DeutschIncense of Music 51
Yannick and Friends — Episode 4
A multisensory livestream concert – Saturday, 26 June 2021, 8 pm
Yannick Rafalimanana: piano
Incense: Palo Santo
Livestream concert
Welcome to the fourth episode of the series "Yannick and Friends." For this edition, Yannick Rafalimanana was pleased to introduce the Berlin-based project "Incense of Music" as co-host — the pair's very first digital collaboration. For this special occasion, Yannick selected piano works by Debussy, those ever-inspiring impressionist masterpieces that transport listeners to the most remote corners of the imagination. The program was performed on a historical 1896 Bechstein piano, while the room was incensed with Palo Santo by Fabio Dondero and Dominik Breider. The concert was professionally recorded to offer a full audiovisual experience at home.
Photo by Fabio Dondero
Artists
Yannick Rafalimanana — piano
French pianist Yannick Rafalimanana has developed an international concert career as a recitalist and chamber musician. Recent performances have taken him to halls all over the world, including the Berlin Philharmonie, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Wigmore Hall, Konzerthaus Berlin, Köln Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra Chamber Hall, and the Kennedy Center in Washington. He has made chamber music with countless artists, including Kim Kashkashian, Steven Isserlis, Noah Bendix-Balgley, Arnold Steinhardt, and Itzhak Perlman. Born in Lille, he studied at the Conservatory of Lille and later the Paris Conservatoire, before earning his graduate diploma at the New England Conservatory in Boston under Vivian Weilerstein. He taught chamber music at the Folkwang University of Arts in Essen from 2015 to 2018. In 2022 he launched "Yannick's Salon," a concert series in his Berlin neighbourhood.
Incense
Palo Santo — Spanish for "holy wood" — comes from the tree Bursera graveolens, native to the dry coastal forests of Ecuador, Peru, and neighbouring regions of South America. Its aromatic wood is traditionally never cut from a living tree, but collected only years after the tree has died naturally, once the resin has fully developed within the wood.
The Inca and other pre-Columbian cultures of South America already used Palo Santo for spiritual cleansing rituals, to ward off negative energy, and in traditional medicine. In recent years, sharply rising global demand — driven by its spread through wellness and incense practices worldwide — has raised sustainability concerns much like those surrounding white sage.
Burned, Palo Santo releases a warm, sweet, woody scent with notes of pine, mint, and citrus. It is traditionally burned as sticks or shavings, believed to dispel negative energy and promote calm, clarity, and creativity.