Spreading love and peace at Parliament of the World’s Religions

At the invitation of the Museum of World Religions, world-class konghou soloist Lucina Yue and virtuoso violinist Pei-Wen Liao performed at 8:30pm tonight (Nov 3) at the Plenary on Understanding, the third plenary session of the 7th Parliament of the World’s Religions, currently ongoing in Toronto. In this second event organized by the PoWR following the closing prayer at Thursday’s opening ceremony, the musicians expounded on the Parliament’s main theme “the promise of inclusion, the power of love” with soul-stirring music, receiving warm applause from the audience.

Venerable Liaoyi, chief executive officer of the Museum of World Religions Development Fund, said that Yue’s specialty the konghou is an ancient Eastern plucked strings instrument, while Liao’s expertise lay in the violin, a string instrument from the West. Their performance, specifically designed for this plenary, was a meeting of Eastern and Western music.

Yue was born in Xinjiang, China and currently resides in New York City. True to her reputation as a spiritual practitioner on the konghou, her performance piece “The Treasures of the Tathāgata” was an exposition on the profundity of the dharma, imbued with a deep sensibility of concern for life. Tender and lyrical, the music drawn forth by each graceful strumming movement transcended religious boundaries, delivering to listeners a moment of clarity and purity.

Chinese violinist Pei-Wen Liao, partnered by Russian pianist Agnė Radzevičiutė, masterfully wove the pensive strains of Elgar’s Salut d’amor and the lighthearted melody of Kreisler’s Liebesfreud into an ode to the power of love, echoing the Parliament’s theme to enthusiastic applause.

Dharma master Hsin Tao, founding abbot of the Ling Jiou Mountain Buddhist Society, and founder of the Museum of World religions, attended the performance, and expressed his heartfelt thanks to the musicians for travelling to Toronto to perform at the Parliament.