Sound Journey at the Romanian Athenaeum proves the importance of music to a higher level

I guess there are many of us who listen to music, especially to classic music, with shut eyes. Of course, we all do that to better focus on sound without being distracted by any other things and so to enjoy it more.

Still, music can be experienced differently, even deeper, even more focused on sounds. I experienced that on Saturday, at the Romanian Athenaeum thanks to a new “blind tour” organized by NGO AMAis within the SenseAbility project.

In spite of my background in ‘’blind tours”, in spite of an obviously easier job of just following a strip of carpet, wearing blindfolds on my nose while walking in Indian file and assisted by people from AMAis till reaching the concert hall, in spite of being quite familiar with the location, well, even so, I found quite difficult to fulfil this task that everyone attending the event had to fulfil. But that was the very point of the whole above-mentioned project – precisely to make normal people more aware of the difficulties visual impaired people meet at every step of their life.

But after finding a seat in the concert hall– I apologise again to the person whose head I hit with my purse – the Sound Journey was ready to start. Talented artists filled the space with specific sounds of various instruments: piano, violin, guitar, and oboe. Then, canto came on  in a very beautiful female voice.

A multi-sensory experience

Music is meant to be experienced and it is usually hard for us to find words to explain that experience. The Sound Journey was though so different that I need to tell you music just sounded deeper, graver and, in the end, more important than on other occasions. I always admired the elegant and stylish scenery of the Romanian Athenaeum, but this time, it didn’t matter. It didn’t interfere with the sound. That’s why I perceived music as being so important, so special. I think another main purpose of the project is about offering a multi-sensory experience and it was definitely achieved.

At the end of the concert, the audience saw that the talented artists (Cristina Garbea – piano, Ana Bibescu and Mircea Oanes – guitar, Amalia Lazariuc – canto, accompanied by Cristina Garbea, Nicolae Dobrovicescu – violin (accompanied by Catalin Raducanu) were all young, too. And elegantly dressed. And then I found out with a little bit of surprise, I must say, that many people of the ‘’blind’’ audience imagined details about every artist while they performed. Apparently the most imagined thing was the colour of the canto singer’s dress. I didn’t imagine anything like this. Maybe imagination isn’t really my thing. Or maybe I was just too caught by music.

This is all about when trying things so differently than the usual way (like a sound journey): you discover things both about yourself and the others.

The event had a waiting list, therefore, AMAis intends to organize such sound tours again in the near future. So, we’ll keep you informed.