Welcome, from the Darshan Trio.
We believe that all art is both a mirror and a lens. We see a reflection of our inner selves in the expression of another - but while peering through - we see each other, as well. Darshan is a Sanskrit word which means “seeing”, but it is also a kind of “seeing beyond” - the seeing of transcendence and transformation.
During the pandemic, we came together to make music, in something that musicians like to call “reading parties”. There is no greater joy than opening scores, sight-reading pieces, and sharing the delights, challenges, and stories that jump off the page! We quickly realized that rather than playing through complete pieces, we were agilely moving through our favorite movements (a term musicians use for “parts”) of larger scale works covering nearly a dozen composers and pieces in less than an hour!
In doing so, we began noticing several things: fascinating relationships between pieces that were composed nearly 200 years apart, greater gravity and importance to movements played in isolation, and a through-line that we could trace across an eclectic collection of composers, styles, and time periods.
And with that, we developed our first “Mosaic Program”: a program that features many different, seemingly disparate pieces, that fit together to create an entirely new sonic landscape.
A little bit about us:
Our pianist, Dominic Cheli ’16MM, enjoys several layers of artistic fulfillment through performing, teaching, and embracing new technologies. In addition to giving recitals, concerto performances, and AV production, he is on the faculty of the Colburn School, and also Head of Piano for the education company: tonebase. He leads content strategy and product development on this platform of 20,000 rapidly growing members. His goal is to combine music, passion, and technology to reach audiences, where they are at, to help everyone achieve their goals. When not at the piano or around cameras and microphones, he enjoys training for Ironman triathlons and cooking.
Our cellist, Yoshika Masuda, passionately divides his time between two central aspects of his artistic life: performing and teaching. As a recitalist and chamber musician, he has performed all across Europe, Asia and North America. When not touring, he is busy nurturing the next generation of artists in his role as the Director of String Studies at Chapman University. Scheduled for release on March 8 by AVIE Records, his upcoming album, ‘Hidden Flame,’ is a tribute to showcasing the compositions of women as masterpieces crafted by truly great composers. Yoshi is a native of Japan, but has lived in Hong Kong, Australia and the UK, and currently calls Los Angeles his home.
Music isn’t entertainment: it’s a lifeline. Vijay Gupta ’07MM is the founder and artistic director of Street Symphony - an organization dedicated to serving people recovering from addiction, homelessness and incarceration in LA County - he has beheld how music can be a source of grace: not just for the most underserved among us, but for himself and his colleagues as well. Vijay speaks about the transformative power of music for conferences, companies and campuses in North America, and his first book will be published by Hachette in 2025. Vijay plays on a 2010 violin made in Los Angeles by Eric Benning.
