Creative Destruction

Diva on Detour

John Thomas Dodson — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 14:08:56 +0000

Photo by Scott Wall

Most people know soprano Patricia Racette as one of the reigning operatic divas of our time. She appears around the world singing signature roles like Jenufa, Madama Butterfly Violetta, Desdemona, Tatyana, Liu and Micaela – to name just a few. # #

With such a career in the opera house, it might surprise many to hear that she is currently engaged in a project recording cabaret songs in a live studio setting. The CD, which will be titled Diva on Detour, will be released on the GPR label later this spring. With songs by Stephen Sondheim, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Edith Piaf and many others, she has chosen a mix that draws a laugh one moment and a tear the next. Accompanied by the marvelous pianist, Craig Terry, this duo been performing together for several years, and the familiarity they share is evident throughout. #

I heard one of the sessions and was astounded by Ms. Racette’s capacity to live every word, every note of the songs in a way that was dramatic and communicative yet completely in the style of American Popular Song. She was careful to color her voice to the genre, avoiding vocal placements appropriate to opera but which would fail miserably in this particular music. At times I could have been listening to a singer in a darkened club setting, but where the average crooner leaves me wanting more depth of experience, this artist delivered all of the emotional goods. Patricia Racette takes her expressive skills from the world of opera and applies them to the cabaret repertoire with a result that is, in a word, magical. She has an amazing capacity to take her listeners well beyond what we think we know about a familiar tune – turning a tin can alley ditty into a veritable map of the soul. #

This isn’t a cross over album. Rather than hearing a famous soprano trying to sing popular songs, you’ll hear a great artist who has a range of expression far wider than most of us might expect. #

You can preorder this album on GPRrecords.com. I know that, at least for me, Patricia Racette and Craig Terry just made my gift shopping for this year a LOT easier. #

Mingus Lives

John Thomas Dodson — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 04:20:30 +0000

Charles Mingus was recognized in his lifetime as a virtuoso bassist, accomplished pianist and bandleader. Today his enduring legacy may be as a major 20th-century composer. To grasp some sense of his growing importance, consider the fact that his entire body of work has been acquired by the Library of Congress. This is not only a first for jazz, but also for an African-American composer. At this death he left behind more than 100 albums and over 300 compositions – music that is still considered far ahead of its time. In the field of jazz, his is the largest legacy of composition in American music after Duke Ellington. #

To think of Mingus as a jazz musician is correct – at least to a certain degree, but the term should be understood in its broadest sense. He was influenced by composers of many different stripes, and it wouldn’t be hard to find passages with as much kinship to Debussy as to gospel and blues. Imagine hearing jazz performed by bassoon, flute, bass clarinet and horn, and you begin to get the subtlety of this composer. Yes, of course, the saxophones, brass and rhythm sections are there too, but this is music that surprises at every turn. Listening beyond the instrumental colors takes us into a world whose treatment of harmony and time is truly unique. Mingus can easily shift between an almost stately blues pace to a double time passage that could have belonged to bebop, and just as fluently, he can take us back out of that hectic rate to his original pace without the least amount of discomfort to the listener. His chord changes are advanced, unpredictable and yet entirely “right” to the ear. To improvise in Mingus is to reach well beyond the tonal palette of traditional “changes”. His is a truly original voice. #

Last night, Manhattan’s St. Bartholomew’s Church served as the location for a concert devoted to the music of Charles Mingus, performed by the Mingus Orchestra. The event included three of the composer’s works conducted by Gunther Schuller on a nicely varied program. We were treated to everything from a wind trio to a closing number that featured the full ensemble playing as they walked among the audience members, a throwback to the traditions of New Orleans. #

What struck me most about the program, though, was that many in the audience were young musicians. They were participants from the Charles Mingus High School Competition and Festival, held in New York City this weekend. Imagine bringing young musicians from as far away as California and as near as LaGuardia High School. Each ensemble had prepared music by Mingus, performed it, participated in clinics and were adjudicated by a panel that included Mr. Schuller himself. #

Building an awareness of the this uniquely gifted composer and supporting a new generation of jazz musicians with an appreciation for his work has been the driving purpose of the composer’s widow, Sue Mingus. In addition to the Mingus Orchestra, she has helped spearhead the Mingus Dynasty and the Mingus Dynasty Big Band, all fixtures at the Jazz Standard. She co-produced this festival with Justin DiCioccio. #

I often return to the idea of how we build arts communities. It seems like the answers are as varied as there are people and causes, but surely one of the ways to create a community around a particular composer is to experience it from the inside: to actually play the music. Earlier this week I wrote an entry on seeing young conductors learning the traditions of Beethoven from a master, it is inspiring to know that in the same city there was another event focusing on an American master of jazz. #

I’m guessing that many of the high school students had never even heard of Charles Mingus before they began to work their minds, ears and instruments around his music. By now, his work has become a part of them, just as ingrained as a scale or arpeggio. Kudos to the schools from California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Wisconsin who participated and to all who worked so hard to make this weekend a success. #

I’ll close this post with words from Gunther Schuller: “You are guaranteed a great and profound experience when you perform music by this giant of jazz “composer.” As I left the church last night, there were some very excited students getting back on their buses. At least in my own mind, as I looked at them, I thought they would agree. #

Masur on Beethoven

John Thomas Dodson — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 00:48:19 +0000

At the beginning of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony the entire orchestra begins with an enormous stroke of an A major chord. As it dissipates, a quiet, single oboe emerges, outlining a lovely melody, gently supported by strings. Conductors see such a passage in myriad ways. You ask so many questions as you imagine the music. What does the tempo indication really mean? How short is the staccato of that opening chord? When should the oboe appear from the decay of the chord? How should we shape the oboe melody? Should the oboe line LEAD to the chords with a little crescendo? #

This morning, in the John C. Borden Auditorium of the Manhattan School of Music, Kurt Masur was giving master classes to sixteen talented, young conductors as part of a week-long conducting seminar. As the Seventh began, Masur tried to help find meaning in the opening passage. #

“It is as if there is a great, uninterrupted loneliness, which is shattered with these great strokes from the orchestra. The oboe and the tutti are not related, but separate things. They exist independently of each other. No crescendo in the oboe!” #

Such is the work of a conductor – to see the notes, and then to see beyond them: A tutti chord and four notes from the oboe to one set of eyes. To a master, an existentialist phrase: The single soul, feeling deeply, against a fateful, unconcerned universe. #

This week all of us, the participating conductors and many who are simply observing, are getting inside the heart and soul of a great composer through one of his most eminent living interpreters. #

Masur’s comments range from the mundane (“More vibrato!”) to the unforgettable (“When Beethoven wrote the Ninth Symphony, he could couldn’t hear anything – nothing at all. He was so alone – and yet he writes “Freude, schoener Goetterfunken”. In such music, Beethoven is the brother of God.”) #

Sometimes, Masur’s comments are physical: “Loosen up. I don’t want you to feel imprisoned. You should feel free.” #

But the real value of the master classes has been in the musical content. #

As the Seventh’s opening introduction ends, the violins in the orchestra find themselves reduced down to just one note. It’s a famous passage, but Masur offers new insights into what he thinks this passage means. #

“Here the composer lets us witness the moment of creation of the theme. It’s as if Beethoven says, ‘I’m out of ideas’….one note…nothing….and then suddenly, ‘Ah, I have a thought’ – this little rhythm, ‘ta dah’ – repeated between the flute and the violin, now it grows, and finally it becomes the basis for the rest of the movement. The composer lets us watch him making the theme. We are shown the process – As conductors we have to replay that moment, to see it come into being, to show it, consciously.” #

Last night with a kindness in his voice, Masur said, “It had everything – except magic. Let’s see what we can make together without all of this extra motion.” #

So, Masur told the young conductor to put his hands in his pockets. At the same time, the older master did the same. Then, with a nod of the maestro’s forehead the orchestra began. Masur didn’t move. He was simply present, Zen-like, in the moment. The notes poured out; the tempo settled; the tone grew organically. The music unfolded freely with so much expression that several of us fought back tears. You don’t see such a thing in this world. #

At one point Masur had a lengthy, public conversation with the orchestra’s concertmaster about the bowings in a particular passage in Beethoven’s Seventh. #

“I spent twenty-six years with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra playing Beethoven. Sometimes we would just say, ‘it doesn’t work that way,’ and we reversed the bowings. Sometimes it just doesn’t sound right with the traditional approach.” #

Quietly, to her section, the concertmaster made a comment outside of the maestro’s ear. The conductor began again, and the passage suddenly went splendidly. #

What did you do this time?” Masur asked. “Did you change the bowing?” #

“No. We just played it better,” came the answer. There were giggles everywhere. #

“Conductors, take note: Orchestras…they are very tricky.” #

There will be a public concert featuring Masur and nine of the conductors on Friday night, February 17th at the Manhattan School of Music. The all-Beethoven program includes Egmont Overture, and the Sixth and Seventh Symphonies. #

Field Trip!

John Thomas Dodson — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:17:15 +0000

Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra

Throw a stone in a lake and watch the rings dance. They last a long time. # #

Ray Sommerfield threw a stone over fifty years ago. #

Back in 1960 he loaded up nine of his students from Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania and drove them off to hear a concert by the Philadelphia Orchestra. #

There wasn’t a school bus available, so he borrowed a hearse. #

Yes, a hearse. Not the most elegant way to go to a concert, but it would do. #

It seems that Mr. Sommerfield was a man of strong convictions. He thought his students, even though they lived in a small town, should have the opportunity to hear great music – live. Not everyone agreed with his teaching methods. They thought he was too rebellious – he didn’t follow the rules. Some thought he wasn’t really “teaching” at all. #

But, inside that hearse on its way to Philadelphia was a boy named John, and, on this day in 1960, his life would change forever. He heard Eugene Ormandy conduct a concert of Tchaikovsky: the Serenade for Strings, the Violin Concerto with Isaac Stern, and the Pathetique Symphony. #

“It was the strings during the opening of the Sixth Symphony that got me,” John said. “I can still see the movement of the violins. The sound was so beautiful. I had no idea such a thing existed. After that, I was hooked.” #

I met John, now an architect in New York, sitting next to me at the bar during a Sunday Brunch at the Red Rooster in Harlem. In the background Belinda Munro, a lovely singer from Toronto whose smile alone could stop a room, treated all of us to a playlist ranging from gospels to the Beatles. As we had our meal, John and I discussed music. #

I mentioned a Baroque program that I had recently conducted in Santo Domingo that included one of Handel’s Concerto Grossi. #

“Op. 6?” #

“Wow! Are you a musician?” #

“No. I just listen. What unknown Baroque composer should I know?” he inquired. #

“Try Boyce,” I answered – to which he replied, “Yes, I have all of his symphonies. I love the trumpets in the Fifth.” #

“Do you know Geminiani?” #

“Of course.” #

“Locatelli?” #

“I’ll check him out. I really would like to find some new Germans.” #

“Let’s see,” I said, “Have you heard Graupner?” #

“Yes, I love his music! By the way, do you know Aubert? I just discovered him.” #

“I’ve heard of him,” I said, “but I haven’t listened to his music yet.” #

“I also love the Romantic Era. I just heard Haitink lead the Bruckner Seventh with the Philharmonic. It was incredible. Were you there?” #

Now, take a moment with me and step back from this conversation. #

John is an architect who doesn’t play music. He just got hooked because fifty-two years ago, an English teacher thought there was something more to teach his students than just the next lesson in the textbook. #

I think he just taught his lesson again. #

How do you build an arts community? You decide to invite someone to a concert. #

If there isn’t a bus, you take a hearse; you trust the Art to do the rest. #

Throw a stone in a lake and watch the rings dance. #

They last a long time. #

“Must See” Streaming Internet

John Thomas Dodson — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 02:11:07 +0000

This afternoon I watched as a great master passed on everything he could leave to the next generation of musicians. Robert Mann, at 91 years old, was teaching a master class in Miller Recital Hall at the Manhattan School of Music. #

The founder and first violinist of the Juilliard String Quartet for over fifty years, Mann has been a driving force in the world of music for more than seven decades. He is on the faculty at Manhattan School of Music and has been president of the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation since 1971. He received the Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award in 2011. #

Today’s event was part of the first Robert Mann String Quartet Institute at the Manhattan School of Music. There are six string quartets participating: Aeolus Quartet, Amphion String Quartet, Ars Nova Quartet, PUBLICQuartet, The Old City Quartet and Voxare String Quartet with repertoire ranging from Bartók and Beethoven to Mendelssohn and Mozart. #

To say the least, this must have been quite a week for them. There have been daily coaching sessions with some of the finest chamber musicians in the country and the Institute will end with a public concert on Friday evening. #

Mann’s comments were at times specific, rigorous and, at other points, suggestive and open-ended. #

“The end of the note is just as important as its beginning.” #

“The vibrato on your first finger sounds different than on your third.” #

“Make the sforzando’s longer” #

“That note is too beautiful. You need to understand the meaning of this music. This moment isn’t about beauty.” #

“This whole passage is the experience of reaching out and failing to connect. Then, when it repeats, it is as if you have to try again, but harder this time.” #

“Think about the difference between a comma, a period, an exclamation point and a question mark. Each musical phrase is working the same way. You have to have intentionality in your playing. What do you mean to say?” #

I can’t speak for anyone else, but to me, this was the kind of afternoon you remember for a lifetime. I looked around the room and wished the whole world could be there. Then I remembered that these master classes are being streamed live on the Internet. There will be another live streaming master class tomorrow. Friday, January 6 at 2 pm EST. #

Go to http://www.dl.msmnyc.edu/live. #

Penny for your thoughts

John Thomas Dodson — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 22:31:00 +0000

In a Q & A session at the end of a presentation I made to arts leaders not long ago, a question came up about getting feedback from audiences in real time. Many of the participants said that their audience members wouldn’t fill out surveys that were inserted in the concert programs. Nor would they go online after the event. #

How was anyone to get timely and accurate feedback? How could you initiate a conversation if no one would talk BACK to you? #

I thought for a moment and came up with an inexpensive, low-tech idea. Later, I found out that ten orchestras in the US and Canada used the suggestion to great success. #

Here it is. You might want to pass this on to someone who wants to answer the “What are they thinking?” question. Tell them they might want to give this a try. #

Put a Post-it® note on your program page.
When each audience member wants to see what’s on the program, that Post-it® note will be in the way.
At the beginning of the concert, tell your audience that you want to know what they think and that you want them to write their thoughts on that yellow piece of paper.
They can tell you anything. It’s anonymous. They can encourage, inform, complain, or suggest. They can sign it if they want, or even give you their email address to start a longer conversation.
Tell them where they can place the notes during intermission or after the concert is over. Leave pens near the posting place so that, even if the audience members don’t have something to write with, they can still offer their thoughts.

Yes, it’s informal and unscientific, but it reminds your audience that you WANT to hear from them. It’s so easy that you’ll be surprised at how many participate. #

The Adrian Symphony did this in October. We filled two boards with audience comments. When entered into the computer, they filled 9½ pages. #

No one complained about ticket price. Most didn’t complain about anything. The overwhelming majority was happy with our programming, performance quality, choice of guest artists, and level of customer service. Some informed us of a few things that we decided to immediately change. The comments taught us, raised our spirits, and reminded us of just how much goodwill there is for the orchestra within the community. All the feedback was shared with the Board of Directors. #

And, in addition we received a wealth of supportive phrases that just might reappear on a future marketing piece, development letter, grant evaluation, or foundation request. #

Long live the Post-it® note survey. #

After the Last Kiss

John Thomas Dodson — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 13:01:08 +0000

I met Julia Kurtyka in winter. #

She had worked to invite me to guest conduct an orchestra that she was involved with, the Birmingham Bloomfield Symphony Orchestra, just outside of Detroit, in a special concert that would feature her protégé, violinist Caroline Goulding, in a performance of Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5. #

Julia had been the concertmaster of the Adrian Symphony Orchestra long before I became its music director. Since then she had moved on to other projects, but we shared mutual friends and that led to the invitation to guest conduct the orchestra she was deeply involved in. #

When I finally met Julia she was suffering from cancer, but you would have never known it. She was feisty, strong, opinionated and still full of life. She was quick to smile, held people accountable for their actions, honest in her assessment of others, unusually gracious. Tough, soft: opposites you could respect. #

A few months after that concert, Julia was honored by the BBSO for her many years of dedicated service. By then, she was in a wheelchair, but when we spoke together at intermission, she retained that radiant sense of joy that I had already come to treasure. Clearly her health was failing, and, as I left the hall, I already sensed that it would be the last time I would see her. #

So, when I was asked to speak at this year’s Lexington Bach Festival north of Detroit, Michigan, I knew I would accept because I knew that this project was Julia’s “other love”. A dozen years old, the festival brings together some of the region’s very finest musicians to perform all kinds of music, always including a connection to Johann Sebastian Bach. Lexington is a small town that looks out on Lake Huron, and the intimacy of the church locales renders a kind of familiarity that is truly rare among such festivals. People know each other in Lexington. #

They knew Julia. They remembered her, and they felt a sense of loss. #

The 2011 Lexington Bach Festival felt like a joyous funeral, an elegy with surprisingly few tears. Julia was nowhere to be found, but her spirit pervaded every moment. She was every second sentence. #

Her brother was there, and as we chatted together our voices would quiver with a sense of loss, or rise up in strength as we talked about this extraordinary woman and the life she had led as a teacher, performer, administrator, and friend. #

During one of the festival’s programs, there was a beautiful, quite poignant work performed. It was written by a very fine musician, a conductor/bass player/composer named Clark Suttle Over a meal before the concert, he displayed a wry sense of humor, telling me that Julia was a very forgiving person. “I was once 45 seconds late to a rehearsal,” he told me. “Three years later she forgave me.” #

Clark’s memorial to Julia was a composition called The Last Kiss, a reference to a practice in Julia’s spiritual tradition in which the mourners kiss the forehead of the deceased as they pay their final respects. #

Julia’s brother gave her The Last Kiss. #

As I drove away from Lexington after the last notes had faded away, I thought about what remains of our lives after we are gone. Is it the protégé we nurtured? The memory of the music we made? The friendships we formed? The family members we helped along the way? #

Or is it the mantle that others choose to take up? #

One of the highest compliments to any endeavor, large or small, is that it can outlive those who helped form it. Without Julia’s presence this year, others had to step in to fill the void. It was hard work, and I imagine that several times they must have wondered how it was that Julia had been able to get everything done while making it all look so easy. #

You may have never heard of Julia Kurtyka, but I wish you had known her. And even if you don’t know of this particular series of concerts in a small town in Michigan, you can take it from me that the Lexington Bach Festival is still making beautiful music. #

And that is a testament to all of those people like Julia who labor behind the scenes. It makes you realize that every institution we revere probably began as a conversation across a cup of coffee, and that perhaps the ones who sat there dreaming have already been long forgotten. #

Many of them who may have worked the hardest never once took a bow. #

What are we doing here?

John Thomas Dodson — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 20:12:02 +0000

When I was little, my father used to tell a story of a little boy from long ago. He was walking among many people engaged in a flurry of activity. #

“What are you doing?” he asked one man with a chisel and hammer in his hand. #

“I’m cutting this stone down to a particular size,” he answered. #

The little boy walked over to another man and asked the same question, but he received a completely different response: #

“I’m building a cathedral.” #

Sometimes I don’t think we have any idea what we’re actually doing. We only see the stone in our hands, not the grand design of which we’re a part. #

This is the final day of Conciertos de la Villa de Santo Domingo. This evening the “grand concert” takes place. It is called The Splendor of the Baroque, in which Camerata Colonial, a chamber orchestra comprised of remarkable musicians from the United States and members of the National Symphony Orchestra of the Dominican Republic, will perform music by Bach, Handel, Purcell and Boyce – all in a convent whose roots date back to 1530. #

But, in these last hours before that final event, as I think about what will have been left behind by this project, it will be the memories of a side-by-side with the National Youth Orchestra, master classes at the National Conservatory, and an education concert called A Journey to the Baroque for 400 school children bused in from here in Santo Domingo and from both ends of the country.
And that leads me to contemplate what we do – what we REALLY do. #

This project was envisioned as a way to celebrate the riches of Santo Domingo’s Colonial City, and of strengthening its future by drawing attention to its incredible resources. Partnerships were made to draw attention to what is here, and what can be lost if it isn’t protected. #

Every one of our events here includes a discovery experience of the space in which it is held. Buildings dating back to the 16th Century have great history in them – moments in his country’s unique history as the Western capital of the Spanish Empire: Stories of Columbus sailing into the river next to the Colonial City, of the first sermon on human rights in the New World given by a very courageous Dominican friar near the convent five centuries ago, of the building of the first cathedral; stories of the first university, the first palace, and as I wrote about in the previous blog entry, a recent addition decades after the days of the Trujillo regime – a museum honoring the Dominican Resistance and other resistance movements around the world. #

Now, as this project comes to an end, there are new stories: The concertmaster who donated his strings, the trumpet player who is sending mutes and mouthpieces to the bands here, the bass player/composer whose music was heard in recital in the Dominican Republic for the first time. There are stories of master classes that left new musical knowledge behind, of school children who heard an orchestra for the first time and who learned old, traditional songs to sing en mass with Camerata Colonial during the orchestra’s educational concert yesterday. #

For the participating musicians there were conscious efforts to build community as well: delicious dinners together made possible through the generosity of the restaurant owners living in the Colonial City, a schedule that allowed the musicians time to both work and to form new bonds of friendship -a trip to a resort to enjoy the beach, time to see the sunset. Things we never have time to do under the stresses of the “normal” life of a professional musician. #

Of course, this is just a project, and soon we’ll all go back to our “regular” lives. Surely, though, there is something to learn here – something to take back. We are more than just a concert. Actually, that may be the least important thing we do. #

This morning a musician said to me, “As a business model, there isn’t a worse investment than a symphony orchestra. Try to imagine saying something like ‘Let’s put 80 musicians together and create something that will disappear the moment after the final note is played.’ That’s CRAZY!” #

But, as a way to do the most important things – to make of ourselves something higher, to raise ourselves up and form lasting bonds – there really isn’t a better investment.” #

Tonight we will play Bach, Handel, Purcell, and Boyce, but we will leave something even more important behind, long after the last note has sounded. #

We are making more than just a concert, we’re builders of a new community. #

Discovering the Baroque Above a Torture Chamber

John Thomas Dodson — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 19:00:33 +0000

On a narrow street in the Colonial City area of Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic, there is a building called Museo Memorial de la Resistencia Dominicana, the Memorial Museum of the Dominican Resistance. A converted home, with a central patio surrounded by two stories of walkways and rooms, its walls are covered with quotes from the heroes and survivors from those who resisted against many oppressive governments during the Twentieth Century, including the government of Trujillo, the dictator who ruled the Dominican Republic from 1930 to 1961. #

Inside there is an electronic visual enactment of the three Mirabal sisters who tell their own story made famous in the historical novel, In the Time of the Butterflies. Yesterday, which happened to be the International Day of the Disappeared, local school children had posted notes in the entry way to the museum with phrases like “Donde está…” followed by the name of a person from someplace in the world who was taken away by the police, never to be seen again. #

Upstairs there are huge, haunting photographs, some of them taken during interrogations of political prisoners strapped to wooden chairs, wide-eyed as they faced their own certain death. The interrogator is never shown; only the face of terrible fear or of ultimate defiance. #

When you return to the plaza, you can open a door and descend the stairs into a dank, musky basement. There you will find a mock torture chamber, containing objects that look like they should belong in an auto body repair shop. Those were some of the instruments of torture utilized by the Trujillo regime. These remnants were among his many tools to remain in power. #

I serve as Artistic Director of a new project, Conciertos de la Villa de Santo Domingo, and this whole endeavor has been framed around the idea of creating a musical community around a series of events featuring a very high level of participating artists, and drawing upon the collaboration of many different organizations, ancient sites and historic resources within the Colonial City. #

Our first public activity took place last night. In a lovely air conditioned room, directly above that torture chamber, about 75 people listened to Catana Pérez de Cuello, a well-respected cultural leader here, give a presentation on the Baroque era culminating with a discussion of music by Boyce, Handel, Purcell and Bach. Those composers’ music will be played next week by Camerata Colonial, a chamber orchestra of musicians from the United States and the Dominican Republic, in the Iglesia del Convento de los Dominicos, a building whose roots date back to 1530. While the visiting musicians are here they will also offer master classes to the conservatory students, work with the youth orchestra, perform a concert for 400 young children brought here from across the country, and perform in recital at Capilla de los Remedios, the personal chapel of Francisco Davila, the richest man on the island during the Colonial Era days of the sixteenth century. #

At each of these events, there is a discovery experience: a time to learn about the building, its history, the story of this island – the very place Columbus found when he thought he was in India – and to have a new appreciation of the riches that are already here, but have been neglected in the astonishing growth of this city and the relentless onslaught of the modern world. #

And that brings us to back to last night. The idea for this introductory event was to collaborate in the Colonial City in an unexpected way – to bring people with differing interests together to learn more about their own resources, broaden their experiences, and, hopefully, entice them to attend something new. Last night there were people present for various reasons: the draw of the speaker, the curiosity about the museum, the support of the revival of the Colonial City and the love of music. By the end of the night, there was a NEW community, a group of people who would return to hear the music again live, but this time in the old, historic Convent in the same neighborhood within the Colonial City. #

You build a community from the intersection of non-concentric circles. Competing interests become strengths, forces of growth, and means of magnetizing disparate organizations around a single idea. Last night, that idea was the opportunity to hear Baroque music of a very high quality performed in Colonial sites rich with 500 years of history. #

Underneath us, in the shadows of the basement was another, much darker and more recent history, one that is still raw and having its effects among the living. As we left the building last night, I met an old man who is mentioned in the book In the Time of the Butterflies. He knew the Mirabal sisters, and was, himself, once imprisoned. He spoke of going to visit one of them one day, only to find the authorities at her home. When she saw him coming, she waved him off, wanting to keep him from getting arrested. He understood her message and drove away, and he can’t forget her hand fluttering in the air – a small gesture intended to save his life. #

As I walked out into the street the old quote came back: Art is long and life is short. And, I thought, if the stories are told over and over again, the memories will remain. #

A moment of attention is enough

John Thomas Dodson — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 15:23:23 +0000

Not too long ago, I was in line at a summer arts festival. People around me were laughing and talking as they waited in the ticket line. A few minutes later, as I stood at the front gate, waiting for a friend to join me, I noticed the same thing – this time it was the ushers that were enjoying themselves while they awaited the next wave of audience members to serve. There was a sense of ease all around; a joyful quality brought about by the beauty of the scene, the expectations of the concert that would soon begin, and the familiarity of friends and colleagues. #

What became interesting to me was that, at the moment that the ushers and the audience members interacted, all of that stopped. Professional training and habitual behavior kicked in while the authentic relating to each other I had just seen in each person was replaced by the expectations inherent in the roles each person played. #

So, when I came across a passage in Eckhart Tolle’s book, Stillness Speaks, it had a special resonance to me. I’ll let his words serve as the rest of this entry: #

Whenever you meet anyone, no matter how briefly, do you acknowledge their being by giving them your full attention? Or are you reducing them to a means to an end, a mere function or role? #
What is the quality of your relationship with the cashier at the supermarket, the parking attendant, the repairman, the “customer”? #
A moment of attention is enough. As you look at them or listen to them, there is an alert stillness – perhaps only two or three seconds, perhaps longer. That is enough for something more real to emerge than the roles we usually play and identify with. All roles are part of the conditioned consciousness that is the human mind. That which emerges through the act of attention is the unconditioned – who you are in your essence, underneath your name and form. You are no longer acting out a script; you become real. When that dimension emerges from within you, it also draws it forth from within the other person. #
Ultimately, of course, there is no other, and you are always meeting yourself. #