Music in the Stacks with Miho Hatori

The Hudson Area Library continues its Fall 2019 lineup of Music in the Stacks, a series of free Sunday afternoon concerts featuring local and international artists and hosted by Hudson area youth organizations, with a concert by Miho Hatori. This concert is being curated and promoted by Basilica Hudson, which is waiving curatorial and publicity fees. On Sunday, September 29, 4-5:30pm Miho, a Japanese singer, songwriter, musician and producer, performs her latest project, Salon Mondialité, inspired by Martinique-born poet and thinker Édouard Glissant’s words. She is being hosted by teens from Kite’s Nest Space 2.0. Hatori creates sound stories through improvisation and ambient chanting. Glissant proposed globality (mondialité)—a global connectedness that does not, like colonialism or globalization (mondialisation), bulldoze difference for the sake of capital or dominance. His theory resonates deeply with Hatori, expressing in writing something she has long found herself seeking through sound. Salon Mondialité combines an expression of love for Glissant’s Caribbean ideascapes as they intersect with her own faded memories of and musical references from post-War Japan before the era of globalization. Though Hatori’s improvised soundscapes may be layered with distant recollection and an opaque, dreamlike atmosphere, there’s often warmth beneath their surface, and an attitude of optimism comes through as Hatori seeks to establish an emotional relationship with the audience. Hatori says, “I’m not from the Caribbean, but the idea of ‘mondialité’ also resonated with my background, as well as from living in New York society. The word ‘mondialité’ connects so many different pieces of what I’ve been doing in my music and art, and has been a very powerful inspiration.” Miho Hatori is an artist/vocalist/producer, formerly of the legendary NYC group Cibo Matto. She has 3 new different projects, New Optimism, Miss Information, Salon Mondialité. Miho is originally from Tokyo, but has been working and living in NYC for too many years. The Music in the Stacks concerts reflect a wide range of musical styles, genres, instruments and cultures - giving the community new musical experiences and opportunities for cultural exchange. The concerts are held on the main floor of the library in the historic Hudson Armory, which is a large open space with unique acoustics. Each concert is hosted by young people, from a Hudson area organization, who introduce the musicians and facilitate a conversation about their music, instruments, or cultural tradition. A reception follows each concert with a chance for audience members to share their reactions and interact the musicians, youth emcees and each other. Audience members receive cultural passports, which are stamped at each concert. After turning in their passports they are then eligible for chances (based on the number of concerts attended) to win a gift certificate to a Hudson music venue. Concerts earlier this year were performed by a Bangla band headlined by Palbasha Siddique, curated by the Bangladeshi American Society of Hudson and hosted by Hudson Muslim Youth, a Harmony Project Hudson student and instructor concert hosted by members of the Hudson Area Library Tween Advisory Council and NorthWinds Bassoon Ensemble hosted by student members of the Hudson City School District’s Tri-M Music Honor Society. Finally, Patrick Higgins, a Hudson based experimental music composer hosted by Operation Unite NY concludes the 2019 Music in the Stacks series on a date to be determined in November. This project is made possible with funds from the Decentralization Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and administered by the Greene County Council on the Arts. For more information, email programs@hudsonarealibrary.org, call 518-828-1792 x101, or visit the main desk in the library. The Hudson Area Library is located at 51 North Fifth Street in Hudson, NY. The mission of the library is to enrich the quality of life by providing free and equal access to programs, services and resources, and by creating opportunities for all members of our community to connect, create, learn and grow. For more information visit hudsonarealibrary.org. Photo credit: Photo by Tin Nguyen