Lost Freedom

Libby Gardner Series

Sunday, September 27, 2026
3:00PM
Libby Gardner Concert Hall
1375 Presidents' Circle
Salt Lake City, Utah 84112

Music by Kenji Bunch, Franz Schubert, and a world premiere by Jessica Rudman

Program

Works that explore the idea of freedom - with Schubert’s beloved wanderer songs Die Fiorelle and An die Musik and his fiery Quartettsatz; this concert features a world premiere by University of Utah composer Jessica Rudman for soprano Jin-Xiang Yu and Kenji Bunch’s powerful Lost Freedom which honors the experience of Japanese-Americans during and after WWII America, narrated by Plan-B Theatre’s Jerry Rapier.

Franz Schubert (1797-1828): Selected Songs
Kenji Bunch (b. 1971): Minidoka (2016)
Jessica Rudman (b. 1981): World Premiere (2026)
Franz Schubert: Quartettsatz
Kenji Bunch: Lost Freedom (2021)

Performers

Jin-Xiang Yu, soprano
Kimi Kawashima, piano
Alex Martin, violin
Yuki MacQueen, violin
Joel Gibbs, viola
John Eckstein, cello
Eric Hopkins, percussion
Jerry Rapier, narrator

Program Notes

A nearly unimaginable profusion of music during his very short life made Schubert an indispensable part of Viennese culture and a legendary contributor to the ongoing sweep of music history. In addition to art songs (we will return to that topic momentarily), Schubert wrote piano pieces that numbered in the hundreds, dozens of chamber music pieces, nearly 20 staged works, over 40 church compositions and multiple symphonies. Over 1,500 titles in all. It was as if he knew from his earliest days that he would need to cram six decades of productivity into a measly two, so he just got down to it. All of Schubert’s music is important, but the songs are the foundation of his legacy. He wrote more than 600 of them, occasionally creating 7 in a day. In these many gems, he promoted the piano from assistant to equal and his focus on the literary content and distinct tone of each poet and poem continues to inspire composers of lieder to this day. If Schubert’s famous quote that “My compositions spring from my sorrows” was true, then he had more than his share of those sorrows. We should consider ourselves fortunate he made so much of them. 

American composer Kenji Bunch’s bio speaks of a desire to combine “history, philosophy, nature and intergenerational and cross-cultural dialogue” to “facilitate healing with his music”. He has been “influenced by his mother’s experience as a Japanese immigrant” and “his father’s [life] as a political/social activist,” and has used their inspiration to comment frequently on the injustice and inaccuracies often found at the core of the American story. Bunch is especially moved by the experience of Japanese Americans during the Second World War. About Minidoka (2016), Bunch wrote, “In the summer of 2015 I visited the site of the Minidoka Relocation Center, one of ten concentration camps created in the 1940s to detain Japanese-American citizens against their will. Now a beautifully restored National Historic Site, the grounds of Minidoka offer a wealth of information and survivor testimonials of this dark chapter of our nation’s history. Of particular interest to me was a small stream of water beyond the perimeter of the camp. Evidently, the prisoners used to gather next to the barbed wire fence and watch the stream, as the gently flowing water brought them great comfort in the midst of a profoundly dehumanizing experience. This piece is a meditation on that stream, that fence, and those people.”

For a NOVA commission on the subject of freedom, Utah composer Jessica Rudman was eager to collaborate with the librettist from her 2018 chamber opera Marie Curie Learns to Swim. Rudman writes, “Exsillium [a Latin noun for exile or banishment] is a cycle of four songs setting what my dear friend and collaborator Kendra Preston Leonard called ‘dark poems about freedom’. The first song, ‘From Sanctuary,’ was inspired by refugees from the civil war in Syria who were forced from their homes, lost everything they owned, and faced famine. ‘Marginalia’ is based on accounts of migrations in Asia, Europe, and the Americas. It focuses on the hope of finding a better life, but being shut out and discarded. ‘Ceding’ explores a tragic form of human trafficking where parents sold their own daughters to traffickers, thinking that would give the girls a better chance at life than if their parents who were facing deportation took them back home. Finally, ‘Goods’ centers on La Bestia (or the Beast), which was also known as El Tren de la Muerte (The Train of Death). La Bestia is a system of trains that go from Mexico to the US border. Hundreds of thousands of people (including children) ride on the train each year trying to reach the US and escape violence in their home cities. Many do not survive the journey.” Kendra Preston Leonard sadly passed away in August and will be greatly missed by the many composers whose work she elevated with her words.  

Back to Schubert. Given the impossible number of pieces he completed, it is surprising that his devotees are so familiar with the charms and frustrations of “unfinished” works. The 8th Symphony, in fact, bears that very title and its incomplete status has fueled scholarly speculation for nearly a century. Contemporary to that abandoned project was the Quartettsatz of 1820. Every ounce the chamber music cousin of the symphony, the Quartettsatz appeared to have been the first movement of a full string quartet but, for reasons no clearer than with the orchestral “Unfinished,” Schubert set it aside after sketching out the opening of the second movement. Absent an explanatory letter or some other historical “smoking gun,” we are left to take the Quartettsatz on its own terms. Schubert had not attempted a string quartet since 1816, and the new work was clearly a departure from the earlier examples. Where the previous quartets were intended for performance by members of his own family, the Quartettsatz was meant for professionals and as Romantic intensity replaced the amiable contentment of before, Schubert seemed poised for a leap forward. That leap would land with certainty later in Schubert’s final three quartets so the nearly forsaken Quartettsatz might easily be viewed as a brilliantly conceived but merely half-built bridge, if only it weren’t so worthy as it stands.   

Lost Freedom, the anchor work on this thematic program, was composed by Kenji Bunch in 2021. When Moab Music Festival Director Michael Barrett heard Bunch perform Minidoka, he was immediately moved to suggest an expansion of the work’s content and intent. Barrett was aware that the state of Utah was home to multiple camps during the war, so he reached out to actor and civil rights advocate George Takei, a man he knew spent time in them as a child. Both Bunch and Takei were soon on board and the collaboration that would become Lost Freedom for narrator, string quartet, piano and percussion began. In an excellent 2021 article on the NEA website, Bunch reflected on the creation of the work. “Sometimes I have to pinch myself,” he said of working with Takei, “If I can help in telling his story with music…that’s my role here – to help humanize the story.” He continued, “I think a lot about transgenerational trauma…The upheaval in the last year-and-a-half both with the intense racial justice movement with Black Americans but also the resurgence in anti-Asian hate brings up a lot of this inherited trauma…George will say that ever since there have been Asians in America, there has been discrimination, bias and hate. We both feel it’s really important to tell this story.”

-Jeff Counts © 2026