America’s great reckonings continue. The late-blooming LGBTQ activist and Trekkie icon George Takei (a/k/a Ikaru Sulu, helmsman of the USS Enterprise) bears witness to a legacy of national shame in Lost History: A Memory, drawn from his personal recollections as a Japanese-American “enemy alien” in World War II under Executive Order 9066. Though Takei’s family was held in Arkansas and California, the theme has local resonance: the Department of Justice ran a detention camp for designated Japanese-American “troublemakers” at Dalton Wells, 14 miles outside Moab. The narrative coexists with a commissioned score by Kenji Bunch, one of three Japanese-American composers on the program. The festival’s longstanding sales pitch “music in concert with the landscape” hereby takes on a whole new meaning. —M.G.

Lost Freedom, Narrated by George Takei
Moab Music Festival / Moab / Music
The Takei family. Courtesy of Moab Music Festival.
Visit
Moab Music Festival
58 E 300 S, Moab, UT 84532
Get Directions »
Start a New Search
Subscribers Only
Start your free trial to access the full Arts Intel Report
Subscribe to Air Mail to access every article
and search our entire Arts Intel Report.
Already a subscriber? Sign in here.