Music and Transcendence: Let’s Talk About the White Light Festival

By DANIEL J. WAKIN

Marketing device or access to our inner souls?

Lincoln Center has been presenting a festival titled White Light, which it has billed as an exploration of the spiritual in music, a chance to find transcendence in a place untroubled by iPads, Blackberries and cellphones, and the other distractions of modern life.

The offerings are diverse: Brahms’s “German Requiem,” hymns by Arvo Pärt, a Chinese martial-arts-inspired dance work called “Sutra,” and a semistaged dramatization of the biblical story of Judith using Croatian verses and melodies. The festival closes with performances of “The Manganiyar Seduction,” a musical work in the Indian classical and folk traditions, on Monday and Tuesday evenings.

Festivals based on themes — whether a composer, a country, or a historical or philosophical construct — have grown increasingly common on the concert calendar. They offer a way to appeal to single-ticket buyers at a time when fewer people are taking out subscriptions. They provide an extra splash of publicity. They create a context for lesser-known or more daring works that might not be presented on their own.

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