PRE-PANDEMIA: RESEARCH AS LIVED EXPERIENCE

My collaborateur, Lisa Naugle of UCI Irvine, had heard of a virus that was beginning to insinuate itself in people's lives in early March (2020), and had been planning to visit me so that we might use a couple of days to research venues to stimulate our thinking and discussions about future collaborative work. We have worked together, collaborating for many years as we toured Europe each spring with Maestro Dinu Ghezzo, the mentor of us all.

Lisa called to ask if I was uncomfortable with her coming since there were these rumors of a serious outbreak of a new virus. Yet, Dr. Anthony Fauci of the CDC had recently commented it was not something to be too concerned about---"not a major threat"--- and Nancy Pelosi was encouraging everyone to go to China Town. I remember several viruses from the past, including the Pandemic of 1968 which peaked in 1969 during the Woodstock Festival, so I was not worried that things were so serious that Lisa should change her plans to visit.

On the day she was scheduled to arrive, March 9th, the NYU School of Psychology was hosting Ted Coons' 90 Year Festschrift and I was scheduled to present. As I entered NYU's King Juan Carlos Center, the venue that was hosting Dr. Coons' Festschrift, I detected an air of concern among those who had traveled to be present to honor this great scholar, researcher, and educator.  Participants declined to shake hands and bumped elbows instead, although Ted, unfazed, continue to shake hands and hug former students and colleagues.

West Side Story (Spring 2020) Projection Amplifies Dramatic Tension

Lisa arrived during the evening of the Festchrift celebration, and we talked about our plans for using New York City as the backdrop for our researching performance resources to uncover new  ideas for collaboration. Of particular interest was the new multimedia production of West Side Story that had just opened. The production utilized techniques that we had explored ten years earlier, using media and projections to create an array of theatre effects in the NYU multimedia workshop IMPACT.  As a researcher pursuing phenomenology as my major mode of inquiry, I had proposed to Lisa that her visit would model Researching Lived Experience, the epic text by Max van Manen. My thought was that we might use her time in New York as a canvas to sketch ideas from our explorations that could lead to collaborative projects.

IMPACT Production: Image Echoes stretch sense of space

We were curious that techniques we had been exploring for more than ten years since 2007 were now finding their way to Broadway, including live video projection to intensify dramatic action and amplify the performance presence, adding a dimension of immediacy.  I had invented a term, "MoviOp" describing an opera using technology spontaneously to combine live and prepared projections, increasing the immediacy of the performance. This idea reaches back to Richard Wagner's gesamtkunstwerk.
Were Wagner alive today, he would undoubtedly be a film director in order to exert strict control over every artistic element.

ROTATION, multimedia opera

IMPACT (Interactive Multimedia Performing Arts Collaborative Technology) was a summer workshop at NYU from 2007-2017 that along with collaborators Tom Beyer, Youngmi Ha, Chianan Yen, and Deborah Damast, I founded to initiate college level students to the emerging technologies that were revolutionizing the arts in ways that underscored collaboration, spontaneity and immediacy. Indeed, I often referred to this new sensibility as the theatre of immediacy. We utilized the concept of Arts Collectives from the 60s-70s to congregate students into collective groups utilizing different disciplines and backgrounds to collaborate by bringing together their unique talents and skills to create and share new work.

Dr. Lisa Naugle became a part of IMPACT as the Director of Dance and Movement not long after the workshop came into being. I had the honor of chairing her dissertation research committee at NYU, and we had begun collaborative projects with other colleagues as early as 1995, when we were using dial-up modems to connect with the Internet.

Tom Beyer, Media and Technical Collaborator

Projection of different angles enhance presence

IF TIME REMEMBERS, prepared video with live projections

A crucial figure in development of projection and sound techniques for this new Theatre of Immediacy and Distance Collaboration was Tom Beyer, Systems Engineer for Music and Performing Arts in NYU's Steinhardt School.  Tom served as one of the founders of IMPACT, but we had been collaborating on projects and productions for a number of years before IMPACT. He has collaborated with many artists over the years, and was one of Dinu Ghezzo's major collaborators on the many tours throughout Europe. I played a role in bringing Dinu Ghezzo to NYU, and when I became the Chair of the Department, I appointed Dinu as the Director of Music Composition. I give this background, because it was this milieu of extraordinary artists that led to many collaborations that were constantly breaking ground and exploring new frontiers, attracting new collaborators that eventually grew into an impressive informal network of individuals coming together to create new expressive forms. Perhaps our greatest weakness was that we were always in the moment, and the pressure of production prevented our pausing to take note of what we had created. My philosophy was to document everything we did to excess. We created so much data that the task of retrieving it and attempt to reflect on our journey was utterly over-whelming. We were always on to the next production, the next experiment.

As artists, we were internalizing and processing our experience: we were the embodiment of our research. Thus each successive year and collaboration built upon the previous experiments and provided the means to leap forward by continually adding to and evolving the previous concepts and techniques into new experiments. Every season of IMPACT was a new experiment,

ROTATION, multimedia opera multiple screens

evolving from the previous year as we discussed the structure and process for the new workshop.

We experimented with the simultaneous running of two independent videos while incorporating live projections of performances, multiple screens, enhanced directional sound, connecting independent spaces in simultaneous distance performances.

During these years, we introduced so many young students from around the world, that we discovered (during our debriefing of their experiences on the final day) that perhaps the most important outcome for the participants in this collaborative process was they had sustained a transformative life-changing experience.

Our creative research as lived experience project of March 7-9 concluded with attending the preview of a stunning new production of Sondheim's classic, COMPANY, that starred Patti Lupone, who brought down the house with "Here's to the Ladies Who Lunch." The production reversed the genders of the original production so that the major premise was of a woman in her 30s who couldn't commit to marriage.  I found this production more exciting and inspiring than the original 1970 production. This new production never happened. Shortly after Lisa returned to California on March 10th, Broadway went dark and the COV-19 PANDEMIC pummeled New York City into a lockdown.

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.