Gregory Haimovsky's Dream

Anyone who has heard Gregory Haimovsky in piano performamce knows that he is a brilliant colorist who extracts an infinite array of dynamic nuances and tone colors. He is a poet at the piano, an exactimg artist and original interpreter intent on exploring new regions of expression. His performances inspire wonder, delight, and a passionate commitment to the poetry of musical expression.

He has not had an easy life. Once a respected music critic in Moscow and on the verge of being awarded a doctorate in music, as well as enjoying an outstanding career as a performing artist, Haimovsky was inexplicably and suddenly a victim of political exile in Siberia. His career was interrupted for 16 years, and yet in spite of this travesty, he has managed to transcend this adversity emerging with a new career as a performer and mentor of young artists. During his exile, he continued to nurture the artistic sensibility that flourished in an inner world of vision and determination.

Haimovsky has now translated this artistry to literature with the publication of his book of prose poetry White Buffalo, the title inspired by Irving Stone's The Passionate Journey. The white buffalo appeared between two warring tribes and was accidentally killed by the arrows meant for the warriors. Stunned by the miracle of his appearance, both tribes lay down their arms and shared in a ceremony of sacrifice that united the tribes as one. At daylight, his white skin disappeared in the mist of morning: the white buffalo existed only as a DREAM.

Haimovsky sent this book to me some time ago, but I set it aside, sensing that there would be an appropriate time to enter this special world. There is an "Afterward" by Marissa Silverman, once mentored by Haimovsky, who charts a course through the Dream and the fantasies that fuel the energy of White Buffalo. She brings the perspective of a participant who is inextricably involved and thus able to share personal insights into the fantasies while maintaining a degree of scholarly distance.

It is a distinctive volume, slim, but intense and richly packed with the essence that underlies beauty and greatness in art: the Dream. Dream is the driving force that inspires the tales and fables that are written as musical structures, words forming the tones, the harmonies, the rhythms and structures that inhabit the pages. Music is always sounding on every page, and the creators and appreciators are celebrated as an ongoing presence and manifestation of the Dream force.

Haimovsky takes us through a journey powered by the Dream and achieves a different kind of work of endless invention and variation. He continues to be a master of nuance.

Songs, either screaming at night seeing love or fighting for their lives, whether breaking into bloom or drooping down in the season's flowers and grasses; whether leaves springing up on the branches of trees to later pave the soil: all this, apart from our will, intrude into us, affects us, and reverberates inside us sending back reflections. Our bond with every living thing in this world is totally mysterious. It waits intently for us, every moment spotting us, following each emergence and exodus.

We encounter a new performance of the Dream populated by greatness from the past and creatures of a rich fantasia where the anatomy of genius and excellence is explored with genuine affection, imagination, and inspiration.