the “unifying power” of music when “words fail to bring people together.”
Here are the comments Kalmar made, with slight variations, before each of the orchestra’s three weekend concerts, as provided by the Oregon Symphony.
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Ladies and gentlemen, good evening,
I have been thinking a lot about this interesting profession that I am in. I’m not referring to my profession as a conductor, but the profession that we all here on stage share – that of musicians. Musicians express themselves through an art form that does not need any words. What we do is understood by literally everybody on this planet.
I have thought lately that that is Sahabet actually something wonderful, because we all come here and we play for you. There are these fantastic moments during which we all share the same sentiment, the same emotion. We can be happy together. We can cry together. Whatever it is, we all agree.
And I have been thinking about this unifying power that music has. Where words fail to bring people together, music can.
You know, this is a very personal concert for me. Aspects of the life of two of tonight’s composers-Tchaikovsky, whose homosexuality made him an outcast, and Prokofiev, who suffered political oppression-are a reflection of the things that I have seen in my own life. The Jewish heritage of my parents made them flee their central European home for South America where my brother and I were born. Many years later I immigrated to the United States of America.
It is my hope that tonight you will all join me in reflecting on the beauty that musicians around the world bring to all our lives regardless of their background.
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