Music Expresses Sarajevo's Sorrow

On the sidewalk yesterday, amidst the whir of helmeted bicycle commuters, the boom-chucka-boom of an old Ford pickup and the thwack of evening newspapers, an elegant woman in rhinestone-studded heels took out her cello and played a slow, sad tribute to a Sarajevan cellist and his dying city.

The 10-minute performance of Albinoni's "Adagio" commemorated the spirit of Vedran Smailovic, a world away.

Smailovic is a cellist with the Sarajevo Opera. Every day for 22 days, he played Albinoni's somber melody outside a bombed bakery where Serbian mortars struck a bread line and killed 22 people in May.

A street corner in Seattle's University District is a long way from the crumbling Sarajevo bakery.

But Seattle cellist Kara Hunnicutt says the jolt of playing beautiful music amidst gritty U District traffic noise helped bring her closer to her fellow cellist.

"This is what it must have been like for him sitting in the gutted shell of the bakery," she said. "It's not important to do it in a nice hall. It's more important to touch people wherever they are."

Flanked by baskets of bread and dried roses, Hunnicutt was the 11th of 22 cellists to perform Albinoni's "Adagio" in Seattle. The string of performances, called "Adagio 22," was arranged by conceptual artist Beliz Brother, and will continue, one each day, until Sept. 21 at various locations in the city.

Yesterday, the cellist had an audience of a dozen men and women, a 3-year-old child, and a weary mom walking home from Safeway with a bag of groceries in each hand.

Hunnicutt's music came during the pause when a busy city finishes work and gets ready for supper. The moment was brimming with the sounds of healthy urban life: screaming children, noisy carburetors, the rustle of green leaves.

Not so in Sarajevo, a once-thriving city of 400,000 nestled among alpine peaks. The old European capital, along with its newly founded nation, Bosnia-Herzegovina, began imploding soon after the country declared independence from Yugoslavia in March.

It is a matter of Serbian nationalists fighting Muslims and Croats over land in which they lived as neighbors as recently as a year ago. In six months of fighting, between 9,000 and 35,000 people have been killed, according to some estimates.

Hunnicutt and Brother say they realize a few notes lingering on a Seattle street corner are not the same as food or direct aid to the war-torn country.

But Brother considers "Adagio 22" a success "even if one person just stops and pauses for 30 seconds. If it makes them think of the conditions in the world . . ."

Brother got the vision for "Adagio 22" after reading a New York Times story by John F. Burns about death in Sarajevo. "I really wanted to respond," she said.

She knew only one cellist, Jami Sieber, who plays electric cello in the local rock band Rumors of the Big Wave.

Cellists are a tight bunch in this city, and Brother was able to quickly enlist the help of 21 others, including members of the Seattle Symphony, Northwest Chamber Orchestra, Pacific Northwest Ballet and a folk-music band.

"In the midst of all the horror that's going on in the world today, this is a perfect commemoration," said Julie Wroblewski, who, with her toy fox terrier Scooter cradled in her arms, has already attended three performances and plans to hear as many more of the 22 as she can.

--------------------------- Future sites of `Adagio 22' ---------------------------

-- Today: noon, Freeway Park, downtown Seattle

-- Tomorrow: 12:45 p.m., Seattle Center International Fountain

-- Saturday: noon, Wall of Sound, 2237 Second Ave., Belltown

-- Sunday: 11 a.m., Metro Bus Tunnel, University Street station

-- Monday: noon, Pike Place Market, Post Alley and Stewart Street

-- Tuesday: 6 p.m., Bremerton ferry, Puget Sound

-- Wednesday: 6:30 p.m., Green Lake Community Center

-- Sept. 17: 2 p.m. 42nd Avenue Southwest and Southwest Hanford Street, West Seattle

-- Sept. 18: 5 p.m., Columbia City Library, 47th Avenue South and Rainier Avenue South

-- Sept. 19: 7:30 p.m. Pier 62/63, waterfront

-- Sept. 20: 7 p.m., Wall of Sound, 2237 Second Ave., Belltown