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Victor Lin has had a long creative career as a musician and educator but in his younger days, the acclaimed pianist and violinist actually had some dreams of becoming a cartoonist. It’s perhaps fitting, therefore, that his July 25 Stanford Jazz Festival concert is an evening of music drawn (pun intended) from the worlds of anime and Studio Ghibli, bringing together his appreciation for the films, his commitment to championing Asian and Asian American representation, and, of course, his considerable musical talent.
“As an Asian American jazz artist, one of the things you’re always thinking about is, how do you fit into the grander scheme of things?” Lin, who is Taiwanese American, said. “When you’re playing music, ultimately, as you get older what winds up happening is you start questioning, ‘Well, why am I playing? Who am I playing? Who am I playing it for? And what is the effect this music is having … or what story is it telling?'”
Asians and Asian Americans — particularly men — are underrepresented and undervalued in media and popular culture, he said. And while there is of course great diversity in Asian cultures, communities and experiences, there is also a craving for shared senses of belonging, for “something that resonates with us; that we can say, ‘Yeah, that’s us,’” he said.
Studio Ghibli — the Japanese animation studio responsible for films including “My Neighbor Totoro,” “Spirited Away,” “Princess Mononoke” and many others — has gained worldwide renown for making cinematic magic.
“Studio Ghibli, and manga and anime, is a decidedly Asian thing … there is a sense of connection for many of us — and it’s not exclusively Asian, obviously. I think that manga and anime has a massive global appeal – but when it gets to the level of something like a major motion picture that is … thought of as not just a great anime but a great movie, then it’s almost like it’s a whole other level of representation,” Lin said.
The music for Studio Ghibli’s films, which Lin called beautiful and emotional, was composed by Mamoru Fujisawa, who goes by the name Joe Hisaishi professionally (he chose that name, Lin pointed out, as an homage to American composer Quincy Jones).
“If you take the music that’s from these movies and you apply a jazz lens to it, it’s incredibly powerful; it’s amazing,” he said.
Despite his youthful animation aspirations and growing up watching some anime, Lin said he wasn’t very familiar with the work of Studio Ghibli until a couple of years ago, when he began doing piano performances online during the pandemic.
“What I realized during COVID was that I actually had the ability to play any sort of music that I wanted for an audience worldwide if I was online, where I didn’t have to necessarily adhere to anyone’s definition of what was considered ‘jazz,'” he said. “One of the things that I learned was that people like Disney and people like Ghibli. And that was really one of my first introductions to some of the music,” including “Merry-Go-Round of Life” from “Howl’s Moving Castle.”
More recently, the New York City-based artist was invited to play at The Red Pavilion, a Brooklyn nightclub celebrating Asian and Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) art and culture that regularly has a Studio Ghibli and anime jazz night. That invitation and the popularity of that event, including among folks who might not otherwise be particularly into jazz, inspired Lin to learn more about Ghibli music and movies.
“If I’m going to play music about something, I need to also understand where it’s coming from; it’s going to give me a depth,” he said. As he started diving into the films, he was awestruck not only by the music but by the beauty and poignancy of the storytelling, which often mixes serious themes with enchanting whimsy. As he’s spent much of his career working with youth as a teacher and has two young children of his own, the movies especially resonate on an emotional level.
Ghibli films “wrestle with, like, the essence of the difficulties of being human, of what we do to the Earth, what we do to each other, and there’s always a central child figure who is forced to be the person who deals with it,” he said. “What better way to remind all of us of the importance of setting up the stage that is our world for the generation to come, right?”
Lin’s history with the Stanford Jazz Workshop and the Stanford Jazz Festival is considerable — spanning nearly 30 years. And over the decades, he’s had the pleasure of watching young folks who started out as his students develop their artistic careers. At his concert this year, at which he’ll play both piano and violin, he’ll be joined by a lineup of mostly fellow Stanford Jazz faculty members. Drummer Michael Ode and bassist Mikailo Kasha, a former student of Lin’s, will serve as the rhythm section, while another former SJW student, Michael Sze, will also play violin, and Ben Flocks will join on saxophone (a few more folks were not yet confirmed as of press time).
“One of my big things when I’m at Stanford is about the idea of inclusion, and trying to make sure I can get as many people involved as I can, and to tell the stories of the people that are involved,” Lin said.
The lineup will also include a special guest — saxophonist Tim Lin, who grew up in the Bay Area. He said encouraging and giving opportunities to younger Asian American musicians like Tim Lin — who he said refers to the elder Lin as his “jazz uncle” — is part of what keeps him going.
“I never saw that on stage; I never saw a bunch of people who looked like me,” Lin said, reflecting on his life and how meaningful representation can be to artists as well as to audience members.
“Really the core of what I want to do is, I want to encourage young Asian American men to be more outspoken and to be able to believe that their voices matter,” he said. “From this point on, for the rest of my career I’m really, really interested in working with the Asian American community.”
He aims to use his position and platform as a performer and teacher to do what he can to foster honest and productive conversations on identity, race, culture and more. Though these conversations can be uncomfortable, “because I smile and I’m friendly and I can get you to laugh and I can play music, I can kind of put all this theatrical distraction around you while still getting you to think about it,” he said.
Music, he said, “is not just about entertainment,” although, of course, it is that as well.
“If I can take people on a journey that is thrilling but then when we arrive at that place you see something and it transforms you a little bit, and it makes you consider things differently — in the way that these movies do for me — and I can show you a little bit of something that’s different from my perspective as an older Asian dude who’s been doing this for a while; if I can get people who are different from me to see a little bit, to open themselves up a little bit to my experiences; if I can show people who do look like me the way we see things doesn’t have to always be the same, then to me that’s an evening well spent,” Lin said. “If you go out going, ‘Totoro, Totoro,'” he said, singing a snippet of the catchy theme song, “that’s great too.”
“An evening with Victor Lin: music from anime and Studio Ghibli,” July 25, 7:30 p.m., Dinkelspiel Auditorium, 471 Lagunita Drive, Stanford; $12-$62 depending on ticket type and membership; stanfordjazz.org,