It's worth our while to embrace the age-old tradition of going away to find ourselves

I had lunch with Montreal composer Ana Sokolovic yesterday. She is in town to check up on progress with the June 24 premiere of her latest opera for Queen of Puddings Music Theatre.

The new opera, based on what happens on each of the seven days leading up to a wedding, is rooted in Serbian folk culture and music -- something I found out was not part of Sokolovic's internationalist upbringing in Belgrade.

The musical avant-garde was where the student composer's heart and head lay -- until she came to Canada to do her Masters in composition. She recalled how her teacher, José Evangelista, sat her down and asked her what she would like to compose.

She had been brought up in a prescriptive environment. "I always had to learn this and this, and had to write in this style," she explained. "No one had ever asked me what I wanted to write."

Over time, she discovered her voice, which included references to the folk traditions of her birth country.

This probably sounds hopelessly trite, but, for me, the biggest validation in this conversation was the value of distance.

There is a grand, old tradition of letting high school and university graduates take off to parts unknown for a few months or a year, to have them see the world. The act of experiencing other people and places is enriching enough, but, if I remember my own post-adolescent peregrinations well enough, the real, enduring value was being introduced to myself and who I was (and am) in the process.

Getting far away from home should be part of everyone's coming of age -- if they can afford to do it.

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This has nothing to do with my conversation with Sokolovic, but I couldn't help thinking tangentially of Gustav Mahler's first Lieder cycle, Songs of a Wayfarer.

Here is Measha Brueggergosman singing the fourth, final song, "Die zwei blauen Augen von meinem Schatz", performing at the "Risor in New York" festival presented by Carnegie Hall last December:

 

The two blue eyes

of my darling

they sent me into the

wide world.

I had to take my leave of this most-beloved place!

O blue eyes,

why did you gaze on me?

Now I have eternal sorrow and grief.

I went out into the quiet night

well across the dark heath.

To me no one bade farewell.

Farewell!

My companions are love and sorrow!

By the road stood a linden tree,

Where, for the first time,

I found rest in sleep!

Under the linden tree

that snowed its blossoms

over me,

I did not know how life went on,

and all was well again!

All! All, love and sorrow

and world and dream!