VIOLA ENLUARADA, CAPOEIRA & A PANDEMIC

In my earlier days as Phaedrus, I encountered someone in September 1999, who was in a formative stage of her journey, although she was wise beyond her years. She performed with her flute, and was always searching to use the beauty of her musicing to take her to solitary paths in search of enlightenment. When we met, she somehow intuited that I should meet Rilke, the German poet that I knew only through some of his poetry serving as texts for composers. To introduce me to Rilke, she presented me with his book Letters to a Young Poet.

Her gift of this book reminded me of my professor and mentor Doc Hemmle, who while I was under his guidance as a freshman at Texas Tech University, was often gifting me with whatever he was reading. When I first walked into the music building, I met him in the hall where he was reading a book called The Art Spirit. He held up the book and asked, Have you read this?" I said I hadn't and he put it in my hands, and said, "Take it... you may think at first it is about painting, but you will see it is all about the music of life."

Celina's gifting of Rilke began an adventure with a poet of the flute who has collaboratively made music around the world since those days of 1999, as a new century unfolded. The book had a profound effect on me, leading to an identity of Phaedrus...and that is a different story. But now we are at NOW, and I am embarked upon a journey retracing the steps of "THEN."

I was indelibly connected with the emergence and growth of the internet, and in my process at the university, I was surrounded by young people caught up in the transformation of the world as the electrical grid was transformed into a connection of nodes all over the world in an emerging digital consciousness. We are talking about the late 60s, and in 1968 there was a pandemic that overtook the world.

This pandemic spread from Hong Kong to the United States, arriving December 1968, and peaking a year later. The pandemic was caused by an influenza A (H3N2) virus comprised of two genes from an avian influenza. An estimated one million deaths occurred worldwide with about 100,000 in the United States. Most excess deaths were in people 65 years and older. H3N2 continues to circulate worldwide as a seasonal influenza virus. The world did not engage in lockdown as a defense.

1968 was a banner year for me, as I had the premiere of my multimedia opera ROTATION, and came in contact with Dr. Jerrold Ross, who had recently effected the merger of the New York College of Music with the music department of what was to become the Steinhardt School. Ross had heard of me through David Simon, the Registrar of the New York College of Music, but more importantly an American composer with whom I studied composition. Ross had heard of my vision for a music department of the future based on the emerging technologies. He invited me to join the department to build a a department with a new vision and mission. 

The economy dealt with the virus by continuing to operate in the midst of widespread fear. But if we had come to lockdown in 1969, I would never have met Jerrold Ross and Woodstock would not have occurred.

We have no way of knowing what cultural and economic devastation and deprivation is now being caused by a political response to a virus, that is deadly, but might have been detained if we responsibly protected our elderly population. We may learn from this shutdown and control of people's lives around the globe that the economic fallout may result in far more tragedies than COV-19.

I point this out, because had there been a lockdown in 1969, it is likely that I would have never met Celina Charlier, this remarkable Muse of the flute. I might have not learned of the deep musical structure of Brazilian Portuguese, and might never have discovered Capoeira--- a Brazilian practice that disguised the learning of martial arts through musical movement against a regime that oppressed its population. As a Muse, she introduced me to the rich musical fabric of this music and practice through a song, "Viola enluarada". She meticulously translated the text, the poem of this remarkable song that is at the same time a call to arms against oppression and a love song.

Deeply engrossed in the beauty and depth of the text and music of the song “Viola enluarada” composed by Marcos Valle and his brother Paulo Sérgio Valle, I hear this song as a personal call for liberty, while slowly but surely those who would control our lives and our comings and goings, ---through facial recognition and drone surveillance ---use the opportunity to take away our liberty, and divide us as a people through digital isolation and enslavement --- all for the public good.

In Brazil, viola refers to the acoustic guitar. Violas are used for serenades, to accompany songs at parties, and other musical occasions. It is part of the soul of Brazil and contributes in unique ways to the musical culture. Viola enluarada was composed in the 60s in the context of Bossa Nova but transcends the genre to become a classic statement of the human spirit. Enluarada has no real English equivalent but means “moonlightened.”

Bathed in moonlight we can see the world differently, intuiting that the challenges of life are not as sharply etched as we might think. Love, music, liberty, life and death embrace us in the breath of a single moment. Listening to this recording brings a rebirth and renaissance as we realize that no matter what we face, the freedom of the human spirit triumphs over all the claims of power and destruction. This has been the experience of the Brazilians, and the rise of Capoeira (martial art, dance, and music) as a response to slavery and brutality, attests to the resiliency of a people who have suffered much adversity and yet remain full of hope, as well as being among the most innately musical beings of our species.

Here is a literal translation of the Portuguese as revealed to me by Celina. The texture and resonance of the words are inseparable from the music, and Marcos Valle’s phrasing will astonish you with its subtlety and sensitive stretching of time that lives in counterpoint to a simple but eloquent harmonic commentary.

The version that never fails to bring tears to my eyes is Marcos Valle from Bossa Entre Amigos.…so simple and elegant, his phrasing is impeccable. Follow this link below to hear this remarkable
performance in another window, while you read this poem and its translation (courtesy Celina).


Marcos Valle- "Viola Enluarada"

a mão que toca o violão 
In the hand that plays the guitar

Se for preciso faz a guerra 
if needed [(it) notes the war

Mata o mundo, fere a terra 
kills the world, hurts the earth

Na voz que canta uma canção 
In the voice that sings a song,

Se for preciso canta o hino if needed, (it) sings the anthem,

Louva à morte 
praises death

No sertão é como espada 
in the countryside, it’s like a sword,

Viola e noite enluarada 
moonlight viola, moonlight night

Esperança de vingança hope of revenge.

No mesmo pé que dança o samba In the same foot that dances the samba

Se preciso vai à luta if needed, (it) goes to fight

Capoeira 
Capoeira

Quem tem de noite a companheira 
(the one) who lies, at night, his companion (fem.)

Sabe que a paz é passageira 
knows that peace is transitory

Prá defendê-la se levanta 
To defend her (peace/companion)

E grita: Eu vou! 
(it) stands up and shouts: I go (I will)

Mão, violão, canção, espada 
Hand, Guitar, Song, Sword

E viola enluarada 
and Moonlightened Viola

Pelo campo, e cidade 
through the country-side and the city

Porta bandeira, capoeira 
Porta bandeira, capoeira

Desfilando vão cantando
in the parade (refers to carnival) they sing

Liberdade 
Freedom 

Liberdade, liberdade… 
Freedom, Freedom

RON MAZUREK: REMEMBERING THE JOURNEY

Ron Mazurek (photo provided by Tom Beyer)

Today, April 26, Ron Mazurek, colleague, composer and friend, passed away in 2007. Yet, in the midst of the Pandemic of 2020, I feel the palpable presence of this quiet, unassuming man who was possibly one of the most gifted composers I have known. He quietly leapt across boundaries, each new work sculpting new territory as his creative work absolutely accepted no boundaries, no limitations. Just listen to this amazing work for Marimba "Masked Dances" performed by Peter Jarvis at the Memorial Concert for Ron, May 27, 2009: Masked Dances

Affectionately, this is known as Dinu Ghezzo & Friends

I was honored to be a fellow traveler with Ron on journeys to Europe where we performed and improvised multimedia works with sounds, movement, and media in a spontaneous eruption of discovery laced in the immediacy of Time and Space that echoes even now in the chambers of memory. Our mentor was Maestro Dinu Ghezzo, who was the Director of the NYU Music Composition Program, where Ron received his PhD in composition. Dinu was our mentor and inspiration, musicing defined his essence, as every silence was waiting to be filled and emerge through his magic of inspiring us all to give our best to each moment.

Ron was also a mentor to us all through his quiet presence that commanded our deepest respect. He led by example, and while quietly succinct, he had a way of disarming tense moments, and understanding that every challenge was followed by a resolution.  He was a Professor at Bergen Community College, where he developed a state of the art electronic music studio. It happened that he mentored my son, John Russell Gilbert, who remembers that "he showed me how to make my musical visions a reality.”

The most enduring characteristic of Ron’s character was his enthusiastic efficiency and  successful completion of  tasks and projects.  Once completed, Ron would always quickly move forward to yet another project. His love of electronic music and  composition was undeniable.   He developed the first electronic music curriculum, electronic lab, and A.A.S. degree at Bergen Community College.

                          ...Linda A. Marcel, Ed.D. Chair of Music, Bergen Community College 2009 - 2012

Ron On Tour (photo provided by Tom Beyer)

Dr. Lisa Naugle was an integral part of our team who brought movement and dance to our productions that were often more like Happenings than staged events. She recalls that among the places we performed with Ron were Oldenberg Unversity, Florence, Italy, and the Catherdral of San Sabine in Bari "which was a high challenge because it was built around 1200." I remember that space well. It was dark and had the smell of antiquity. This space had never hosted the kind of media we intended to employ, and the challenge was somewhat intimidating. Lisa recalls that "No one had ever done projections there. There was an Italian dancer, and I communicated all choreography using my hands and drawing on paper...One of the most memorable experiences ever!"

I'm remembering our many journeys, always during Spring Break as Maestro Dinu would assemble the next adventure. For me, it was a cultural, musical, and spiritual awakening. In this particular Instance we toured Italy, beginning in Florence, then meandering across Italy to the Adriatic coast and Perugia, and finally the beautiful town of Bari. I remember having breakfast overlooking the Adriatic Sea and conjuring the many adventures that had brought us together in so many diverse settings...getting lost in Oldenburg, getting robbed by gypsies in Poland, getting my pockets picked in Berlin, staring down a gypsy thief in Romania, and ultimately getting mugged along with Lisa in Romania... I began to formulate an adventure story that coincided with these many travels. Through it all, Ron was stoic, and his presence and enduring smile was a comfort to all.

Photos by Lisa Naugle

Lisa remembers: "I remember the end of winter changing into spring when we would arrive in Europe – Poland or Germany, Italy or Portugal. Porto in particular, sunny and warm. We were walking across a street, complaining about jetlag, when Ron said, with New Jersey accent, “Forget about it”. He had a special way of saying that. Locating ourselves in a theater, Ron’s music, my dances (John Crawford’s video system, Active Space), we would get ready ( with only a few hours preparation) for the concert. “Bird of Passage” – Ron’s composition -- this was my favorite of his works… and our first piece with live, hand-held camera by a “video performer” capturing the dance and projecting the imagery onstage. His composition, “Ascension” was the second piece we did with live video capture, later turned into only video which travelled to festivals all over the world. Ron had a way of noticing things… small and large at the same time. His perspective was ahead of his time; maybe that’s why his voice still resonates with me. Words can’t describe it all but I imagine us talking, probably today about coronavirus. I hear him say…”forget about it.. let’s keep walking and get to the other side… It’s a beautiful day.” He looked for the positive in life… and I will always remember and be grateful to him."

Photo provided by Tom Beyer

Claiming the space meant installing equipment, a sound system, projection surfaces, and making sure we had ample space for the dancers. There was never time for rehearsals, only speculation of what we would do.

The 21st Century seemed to be spilling over barriers of the past, and incorporating it into the fabric of Now. The Church in Bari was definitely an iconic moment, and one that Ron relished.  I remember as I watched Ron with his equipment arranged on the stage like a small, intimate electronic studio that we were were privileged to share as a singular awareness of music being born in the moment.

His works are honest, and searching. Each composition lifted him to new discoveries, new levels. 

As I think to where I am now, I think the remembrance of him, sitting at his portable studio in a church centuries old, may be the reason that I am now returning to a portable rack systems of modules where I can improvise anywhere. I think this because Ron embodied the past, and his studio embraced the Apse of the Church almost like an ancient relic waiting to be resurrected. 

Ron with his "studio" in the apse of the Church in Bari (Photo provided by Tom Beyer)

When Ron passed, he was in class at Lehman College and someone messaged me saying that he had collapsed in class, and they were waiting for an ambulance. I had no idea what was going on, and no sense of his condition. But he died instantly there in the classroom setting he loved so much, with the students that he loved so much. The sense of loss was devastating.

We went to his funeral in New Jersey. Tom Beyer wrote:

I still hear Ron's words of wisdom as I move through my day and I relish the long, late night  conversations we had about all manner of things while on tour together.  But it is rare when one finds another that you can communicate with, without using words.  That was my experience with Ron, off stage as well as on.  I hope you will all, once again, hear the words he said to you in the numerous conversations you have all had with him.   But more importantly sense his presence and feel him helping to guide you through life "From A bowve" I will sorely miss my roommate and Geloto buddy.

The words above were the notes to Tom's video tribute From Abowve.

 

Reflecting on this day of Ron's passing, makes me realize we are all temporary sojourners on our own quests for meaning, and that we do go on to join all those who precede us... it seems like a mutual adventure begun in the throes of creation when suddenly, in less than an inkling, everything just was. There is a theory of entanglement that claims that everything, including ourselves, are all connected to the "end of Time."

My thanks to all those that I bothered in trying to get them to help me remember Ron, and in remembering, remember our mutual journeys, even now.

RETURN OF THE PUTNEY

In 1968, I was involved in discussion with Dr. Jerrold Ross about joining a new department at New York University in which I would be involved in creating new programs to establish a diverse, visionary performing arts department. I had just finished composing and producing a multimedia opera, ROTATION, as part of my doctoral thesis.  As it happened, I was studying composition with David Simon who happened to be the registrar of the New York College of Music. During the course of our lessons, I would disclose a number of ideas I had about music and technology and a new divergent model for music and performing arts programs connected to the professions. The concept was to have technology support every aspect of other programs, using recording studios to provide experience for our performance majors to be recorded, while also examining new techniques for recording, and researching acoustic and electronic sounds.

PUTNEY VCS

In 1969, as we began to implement a new program in music technology and music business, I learned of a new concept for a music synthesizer designed by Peter Zinoviev, an engineer musician who felt that synthesizers were overpriced. He designed the Synthi A which was dubbed the PUTNEY,  a voltage control synthesizer.  It sold for less than $1000.  I bought two for the department, and another for myself. Zinovief eliminated synthesizer patch cords with a grid that connected modules by means of a pin. He also added a joystick that could be connected to manipulate sounds and controls simultaneously. This began our modest beginning in music synthesis, and we set up dividing part of the hallway outside the music office into a synthesizer studio.

In 1970, KEYBOARD MAGAZINE, contacted me about NYU Co-Hosting with them a conference called THE SYNTHESIZER EXPLOSION. On a weekend, we transformed the Education Building and the Student Union Building into studios and demo rooms and we hosted hundreds of manufacturers and several hundred additional musicians and technicians for three days of transformational concerts, lectures and demos in Loewe Theatre,and hundreds more demos going on in different rooms and floors of The Educational Building and Student Union. The Synthesizer Explosion had about 2500-3000 visitors come to Washington Square for an iconic event.

Years passed and as the program grew, we moved to the eighth floor, and I traded a Steinway for an extensive Buchla 100 system, and we devoted a studio to the system.  We had installed a recording studio and a research lab on the eighth floor, and eventually the entire floor became studios for program with the exception of 879, which remained a classroom, while also servicing courses for music business and technology.

During this time of the COVID-19 Pandemic, I decided I wanted to return to experimenting with new aspects of music electronics and synthesis and began to research Eurorack systems and modules. As I was in the midst of designing my new system for improvising ambient music which I would use in videos and live performance, ERICA INSTRUMENTS announced it was creating a new version of the SYNTHI A (Putney VCS) that would be available at the end of April.

SYNTRX (ERICA INSTRUMENTS)

This is an extremely exciting development. The new version preserves the identity of the original, but has been updated for 2020. It really is an ingenious replication and a tribute to the visionary genius of Peter Zinovev.  Needless to say, I am awaiting its arrival in a few weeks if production is able to stay on schedule.  In many ways, in this time of isolation because of the endemic, I feel like I am entering a new era of sonic awareness.  I continue to design my ambient Eurorack, as there is so much more that I can explore.

A demo gives a taste of expressive qualities of The Syntrx.

 In https://youtu.be/nwsQnB2jDsA

DETOUR~ THE ROAD NOT TRAVELLED

There was tremendous negative energy in the air a few days ago.  It started peaking on Thursday, March 12... it was independent of CRV-19, but fear of the virus contributed to heightened anxiety... anger and fear. I had experienced a fantastic positive day on Wednesday.. which had followed Dr. Lisa Naugle of UCI departing after a two-day intensive that we could only describe as research... Researching Lived Experience. 

One primary object of research was the new multimedia production of West Side Story. The production was using media to construct the dramatic environment, using still images, prepared video, and live video.  These were techniques we had experimented in our international workshop IMPACT for ten years. 

Also in that context, under IMPACT PRESENTS, three of my theatre pieces utilized these techniques: IF TIME REMEMBERS (2014), ROTATION (2015), and IF THIS BE MADNESS (2016).

The works mentioned are works remounted from the past with new material added and production techniques using extended media and process. My research with Lisa those few days in March hasn't produced any mutual collaboration, inspires and informs my work going forward.

THE ART SPIRIT

Have I abandoned the quest?

Such an interval of silence...such an extended absence...

Disappearing into the shadows of my beginnings...  struggling to comprehend the clearing ahead that slowly comes into view. That was how this Blog began a little more than 15 years ago. But at that time, I was exploring the frontiers of my experience and thinking... using Time to attempt to capture a qualitative moment in Time.

It's true that I have diverted much of my digital musings to FaceBook for the past two years.  The remnants of my posting are poems, text, images and video. But while to some degree this has been a creative shaping of materials, FACEBOOK is not a medium for engaging in deep process. Even the name "FaceBook" indicates we are only looking at appearances... our images in a mirror. Regrettably I have many IMPACT FACEBOOK group pages that I meant to extract to document a time capturing of group creative collaboration and process and preserving that Time AS Time.

But even as I fell away from this digital domain, I continued my romance with Time in poems, songs, and meanderings through the creative activity of everyone around me.

I have been busy in a private domain of handwritten inquiries...penning my way through blank pages in search of ideas... a quest for discovery that has always marked my inner itinerary. My blank books have been forming diversions that fuel the imagination... a lived research that penetrates and unravels moments of immediacy into an awareness of Being, an understanding of phenomena that have often gone unnoticed. In fact, one of the manuscripts is about NOTICING. On my final years at NYU, I tried to challenge students in our experimental class EXPANDED MUSIC to actively notice the content of their experience. After all, isn't that what poets do? They draw attention to their unique noticing of their world, and share their particular experience so the reader can, in some measure, connect with their awareness of the moment. These blank books invite engaging the moment in such a way that Time is concretized and the luster of experience can take on an aura of permanence. Time is connected to text, and text takes on the qualities of "fossils" of experience. Recently my colleagues have described certain phenomena of consciousness as Qualia.

I haven't had a name for my process, but pursuing Qualia seems to be an apt description of what seems to be happening... or at least it's getting close. I carry these blank books with me and pursue the contents of my conscious awareness. I started this as a green blank book for writing poems when I was eighteen. And then the pursuit became more widespread as I got to New York City and sought out the coffee houses where others had gone to write.

I recently visited of Madrid, and found so many coffee houses and bars devoted to those in pursuit of the written word. Here is my focusing Time and the written word to get at my qualia of Madrid:

Madrid is more than magical. It is designed around squares such as Santa Anna and Sol. They have identified Absolute Zero, the center of Spain, and the point where all roads in Spain converge. One can feel the sense of geometry when walking the narrow, cobblestone streets that honor the past while hosting pedestrians strolling in search of adventure. Being there in December, there were grey days and marvelous sunny days. I was to surprise there was a Madrid Broadway with shows such as the LION KING and WEST SIDE STORY are long running hits. I would have liked more time to explore.

I believe on SOL Square, APPLE has acquired a classic, venerable building to host Madridians... it was chic in this setting, and walking in, I might have been in APPLE SOHO except the chatter was all Spanish. Spanish is spoken in a kind of staccato, crisp and somewhat anguished or hurried... or maybe “intense” is a better description. At night, flames from warmers at outdoor cafes and counters cast a warm and cozy glow in the squares and along the streets...romantic and practical.

Nothing will deter Madridians from the night. Its citizens live for the night with such abundant social and artistic pursuits that you can feel the shift in energy the moment the sun disappears.

There were so many European style cafes and bars that beckoned for your presence to hang out... maybe write a poem or use the setting to begin a story. I felt Madrid was a city for poets, writers, and musicians.

I lingered in the streets which were decorated with the most elegant graffiti.... sensitive and provocative... sensual textures applied to wood and stone... creatures born of the night of the imagination and etched into the soul of the city.

Madrid calls itself MAD. Indeed, this madness stems from the night, and for me madness is the essence of each new adventure. At night in Madrid you can feel everyone reaching out to each other looking for something to validate their true existence. Laughter and animated conversations tattoo the Squares and streets with such a vibrant polyphonic tapestry that I find myself adding my own contrapuntal improvisations... that’s it! ...it is a city to improvise the destinies of future moments... a place to notice who you are, and to divert directions to paths not yet travelled.

But the energy behind this quest came from my first mentor, Gene Hemmle, who was the founder of the Music School at Texas Tech, whom we all knew affectionately as "Doc."  He had a brilliant career in New York City as a dancer and singer on Broadway, and as a founding member of the Robert Shaw Chorale. He was invited by this emerging new University, Texas Tech to come to create a music department that quickly grew into a school. Although I had my eyes on Julliard, Doc convinced me to give Texas Tech a try. As a promotion, he had used the students of his new department to stage a stunning musical revue that toured Texas as a vehicle to recreate new students. It was like a Broadway production.

The show played in my hometown, Amarillo, and Doc Hemmle had invited me backstage after the show. As I saw him backstage, he put his arm around me and said "Johnny... you don't want to go to Julliard... you'll be there with thousands of students and no one will really know who you are... but come to Tech and you'll compose for the ensembles, you'll write and stage your shows... "  and after seeing the show he had just produced, I was hooked... and what followed were some of the most productive years of my career. What a laboratory for creating and performing!

One day, I walked into the lobby of the music building and I saw Doc Hemmle reading a book titled The Art Spirit.  He looked up from the book and saw me. "Have you read this?" He held up the book so I could see, and I said I hadn't read it. He closed the book and handed it to me.

"Here take it... it's yours." He continued, "You may think it's about painting... but it is just as much about music." Just like that. Doc Hemmle opened worlds for me. Many times he would be reading, and if I hadn't read the book... he would just hand it to me...even though it often contained his marginal notes and underlinings. I remember getting Stravinsky's Poetics of Music in the same manner.

In my years at NYU, I often would give books to students, as a tribute to honor how Doc's sharing of books (that meant a lot to him) deeply affected my life.

Then when I revived the EXPANDED MUSIC course that had been the first course I taught in 1960 when I began teaching at NYU, I decided I would continue Doc Hemmle's tradition by giving the text for the class, FREE PLAY by Stephen Nachmanovitch, as a gift to the students.  In addition, each student received a different book of poetry that I would pick up from the Poetry Bin at Mercer Street Books.

Each Expanded Music class explored improvisation and collaboration and posted their discoveries and exchanges on FaceBook. So each semester had a different posting. This process was dynamic and inspiring, as Facebook became a dynamic unfolding of a creative syllabus of ideas and experiences. But now I don't know how to extract that richness... or if it even still exists.

In the final year of Expanded Music, during the production of BEING, we achieved a special level of creative collaboration. It was during this time that I began to perceive that the ART SPIRIT should become an award, for unique contributions to creative and collaborative process and activity.

Now, I am in the midst of developing a business devoted to Well Being and Collaborative Process in the Arts. I am hoping to establish the ART SPIRIT award as an activity of the Foundation, and as a tribute to the Spirit of artists like Doc Hemmle and Stephen Nacmanovitch who inspire and transform the quality of life and experience... contributing to the QUALIA within our conscious awareness... celebrating how Qualia is a transformative presence that we share with the world.

FALLING BEHIND

Yes, I have been away from Wyzard Ways for some time.  I was on a roll for a while, gradually building momentum toward a new destiny, perhaps a revised destiny from a sudden change in a wind no longer in my sails. Not that it matters to my readers, which may number two or three, but this Blog was never meant to serve as more than a place to use text to articulate moments in time that I hoped were worth noting.

Wyzard Ways remains the territory of Phaedrus. He is contemplative and explores parameters beyond the shadows of awareness. His text often clarifies or unearth's unchartered terrains. I am often mystified about his ramblings even though he seems to seek clarity for alien paths that defy definition. Phaedrus began this journey in 2005, and the Internet was still young and naive. There were still mystical unknown regions and we were trying to comprehend what it was took look at your reflection inside of cyberspace. Identity became an issue...and it still is philosophically but social media has hardened the facade of communication. We are less in awe, and have lost our sense of wonder through the seduction of technology focused on destruction of the past.

I thought that Wyzard Ways could serve to provide a base to articulate a new level of perception and practice. In fact, that was to be the substance of this entry until I realized it is a new era, and maybe Phaedrus must remain in the shadows. There will always be a need to explore Time and Being as the poetics of awareness, and Phaedrus pursues the elusive dreams of our imagination.

But I have another quest...an unexpected turn in my journey. I feel new challenges that require a different sensibility. I need to reach beyond the limitations of experience and pursue a new vision. It is difficult to describe something important but as yet too vague to become a reality. It is a hunch, a premonition tangible in the outskirts of consciousness. Guided by the certain sense that this revenant is shaping my encounter with the coming days, I quietly celebrate an emerging inspiration that holds the promise of yet another renaissance more abundant than any I have known.

But an obstruction now challenges my going forward. I listen to the signals from a distant place that seems obscure, and yet, somehow familiar. Let's see if I can persuade myself to continue on this unfamiliar path, that suddenly veered away from the path that seemed so secure.

REMEMBERING DINU AND THE JOURNEY

Creating a collage based on a Korean poem for a concert in Rome during this summer of 2018 awakened memories of the many connections that brought artists in this July concert together, especially those circumstances that brought my colleague Maestro Dinu Ghezzo to NYU and into so many of our lives.

Dinu was a special inspiration to so many because of his creative madness that overcame obstacles and made us all reach beyond ourselves.  I cannot remember Dinu without remembering David Ecker and Sandro Dernini...and many, many more whose commitment to each other as artists resulted in creating new work over several decades. 

For me, this recent concert in Italy was the final gesture of my tenure at NYU... marking 50 years of work at NYU that closes when I retire In September.  My first official act when I joined NYU was the creation of the graduate programs in composition and performance (MA & PHD) that I directed for ten years before I was able to appoint Dinu Ghezzo to take my place as Director of Composition. But Dinu had come to NYU as a conductor, and he was our joint selection between Washington Square Music Department and our department to direct the NYU orchestra. But is true that one cannot serve two masters, and Dinu was under considerable stress trying to manage his responsibilities between two departments. It was never clear to me why we had to follow that course since Music Education had been incorporated into the New York College Music, creating a conservatory in the School of Education known as Department of Music and Music Education. Before the first year of his appointment was finished, Dinu became a full-time faculty member in our new department. 

Another important moment was connecting with David Ecker in the Art Department, a phenomenologist, who helped us bridge the arts in a series of summer symposia, providing a phenomenological foundation that

In the Spring in early 2000s, Sandro Dernini (center) launched his new book inviting
 colleagues and Plexus with a special intro by Dr. David Ecker, (3rd from left in back)

grounded the arts at NYU in performance and research. This activity took place in the formative moments of our new department, putting more emphasis on collaboration. When Dinu Ghezzo joined the faculty, he easily accommodated these dynamics of interaction, and Sandro Dernini from Italy completing his second doctorate in visual arts (his first PhD was Biology), was an activist who complemented Dinu's "madness," and David Ecker who was Sandro's dissertation chair, colluded with Sandro.  The many adventures that emerged from the conflagration of these interests are too numerous to mention here. Our summer program in Gubbio could only have been created by Dinu Ghezzo with his ability to create something from nothing. The Gubbio program was brought to us by Dinu when I became Chair. It had no funding, and I had no reserve resources, but was sympathetic since we had started so many programs in an environment that provided few resources to support new initiatives. And so Gubbio was created, and what a marvelous madness every summer!  I had the honor of teaching theory for several sessions, and I came to love siestas of Gubbio and the exuberant night life, and walking through the mountains and the winding streets of Gubbio defining a mountainside.

Dinu was like a brother. When he came to NYU he provided the support and inspiration that enabled me to return to an active creative life. Traveling with him throughout Europe with our media concerts opened my world immensely. 

Dinu shepherding us through Italy, pictured with Lisa Naugle and John Crawford.

During this time, my connections with Asia developed, and the great poem I DO NOT KNOW became a source of inspiration. Written by the Buddhist Monk, Yong-Woon Han, imprisoned by the Japanese during World War Two, the poem served as a source for the great Korean Dancer and Choreographer, Kim Myung Sook,  in a major premiere performance in 2006 (https://wyzardways.blogspot.com/2006/05/i-dont-know-genius-of-kim-myung-sook.html ). 

Over time, I studied this poem in various translations, and driving around Jeju Island off the coast of Korea, I could still feel the presence of the Japanese occupation... the caves where Japanese suicide soldiers were forced to live as they waited assignment for their submarine suicide missions. Also, I came across countless silos where Japanese fighter planes were hidden from view from U.S. planes.  These echoes of the Japanese occupation, made me realize the intensity of Han's poem as his work expressed the depth of connection between a people and its land.  I also gained appreciation of the richness of the sound and ambiguity of the Korean language. 

For many years, I wanted to create a work based on this poem, and the opportunity to participate in this July 7th concert opened an opportunity to renew connections, including access to so many artists that Dinu connected as collaborators, inspired me to find a way to reconnect with many artists.  I appreciate the enormous success of this effort. This performance in Italy caps an era for me. 

Sandro Dernini has continued his creative activism in Italy, and maybe there is something yet to be done, especially to remember our departed colleagues, David Ecker, and Dinu Ghezzo. One of the highlights was one of our most strategic initiatives when we combined forces to recognize the 500th year of Columbus discovery of America as a time of reconciliation for Europe's exploitation of the Americas. Sandro managed to enlist the support and facility of NYU for a project that launched a sail vessel from Italy to Spain and many islands in the Atlantic Ocean, stopping at many islands and destinations for contributions of artists to contribute original works to a Black Box on the ship. The vessel was met in the harbor of NYC by PLEXUS and participants from NYU. The took the Black Box of artworks and paraded around Washington Square. Then they took the Black Box to the 12th floor of the newly constructed Bobst Library. The Snow Room had been decorated like a tropical island, and the artworks were taken from the BlackBox and put on display. In the celebration that ensued, Dinu Ghezzo composed piece for solo violin which was performed using a telephone to connect to Italy. In Italy, the performance was recorded and transformed by computer into an artwork which was faxed to the Bobst Library, perhaps the first such exchange in the history of the planet.

Such was the power and energy of that time, and I thank those who continue to create and honor these past connections by concerts that still cross oceans and nations in pursuit of artistic creation.

Thanks to everyone, my collaborators, and especially to Lisa's dancers and choreographer Tessa Rehbein, who danced this version of the I DO NOT KNOW  premiere. I truly celebrate the work of my collaborators, Laura Montanaro with her Italian translation and performance, Michelle Jiyue Cao's Chinese translation and performance, Dr. Sunmin Kim's Korean and English performances, John Russell Gilbert's performance of an English translation, Ms. Cao's flute improvs, and the Pipa improvs of Cantata Fan Chen.

It is the performative gesture of this premiere that inspires me to possibly develop the work further. I can see continuing to extend the work through additional languages and performers, to eventual live performances and improvisations. Dinu would have liked to see that. The Maestro after a visit to Korea came back with incredible masks that became part of a summer of fantastic voyages linking the ancient world of the Fall of Troy to Korea.

Dinu was NYU's Marco Polo. He opened the NYU university community to Italy as part of our Spring tours, connecting us intensely with Italian artists and the Italian landscape through numerous tours. I believe the gesture of this concert in Rome on July 7 celebrated the incredible imagination and inspiration that was Dinu Ghezzo as we continue to say to him Thanks, Maestro!

ITHACA AND JEJU: AN ODYSSEY

That Homer would create the definitive metaphor for the quest for identity should be no surprise. If evolution is the truth about who we are, it is inevitable that the question would arise about personal origin and identity. It may also be true that the moment of birth is so dramatic that this articulation of infinite identity awakens the quest for finding our way back home. In many ways, I have felt that my life has been a journey home, and each year has taken me further, without really knowing the ultimate destination. My personal Odyssey continually discovers new terrain that serves as a mystery that I need to unravel. This evolution seems to function in a similar way that Hegel's Thesis and Antithesis serves to shape history as process through the synthesis of opposing forces.

You may recall the poet Constantine Cavafy's wonderful poem, Ithaca, in which he persuades us that it is not the destination that is of importance, but rather the journey itself:

When you set out for Ithaka
ask that your way be long,
full of adventure, full of instruction...

Have Ithaka always in your mind.
Your arrival there is what you are destined for.
But don't in the least hurry the journey.
Better it last for years,
so that when you reach the island you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way...

It always struck me as curious that the poem is entitled ITHACA, but in his text Cavafy always uses Ithaka, perhaps idealizing our mutual destiny that may be conditional to being human, while remaining totally personal and unique. But for the poet, the destination is more a process than a location. If you ever find your Ithaka, you may discover that the joy was in the journey and not the destination.

Odysseus is the adventure story of a man who has been stranded after the fall of Troy, trying to return home. Ulysses is the Latinized version of the name. From the viewpoint of literature, the most astonishing experiment with the form of the novel was James Joyce's ULYSSES, an extraordinary literary achievement. I would venture to say that more people have owned more unread copies of Ulysses than any other novel from any period. I must admit it took me considerable time to thoroughly understand. It is difficult to process such originality that is profoundly dense, but also stands as the most imaginative conception of any literary achievement. No other novel reflected the dilemma of the twentieth century with such imagination and intelligence. There is something magical about this epic volume, so much so that when a new edition is released, I have to own it as though it had just been released.

I think the lure of Ithaca as a Greek Island in the Ionian Sea has been in my mind for as long as I can remember. As a poet in Texas wandering around different neighborhoods, towns and cities, I tended to think of those meandering excursions with blank-paged volumes to capture text as a part of my Odyssey. Part of my unremembered past came bounding out of nowhere from a comment of a friend who reminded me that several years ago, I had composed a musical version of The Odyssey, fifteen scenes with musical numbers that attempted to remain faithful to Homer's text, although it tried to add a contemporary tone. It was a workshop that received a staged reading at the end of the semester. There were many powerful moments, but I found myself daydreaming and fantasizing a different work that would combine the island of Ithaca with the lost continent of Atlantis.

So as the allure of Jeju Island loomed large on the horizon of my future, Jeju began to delineate aspects of my odyssey that was still in process of becoming. Even the writing of this text is part of the becomingness that links to themes of the past years, a quest that somehow is involved with the understanding of identity.

So I went to Jeju, which happened to be the destination of a fantasy story I had been sketching.  The story was about an older man on a quest to find the answer to a mystery that finally leads him to Jeju. And now, through an incredible sequence of events, I found myself on Jeju Island, at the juncture of my own odyssey.

Jeju was a feast for the senses, a spiritual haven that nurtured spiritual awareness and fed my imagination. The island was born of volcanic activity beginning two-and-half-million years ago culminating in the eruption of a giant volcano a hundred-thousand-years ago. The volcano is now known as Mount Halla (Hallasan), the tallest mountain of South Korea. The island has flourished and is abundant with life, surrounded by the ocean to the North (the Strait of Korea and the Yellow Sea), with the Pacific Ocean to the South. Because the oceans have different temperatures, the abundance of different species in the two oceans provide an array of fish that is quite rare.

As I explored Jeju Island, I discovered through a friend a small restaurant on the southwest coast known as Zen Hideaway. There I would sit for hours writing and experiencing the presence of the ocean and distant islands that appeared to be calling me.

It was a late Spring afternoon when I began to sketch the islands along the coast in my view. Brother Island was a famous landmark representing the legend of a brother who tried to run away from Jeju, confronted by his younger brother off shore of Jeju, they were immortalized by the island gods as Brother Island, (I called it Two Brothers Island).

A little further into the ocean lay the dim outline of  my island Ithaca, as I sketched in my journal. Ithaca was just a fantasy, connecting to the cradle of western civilization...and as I slipped into remote origins, I thought of Atlantis... the ultimate illusion of civilization lost, a continent so remote that it is dismissed by Plato as merely a fable.

It seemed more than coincidence that my Odyssey, begun on the dusty plains of Texas in my younger days had led me to New York City, then to Europe, and now to the remote island of Jeju. As I walked the terrain of Jeju, it seemed famliar and receptive. I felt the power of SanbangSan. and the sense of well-being associated with Jeju, with a welcoming spiritual presence... maybe a homecoming... but I knew I'd been this way before.

In the middle of May, before this posting , I wrote the following poem:

Not this far. . .
I never knew I would survive
Beyond a barrier
Self conceived and self imposed
So long ago
That empty pages found a way
To mock my delusion,
Imitating the nothingness
Of anticipated emptiness.
Now these words . . .

I never knew I could revive
An unknown continent
Remembered, yet emerging
So far away
That silent chambers now resound
To shape a new perception,
Celebrating the resonance . . .
Restoring such abundant songs!

This poem came from what seems to be emerging as a series of Not-This-Far themes. It's no secret that I am continually surprised to find I'm still here. As I entered my fourth decade, I thought maybe I had overstayed my tenure. Now as I enter the eighth decade, I understand there are different expectations.

I draw attention to this recent poem because of the metaphor of an "unknown continent" that was apparently lingering on the fringes of consciousness even before I could identify and articulate the meaning of this new emerging intuition.

The purpose of my Blogs is that of uncovering, discovering, and disclosing the process of actualizing experience as a real and emerging entity. It is an underlying theme of how Time processed creates Quality as we record the singularity of what we notice.

As I follow this quest, I sense something emerging that somehow is connected to well-being, which is part of my remote past. Returning home to New York from Jeju, I came across a manuscript that was water damaged from a flood, my draft of a work that links ancient and modern worlds and the meeting of East and West. This document emerged from my experience with workshops in meditation and improvisation on Panther Mountain in Phonecia, a retreat near Woodstock in the Catskills in the 1980s. What came from this was one of my first works based on improvisation and well-being that eventually led to recent experiences with students at NYU in EXPANDED MUSIC sessions in Provincetown Playhouse.

MUTE AND INGLORIOUS

When I was editing newspapers, I needed to write an editorial about the freedom of the press and the freedom of speech. I had a generous amount of space in which to write and print my column, but suddenly I couldn't think of anything to say or write.

I just sat at the keyboard, mute and inglorious while the world went passing by.

As the days go by, I see an open road before me, and looking back, I see the marvelous terrain I have traversed. Life is a challenging quest, and I still remember unexpected turns that sometimes were terrifying, but I held my ground. Mostly I have traveled parallel paths with friends and companions, but I have navigated alone over great sweeps of unfamiliar territory.

in many ways I have almost been around the world. I hope that will literally come to pass. I have a sense that everything has been leading me to this next leg of the journey.

When I was 19, I apprehended that each of us has a personal odyssey, a quest to return to the source of Being...Home... 

In a green blank page book which was my constant companion, I wrote this sonnet:

Before me stands my soul. Behind me limps
The shadow of myself, which claims my mind
And lives in fear that I'll pursue the glimpse
Of permanence once seen when I was blind
To all but thought. Eternity demands
The infinite eye of mind to see much more
Than moments. I shall touch my soul with hands
Of art, and leave my shadow to explore
The vain imagination of its own
Identity in darkness. I must go
Upon a road where I must go alone...
Pursuing the path only my soul can know.
Shadows mocking me on silent feet
Become the only obstacles I meet.

Now, more than 60 years have passed, and still the journey calls me, perpetual sirens on the shore beguiling me, perhaps distracting me. "What took you so long?" they seem to say. I must admit that maybe I was sidetracked. Maybe there was meant to be a different destiny.

In the film THE NATURAL, Robert Redford plays a baseball player so phenomenal that he was immediately given a big contract. He could pitch--- he could hit like no other player on the scene. En route by train to join a team in the majors, he meets up with some strangers who conspire to trick and betray him because they have bet big money for the team he's joining to lose the pennant. He's 19 and feels he can do anything. He is traveling on the train with what is regarded as the best hitter in baseball. A reporter who has a stake in the young man failing makes a bet that he (Redford) can't throw the ball by the famous hitter. Redford claims he can strike him out. They stop the train.  In a dramatic scene, Redford strikes out the famed hitter. All bedlam breaks out and a woman traveling with the newspaper man invites the young athlete to her room. When he enters her room there is confusion in the darkened room and the young man (Redford) is shot.  The scene dissolves to 20 years later. Now the young athlete is in his 40s. It is obvious he never made it to the big leagues. Now he plays minor league ball on a losing team, but a scout sees him hit and gives him a break.  After much ridicule and rejection, Redford surprises everyone by becoming one of the best hitters and pitchers on the scene. The story underscores that although sidetracked on his journey to fulfill his destiny, he finally makes it happen... it was his destiny.

Somehow I feel at this juncture that maybe I have returned to resume a journey for which I lost directions some 60 years ago.

But this isn't Hollywood.

I know what is required. I am still uncovering the trail that has gone cold.

I see endless possibilities waiting. I know that there is something that needs to be created, and that life has been preparing me for whatever is destined to unfold. Sometimes we are too free... with more possibilities than we could ever imagine... and even though I followed the long route to arrive at this place, this is not a time for me to be mute and inglorious in the face of such infinite possibilities. 

BUMP IN THE ROAD

Once again, I am alone.

In my aloneness, I was coming to terms with a new direction from what had been a radical commitment to pursue quietness in the beauty of a subtropical isle. It was to be a time for reflection, for consolidating and celebrating past work that could eventually extend to new initiatives... essentially a time to slow down and enjoy life.

But abruptly, almost overnight, inextricably, unexpectedly, things changed. Some might call it a "bump" in the road, but this was much more pivotal.

What made me return to the streets of NYC was much more than a bump. It was seismic. I had been convinced by someone very special that I should spend my remaining years in quiet reflection and writing rather than maintaining the frenetic pace that had defined my year-round academic and artistic practices. Although summer was usually a time for slowing down in Academia, it was my busiest time. Every year was an evolution of ongoing praxial experimentation and deepening awareness of collaborative process.

But there I was, in a new commitment, in a new world. I was inspired by companionship in a setting where well-being was the essence of Jeju Island, a setting where the arts flourished, and the air and food were abundantly alive, and the Jeju skies were an elegant panorama of dazzling change.

But then one evening at dinner I was trying to make a silly joke by rolling some seaweed into a cigar. I was met by a remark that told me the dream was over.

For a while I continued my quest alone...relishing every moment of an island of such spiritual resonance that even personal disaster is transformed into insight and inspiration.

Eventually, I returned to New York City, and continued my spiritual quest by trying to determine how dreams begun in Jeju could someday be a setting for healing and collaboration of artists from the around the world in sharing and creating new work.

Returning to New York was more painful that I expected. When I walked in the front door I was overcome with tears, speechless. The intensity of the past ten months collapsed on me, and the spiritual scaffolding came crashing down.

So I slowly began to reclaim my identity, focusing on changing my apartment functionally, redoing the kitchen, learning to cook and establishing a regimen more like the way of life I had learned while in Jeju.

My vision for a retreat in Jeju was renewed through setting up new activities and interactions with students, colleagues, and new people entering my life. For about five weeks, the progressive realization of a new vision had given me a sense of renewal and a deeper focus and resolve.

All was going well in my recovery, until suddenly, from out of nowhere, I hit a bump in the road.

In the course of any quest, we inevitably encounter that unexpected bump in the road. But "unexpected" might be merely rhetoric, a convention born of story telling. The unexpected aspect might refer to the timing. Instinctively, you know it's coming, but you never know when. The bump itself is deliberately ambiguous. In today's world of Googling, you might be amazed to see how much nonsense is generated concerning a "bump in the road." Add me to the nonsense.

 One aspect of my return to New York was walking. Even though at 81, I've had some issues with locomotion, one aspect of change I experienced in my life after academia was the joy of walking. Walking and enjoying the night with a partner was a new experience, and a delight.

In my youth, I was a serious walker. Walking and writing were synonymous.  I walked in Amarillo, and wrote poems. I walked the city during my college days at Texas Tech, and I walked New York City, at times following the paths of Walt Whitman when he had the print shop in Brooklyn and crossed to Manhattan on the ferry, walking the famed printers row that no longer exists in lower Manhattan.

On a clear day as I walked east on Houston Street, I came upon Mulberry Street. I turned right and headed south.  As I came to Grand Street, to that sliver of Little Italy that still exists in the midst of Chinatown, I hit a bump in the road.

Memories of an improbable scenario, a fairy tale of two old souls lost to each other for centuries, only to discover each other in separate hemispheres, returned to me like a "haunting refrain...lingering like a haunting refrain." (Yes, I'm a romantic.)

 Suddenly I was hearing what I have always thought are among the most imaginative lyrics I've known:

You go to my head with a smile
That makes my temperature rise
Like a summer with a thousand Julys
You intoxicate my soul with your eyes

 It had been the end of summer and a new season of my life.

Returning to the street where it all began reminded me that the season was over, and I was filled with regret.  It was disarming.  Somehow the past derailed the journey... and I was looking into the wilderness, trying to get my bearing.

Still I say to myself
Get ahold of yourself
Can't you see that it never can be

Songwriters Haven Gillespie and Fred Coots expressed for me the magic of that summer of 2017. It was a summer that intoxicated me like a thousand Julys and brought a miracle to NYC.

And suddenly I was stumbling over a bump in the road right there on Mulberry Street.

JEJU RENAISSANCE (PART TWO): A MYSTERIOUS STRANGER

During my years in high school, I had come across Mark Twain's The Mysterious Stranger. The discovery of this posthumous novel was a revelation as it seemed to address my own crises during those years. Twain wrote multiple versions of this novel, and one critic's claim that Twain's issues and questions have become irrelevant is an example of such critical hubris with regard to this serious dimension of Twain.  He wrote a number of versions of this final novel which was pieced together by scholars after his death. Little did I realize then, that just as his book had served as my mysterious stranger, I would encounter a similar visitor more than 60 years later.

As I prepared for my final summer at New York University and our final articulation of the international multimedia workshop IMPACT, I remained inspired but somewhat fatigued from 50 years of commitment to to a process of implementing a vision for the future that served to pioneer new programs. I would soon begin a terminal sabbatical, but I couldn't see beyond that. The world terminal loomed ominously.

But in May 2017, I encountered a stranger, a mysterious stranger...mysterious because the stranger came from out of nowhere but appeared to know everything about me, including a sense of future fortune. It was almost as though the stranger had come from my remote past, perhaps a previous lifetime that was now vividly present.

The stranger was magical, playing to my sense of fate and entanglement, turning the present into a series of transforming moments by embarking on a journey to new terrain, uncovering destinies I somehow had neglected. "Who are you?" I asked. The stranger smiled and shrugged, gesturing toward an evolving entity that began to take shape.

"I was hoping you might remember..." The stranger pointed to mountains on an island by conjuring images of lush terrain, waterfalls, volcanoes that had given the island a sacred presence, of Seobul, a Chinese emissary, who had visited this island seeking the source of life and well-being more than two-thousand years ago. I could feel the magic spell of the island.

I recalled that I had been told of this island before, and had felt drawn to the magic of its location bounded by the Pacific Ocean and the Yellow Sea.. I remembered my story for a film that had begun to emerge of an older man who was on a quest to find the love of his youth and travelled the world, following clues that eventually led him to the isle of Jeju.

As I dwelt upon these incantations of the future, the stranger conjured a marvelous odyssey that led me to Jeju. In that deep mysterious enclave, I felt the immense presence of Mount Halla (Hallasan), the volcano that gave final shape Jeju as it erupted into existence 100,000 years ago. It can be seen from everywhere on Jeju as among the tallest mountains of Asia. Jeju island is just 25 miles across (north/south axis) at its widest point and some 45 miles long from west to east. Initially, the island was formed by volcanic activity two million years ago. I stood on the seacoast rock near Mount SanBangSan on this part of the island that stretched back to two million years. It is a wild and raw terrain, with winds so fierce at times that I could lean against the wind and be held upright. I walked up Seongsan Ilchulbong (Sunrise Peak), the volcano that is the signature image of Jeju.

In Jeju, I found such wonders, and a sense of spiritual renewal. Anyone would be stunned by the richness of the plants and vegetation, the abundance of fish from such varied oceans, and the majestic skies defining the more than 300 volcanoes and tremendous forests that are the habitat of an array of birds and wild life, including the 60,000 wild horses on Mount Halla.

Of all the renaissances that have renewed my spirit, nothing has touched me as deeply as this quest to this island of antiquity that has long been a destination for spiritual renewal, healing, and well-being. In many ways this new quest wiped away impediments structured by a mindset developed over the years, and at 81, I seemed catapulted back to myself at 18, perhaps an historic palindrome. Suddenly I felt the surge of energy in the midst of an island serving as an icon for spiritual well-being and freedom.

The stranger, reading my mindset, created a new panorama and then just as unexpectedly as appearing, vanished.

I was alone.