About SoulhissMetaLotusmessiah, performed at Daniel Pearl Music Day 2004
"People were taking risks that night. But one person in particular took a risk larger than the others, and in the process ended up overshadowing the rest. This was a concert about memory, so here’s what I remember:“soulhissmeta-lotusmessiah” and Adrian Coburn. In the company of musical greats, it was a senior from Russian and East European Studies who truly managed to do justice to the acoustics of the church.
"Joined by the incredible vocal talent of senior Roopa Meena Mahadevan and the accompaniment of an organ, Coburn formulated “soulhissmeta-lotusmessiah” with two texts, one Yiddish and one Sanskrit.
"This unlikely equation of the Yiddish longing for the Messiah (“May the emperor come soon, / May the excellent one come in our days”) and the invocation of the god Vishnu (“Shriman Narayana / I surrender to your lotus feet”), somehow works, and works very well. The pitting of the two voices against the organ created an infectious aura in that resonant room and the massive organ and its pipes quickly became everything that can be imagined by a lotus and its swamps. This dazzling, strange creation left an audience with the anticipation of what will become of Adrian Coburn as she develops her talents as a composer, creating, no doubt, more polyglotic gems."
