I believe that the "center of gravity" of an entire culture/country can be determined by the treatment received by it most vulnerable citizens--by "the least of us." When people with disabilities are treated inhumanly, the society—in ways that may be less than visible—is stifled. Similarly, when the true, creative human "VOICE" of someone with a disability is allowed to come forth, seen and heard, it ripples through us all and speaks of a NEW POSSIBILITY.
This year at the Oxford Round Table, I'm honored to be speaking about my work with people with disabilities. You can find more info here...
Here's an example of why I'm so excited about this presentation, and the potential that lies in this work!
My gifted student, Tanny Labshere was born blind. Her reality is darkness. And yet, with the love of her family, the care she receives at Riverbrook Residence for Women in Stockbridge, MA, and through her piano music, she brings light to all who hear her play. Tanny has performed on three occasions for Governor Deval Patrick.
In the spirit of Light and Hope, Tanny and I offer you this duet. We wish you a Wonderful Holiday and a New Year filled with Health and Happiness!
Tanny Labshere is one of my students - a young woman with exceptional musical abilities who was born blind and is also hearing impaired. We began working together four years ago when I started teaching music to Tanny and other women at Riverbrook Residence, New England's oldest and finest facility for women with disabilities.
My relationship with Tanny has progressed and deepened over the years. You can hear it in this improvisation. Something is happening through the medium of music. A CONNECTION. It's unpremeditated. We're each creating music individually and yet we're also TOGETHER.
Listen for what's beneath the music--the relationship between us. You're seeing and hearing two individuals who are independent, free, and inspired, and who are also collaborating creatively in response to each other. This dimension of relatedness is there, between everyone. You can sense it in your interactions. It's subtle. I suggest this: really listen to another person at the same time that you're listening to and expressing yourself, risking, stepping into the unknown. That's what we are doing here. THAT is duet!
This morning in my music class at Riverbrook Residence for women with disabilities, I improvised in piano duet with a young woman who is almost completely deaf.
Despite her disability, I was amazed to see her fingers on the keyboard, lithe, confident. She could FEEL the rhythms I was creating and SEE my hands moving as I played an accompaniment in the bass. She joined me, producing simple lyrical sounds in the treble. In the last note, we were completely together. The music that had emerged was beautiful. She turned to me with a HUGE smile. My heart melted! And I thought--there are are SO MANY MORE channels of communication open BETWEEN us than we think! Such subtle and accessible pathways that allow us to collaborate and communicate!
Over the past eighteen months, I've had the honor of performing twice with my gifted student, Tanny Labshere, for Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. I teach Tanny at Riverbrook Residence for Women in Stockbridge, MA. She is truly a success story of the State - in this video I explain why.
For our performances, we have chosen some of our favorite piano duets. The Governor's humanity and warmth have shone through each time we've played for him. I've been struck by that quality and, believing that it makes him worthy of support, I decided to become involved in organizing a fund raising event for his upcoming re-election.
At Suky and Tom Werman's idyllic Stonover Farm Inn in Lenox, MA (where my husband and I were married!), on a sparkling late summer afternoon, we performed our original duet interpretation of "When the Saints Go Marching In." It was a memorable moment!
I want to share with you extraordinary evidence that music DOES, indeed, heal people, no matter what they have experienced and regardless of cultural background.
My good friends, Debora Prieto and Mick Quinn are working to better the lives of impoverished children in Guatemala. Debora decided to show a group of her teenagers the video of my piano duet with a 15 year-old girl named Hope Garner, who has Down syndrome. (This photo shows the teenagers as they are watching Hope's video.)
Debora explained how she came up with the idea to show the video: "When the teenagers first told me of their backgrounds, I had to make a huge effort not to cry in front of them. Every story was so sad and painful that just listening to them was like torture....I decided to use this video because I work in an environment where there is not room for vulnerability on the part of children. Any sign of "weakness" would open a huge space for abuse. The only way I could bring that intimacy back to my kids was to show them the video of you with Hope."
Here is the video these teenagers saw:
Hope's video had a profound impact. Debora described it to me this way:
"What happened was amazing. Most of the children couldn’t even talk, others said that they didn’t have words to express their feeling; it was too big for them to explain and to understand. One was almost crying. Then they began to express a deeper self-confidence. They began to realize that THEIR voice was important, too!"
Debora and Mick interviewed me recently for their "Ordinary People, Extraordinary Action" series. I highly recommend that you listen to the audio below, Debora describes these children in more depth and the extraordinary effect that seeing this video had on them. It is a VERY special conversation. Indeed, when music speaks from the heart, it touches the heart in another and gives a new sense of self-worth and of possibility, even amidst extreme hardship.
Click Here to Listen Mick and Debora run "The God's Child Project," a sponsorship program in Guatemala, which makes it possible for children in need to have their basic requirements met--shoes, a bed, books for school. For $25/month your sponsorship will give them new hope. Please see this website to learn more about these children and how you can sponsor a child in Guatemala.
For more information on Mick Quinn, author of the award-winning book, The Uncommon Path, and Debora Prieto click here.
It’s not every day that one has an opportunity to meet the President of the United States. On Friday, October 23rd, that possibility presented itself. In support of Governor Deval Patrick’s re-election bid here in Massachusetts, President Obama traveled to Boston to appear in a fundraising event. I couldn’t NOT go.
I arrived at the Westin Copley Hotel several hours early. The first clue that something unusual was afoot occurred when I stepped into the elevator. I pushed the fourth floor button to go up to the American Ballroom, and nothing happened. I pushed it again. I suddenly started to feel as if I was in an espionage movie. “The Secret Service is checking the area and they’ve blocked the elevators from going to the 3rd and 4th floors,” the concierge informed me. I waited in the lobby as Boston police came and went and a Secret Service agent perambulated quietly around the area.
My good friend, Bernard L. Jones, who was to meet me at the event, was delayed for more than an hour trying to find his way to the hotel amidst Boston traffic—and that was before they blocked off all the streets in anticipation of the President’s motorcade. (If you’ve ever driven in Boston, you’ll understand!). Bernard, a Vietnam War combat veteran has worked for many years in the Veteran Affairs Dept. and is a Democratic State delegate from Colrain, MA. (He’s also a bass player.) Bernard is a wonderful supporter of my work and made it possible for me to meet both Governor Patrick and Vice President Biden at recent political fundraisers.
Last June, together with the kind assistance of Charlotte Golar-Richie, Executive Director of the Deval Patrick Committee, he helped to arrange a performance for the Governor, in which I played a piano duet with my student, Tanny Labshere of Riverbrook Residence. Governor Patrick was clearly touched by what he heard that afternoon, and sharing the beauty of music with him was a memorable experience.
Here is a video of Tanny and me performing the medley we played for the Governor – “We Shall Overcome” and “American the Beautiful.”
My reasons for attending last Friday's event with President Obama were to support Governor Patrick, and also because I hoped to meet the President and introduce him to the extraordinary music being created by the women whom I teach. In fact, I had recently sent a DVD of the women’s performances to First Lady Michelle Obama for consideration for her new White House Music series.
In anticipation of possibly meeting the President, I prepared a package addressed to him that contained that same DVD (you can watch the video on YouTube), a letter of introduction, and a beautiful card made by Jenn Bradley, a staff member at Riverbrook Residence. The card contained images of many of my students at Riverbrook, New England’s oldest facility for women with developmental disabilities.
Perhaps it was superstition, but for the most part I kept quiet about my upcoming trip to Boston. A few people did know. Joan Burkhard, executive director of Riverbrook—and my fabulous boss—sent me off with well wishes. Some of the staff at Riverbrook and several of my Riverbrook students were aware I was going. My best friend, Elza Maalouf was supportive as ever, having told me long before I could have imagined it, that my work would “impact millions.” My husband, Laurie, who doubles as my personal trainer and life coach, helped me focus on my goal.
A day or two prior to the event, Claire Garner, whose daughter Hope is a student (see Hope’s inspired piano performance here) asked me if she could share the news. I said, yes, and knowing that faith was very important to her, I said, please tell everyone you know to pray that I connect with the President and make this beautiful music known to him. Claire is a member of the Living God Fellowship in Great Barrington, under the direction of Pastor Lein Collins. And that’s what she, the Pastor and the congregation did. Reverend Doug Small and the wonderful folks at the Worthington Congregational Church, all of whom are enthusiastic supporters of my work, were also thinking of me.
Having arrived at the event several hours early, when they finally opened registration, I was one of the first through the metal detectors. A U.S Secret Service policeman, K-9 division, swept by and into the elevator with a huge German Shepherd. I went up to the American Ballroom, which featured two stages, one of which was for entertainment and the other, bordered by a blue barrier, for the President. I took a spot “on the rope,” as I’ve discovered they call it, and stayed put for 2.5 hours until the Governor and President arrived.
In the meantime, Bernard showed up with Wes Brown, Jr. also a bass player and instructor at University of MA/Dartmouth. Wes’ father, Wesley Brown, Sr., was the first African-American to graduate from the Naval Academy in Annapolis. In recognition, they named a new field house at the Naval Academy in honor of him. I asked Wes, Jr. if his father had met President Obama and he said yes, he was in the stands during President Obama’s inauguration.
Amazingly, despite hip replacement surgery less than two months ago, Governor Patrick strode up the steps to the podium with no discernible limp. He proceeded to speak about the challenges faced by his administration as a result of an enormous State budget shortfall, and then outlined his significant accomplishments. He is up for re-election in 2010, thus President Obama’s visit to help raise money for his campaign. Governor Patrick then introduced President Obama, his long-time friend. In and amidst my videoing and photographing (you can watch an excerpt of President Obama's speech here), I was struck by their common message: both the Governor and the President implored the audience to take responsibility for the future of this country. They emphasized the importance of public action – “it’s up to you to help create the changes we need,” they each said to the audience in their own words.
I take that message, “It’s up to me,” very much to heart and it is, in fact, what compelled me to attend this event with the hope of meeting the President. Every day the people I teach are exemplifying Change, emotionally, cognitively, and creatively. Despite their disabilities, my students prove that the capacity to express beauty is a human birthright, unfettered by any limitation. When people witness their performances—-as the Governor did in June—-they hear something of disarming beauty and freedom, and invariably experience optimism. The women's music proves that optimism is, indeed warranted, and that's why I’m endeavoring to make it visible at a national level. It’s a vital message for our times--the spirit of possibility is what got Barack Obama elected almost exactly a year ago.
President Obama stepped down from the podium after his 20-minute speech and began to greet the crowd along the barrier. As he approached me, I reached down to pick up my 8 ½ x 11 packet. I was immediately thwarted by a Secret Service agent. The President was not receiving anything. President Obama reached toward me and shook my hand as he looked me in the eye. Things were happening so fast it was hard to keep up. In a second, he was further down the line, flanked by several Secret Service men and one woman, whom I watched intently for a few seconds. I admired her. She reminded me of a petite, blond version of Trinity, from the movie The Matrix.
Then Governor Deval Patrick began to greet those of us at the front of the crowd. He took time and acknowledged people, many of whom were familiar supporters. He recognized me. I let go of the possibility of getting anything to the President, and simply remarked on how wonderful it was to see him so well after his surgery. He was very appreciative and kind. As he moved past us, Bernard said he wanted to give something to him. I followed. Through the throng of people, Bernard passed a card to the Governor. I tried to do the same, but my large packet was difficult to get through three rows of people straining to shake hands. However, just as Governor Patrick was nearing the end of the line, he turned, looked directly at me and said, “Do you want me to take that?” I couldn’t quite believe it. “Yes, thank you!” I answered. I was thrilled. This wonderful offer from the Governor was the best thing I could have imagined.
Inside the packet, addressed to President Obama, was a letter. It read: “We know that if the women of Riverbrook Residence perform in Washington for the nation, they will truly represent the spirit of “YES WE CAN!” As I drove slowly home in the Friday rush-hour traffic, I was imagining the President opening my packet as he left Boston on Air Force One.
My student, Tanny Labshere and I performed on Saturday, October 3rd as part of the 2009 FODfest--Friends of Daniel Pearl Memorial Concert--at the historic Mahaiwe Theater, Great Barrington, MA. I played one piano solo - "Amazing Grace"--and two duets with Tanny--"Tanny's Theme" (which she composed) and "We Shall Overcome."
Tanny lives at Riverbrook Residence in Stockbridge, MA, where I teach music to women with developmental disabilities. She is blind and began to play the piano at age 11. Tanny and her music are flourishing in our duets together. This performance took place for nearly 700 people. Prior to walking on stage, I said to Tanny: "if you play beautifully, you will give people the greatest gift: hope in life." Thanks to everyone who made this event happen, the FODfest concert gave Tanny the opportunity to do just that.
The FODfest Concert series is a highlight of Daniel Pearl World Music Days , which takes place during the month of October and features many local musicians. Daniel Pearl was a musician as well as a journalist. He gave his life in the pursuit of freedom and truth. World Music Days was established by his parents, Ruth and Judea Pearl, in his memory. Through music they seek to foster global interconnectedness and community. The FODfest series will be staged throughout the United States and Taiwan and is made possible through the tireless efforts of Todd Mack, Lynnette Najimy, Paul Karlsen, and many others.
With warm thanks to Todd and everyone who made this event happen, and to Judea and Ruth Pearl, who created Daniel Pearl World Music Days to honor their son's spirit and forge a brighter future.
Stephen Lepotakis has been studying piano with me for almost a year. He enjoys my Steinway grand, which gives him 88 keys as compared to his smaller, electronic keyboard. At his lesson, he glides his hands up and down the piano in long glissandos and gleefully plays fast sequences of notes down in the bass. It’s those exuberant, percussive sounds that lead his mother, Sheila, to lovingly refer to him as "her little Choppin.”
Stephen loves music and numbers and telling time. Appropriately, among his favorite songs is the Chicago classic, “Does Anyone Really Know What Time It Is.” Or the theme song from Rescue Rangers, the TV cartoon.
Stephen was diagnosed with autism early in his life. Sheila explained how the first clue was in his verbal expression, which stopped developing at age 1 ½ . Stephen has just turned 21. In our lessons, he communicates more through music than through language. Sheila has said, “If we could put to music everything he needs to learn, he would absorb it all quickly. He would surpass so many of his deficiencies.”
Each time I see Stephen for a lesson, I’m impacted by the love Sheila has for him. It’s a warmth that permeates my home and my heart. She’s that rare person who always has a kind word to say, and means it. She oversees the local Special Olympics and fundraises for many other causes. Sheila and her husband were advised early on that they should resist changing their lives to accommodate their son’s--that he should adapt to their routines and grow in that. And yet, the love Sheila has for Stephen comes from a place that’s deep and natural. The same is true for Stephen’s father, Neil. He said to me recently, “I wonder what’s inside him, what he would express If he could tell us.” They are an unusual family.
Coda Another song Stephen loves is the #1 Chicago hit, "Here in My Heart." It's sung by 28-year Chicago veteran, Bill Champlin, who's an acquaintance of Sheila's, and who is now pursuing his solo career. Stephen played that song so much he wore out the tape. The theme perfectly expresses the effect that Stephen and his family have on those of us who are fortunate to know them!
I’m starting to think that heaven is a place on earth. I’m seeing miracles unfold before my eyes with increasing regularity—through music.
About eight months ago, I began teaching piano to Hope Garner. Hope is fourteen years old. As with many of my students, I improvise in duet with her. From the outset, it was obvious to me that Hope is unusually free in her musical expressivity, ranging over the keyboard like it’s home. She'll play shimmering phrases high up in the treble one moment, and rumbling bass rhythms the next.
Hope loves singing, too. And she writes her own songs. Her mom, Claire, is a singer and guitar player. Hope has a wide range of musical tastes-—she loves Phoebe Snow, Stevie Wonder, Hannah Montana, Cake, Bjork and Brian Duncan. When she grows up, Hope wants to be a singer (and a cook and cleaner).
Hope likes to refer to herself as having “Up’s Syndrome.” As I've realized, it’s true. She is a success story made possible by love, faith and modern medicine. Her first three months were spent at Bay State Hospital in Springfield, MA. She was born with five holes in her heart--congenital disorders such as this are common to children with Down’s Syndrome. Claire explained how, when babies are born with genetic disorders, it takes awhile to know what they’ll be capable of. Despite her rocky beginnings, by the time Hope was in kindergarten, she knew the alphabet and could spell her name. With the incredible love and support that Claire gives her, Hope has developed into the girl that comes and sits with me at the piano.
Hope’s musical journey is central to her life’s journey. And so are road trips. Hope loves to go on excursions with her mom. They’ll get in the car (their current vehicle—a Jeep—is dubbed the “J-unit”), play CD's, and travel around the East Coast, staying at bed and breakfasts or friends' or family.
I recently recorded a duet with Hope and played it back to her. I asked her what she’d like to name it. We agreed that “Road Trip” was an apt title. As you’ll hear, this piece is both a musical journey and reflective of Hope's life. We sat and listened to the piece on my stereo. I asked her what she thought of it. “It makes me cry,” she said, so quietly I almost didn’t hear her. "Why?" I asked. “Because it’s amazing.”
There are marathons and bike-a-thons and walk-a-thons, but on Sunday, June 22, Riverbrook Residence in Stockbridge, MA hosted what may have been the world’s first Piano Improv-a-thon!
Riverbrook, the oldest facility for women with developmental disabilities in New England, is where I teach music. In collaboration with Riverbrook director Joan Burkhard and the many wonderful people on the staff, this event helped fulfill my aspiration to show that, no matter who we are, beauty is inherent to us all by virtue of being human.
Over the course of the afternoon, people of all ages, backgrounds and levels of musical experience—including many of the Riverbrook women—improvised with me on the beautiful Samick grand piano that graces the Riverbrook living room.
The Piano Improv-a-thon was a fundraiser for the Riverbrook music program, which is giving women with developmental disabilities a powerful and transformative means of self-expression. We raised almost $4500—far more than anticipated.
The Improv-a-thon performers collected pledges for their participation from family, friends, and colleagues. (For example, many of my husband’s fellow teachers at Taconic High School supported his participation in the event.) Contributions also came from dozens of individuals and businesses throughout the Berkshires, the Hilltown area and beyond. The Red Lion Inn, The Taggart House, Bardwell, Bowlby and Karam Insurance, Consolati Insurance, Boston Seafoods, Zabian’s Jewelers, Guido's Marketplace, and Once-Upon-a-Table restaurant, were among the many who donated.
Children as young as four years old participated, as did some of the Riverbrook residents and many of my older students. As you’ll hear in the audio clips below, each improvisation was completely individual. Yet, a sweet interconnection manifested itself, arising from that deeper level where beauty is born.
Riverbrook is a rare and special place for women with disabilities. It is an environment where beauty and interconnectivity can flourish among everyone who walks through its doors. As our piano improvisations released the creative impulse in each participant, an unusual alchemy of music, ease and freedom emerged that afternoon. I actually think this was a world's first!
Here is a sample of the twenty-four Riverbrook Improv-a-thon performers. Click on “audio recording” to hear their performances. More photos and audios are coming--stay tuned!
Nancy Babcock, Worthington, MA
Nancy studied piano for a short time when she was a girl, but was told that she had "no musical talent."
Carol has lived at Riverbrook for many years and is beloved by residents and staff alike. Carol expresses her exuberant relationship to life through playing music and dancing. She participated in our performance, "Flying Free: Music without Limits."
Isabella is four years old. Her two sisters and brother--Gabriella, Daniella and Dominic--study piano with me. Isabella is just beginning. Our occasional forays into music are entirely improvisational.
Tracy loves singing and playing the piano. Occasionally, when we're improvising something upbeat, a staff member or resident will start dancing to our music. This gives Tracy great joy and amusement!
Frieda has played piano for much of her life. Classically trained, she longed to free her creative musical voice. She began studying with me a number of years ago and now improvises freely, as well as composing her own strikingly original piano pieces. Click here for audio recording
Tom Weeks, Southfield, MA
Tom works for the New York Life Insurance Company. He sings with the Berkshire Choral Festival and has a beautiful tenor voice. Tom began studying piano with me in 2008. His improvisations have a distinctly "vocal" quality: beautiful melodies are always emerging from him!
Bram and his brother, Satchel, both study piano with me and play in the school band. They clearly love music! Each boy has a distinctly individual sensibility, as expressed in their performances of jazz and blues pieces and familiar songs, improvisations, and their Garageband compositions.
It’s not every day that the Vice President of the United States stands less than a foot away from you, gives you a disarmingly warm hello and a very firm handshake! Thanks to a dear friend, Bernard L. Jones, that’s exactly what I experienced yesterday.
Bernard, a Democratic State delegate from Colrain and Vietnam combat veteran, had invited me to a special reception in Boston for Vice President Joe Biden. Together with several hundred other people on the roof deck of Fenway Park, I listened to the Vice President speak about the issues confronting this new administration. He described his visits to hard-hit industrial communities throughout the United States and the economic necessity for health care reform. His speech was sober, personal, and finally...uplifting. Not in an impractical or hyperbolic way. His optimism was authentic, real.
I was hoping to hand him a DVD of my piano duets with the women of Riverbrook Residence. Through the medium of music, women with disabilities are exemplifying—emotionally, cognitively and socially—the spirit of change he and the new administration stand for. I knew that the Vice President would find this work meaningful and inspiring—just as Governor Deval Patrick had the week before!
As I learned from a Secret Service agent, however, no one is permitted to hand the Vice President anything, except perhaps a business card. So I gave my packet of materials to another friend, Michael Wilcox, through whose connections we hope to deliver it to the Vice President.
My aspiration is for the Riverbrook women to be recognized at a national level. Specifically, I imagine them performing in the First Lady’s new White House Music Series. They will help make the White House the “People’s House”—as First Lady Michelle Obama is seeking to do.
Through their music, these women, who in other circumstances may have been relegated to the fringes of society, are inspiring people throughout Massachusetts. They demonstrate why the optimism Vice President Biden expressed last night is justified—they prove that beauty, creativity and freedom are our nature, inherent to us all and unfettered by any limitation!
This video is taken from a performance called, "Flying Free: Music without Limits." It features improvised and semi-improvised piano duets with the women I teach at Riverbrook Residence in Stockbridge, MA. Riverbrook is home to twenty-three women. Under the direction of Joan Burkhard, a committed staff is creating the optimum conditions for women with developmental disabilities to be supported in every dimension of life. This is the environment I entered as a piano teacher in Fall, 2007. In my work with the women, I became disarmed by the result. As you’ll see, these women confirm that beauty arises from the deepest level of being, unfettered by any limitation. They demonstrate why music is, arguably, our most powerful and universal means of human expression and is present in us all!
Last Sunday at a small concert hall in Pittsfield, MA, I had the opportunity to stage a multi-media/musical event called “Flying Free: Music without Limits.” On a Steinway grand piano I performed improvised and semi-improvised duets with the women I teach at the Riverbrook Residence in Stockbridge. The Riverbrook women have disabilities that range from blindness to autism and Down’s syndrome. As they played, their words—in which they describe their experience of music—were projected on a screen for the audience.
Some of the women are just beginners at the piano; one woman who is blind is quite adept. Regardless of the level of experience, each woman played with disarming authenticity, creativity and naturalness. The sixty people who attended witnessed something of revelatory beauty that went far beyond my own expectations. What occurred, I believe, had the hallmarks of a new kind of art and aesthetics.
My father traveled four hours in winter weather to attend the performance. A college professor, he has taught the philosophy of education for over fifty years and is no stranger to the realm of students with learning difficulties. Nonetheless, he said, “This event completely deconstructed my notion of what it meant to be developmentally disabled. It was staggering. It proved to me that we can transcend our biology.” Another member of the audience wrote to me later that day: “We were in tears. My wife and I have gone to hear various concert artists. There was more music at your event than in the performances we have seen. You and the women from Riverbrook gave us music to move the spirit.”
A truly new expression of art and aesthetics is not a linear extension of how we currently see things. It is not a re-combination of existing themes or elements. Nor is it a “renaissance” of earlier cultural or artistic movements—as great as they may have been. It is a wholly new way of perceiving that upends our most fundamental and often unconsciously held beliefs. My father experienced that reorientation and so did I. This event was not about “handicapped” people doing something that they had learned by rote. These women were creating music of profound beauty and authenticity, by any measure. They proved that they could, indeed, transcend their biology. The implications are far-reaching.
And that’s where beauty comes in. In working with the women, I listen solely for beauty and for what is unique and natural to each of them. For as long as I can remember my mother has instilled in me that appreciation. She herself is a pianist who studied with an extraordinary teacher in NYC during the ‘40’s and ‘50’s. His name was Leopold Mittman and he was accompanist to violinists Isaac Stern and Mischa Ellman. Just over a year ago, in a book my mother found on piano pedagogy, she read that her teacher’s teacher studied with Franz Liszt, who studied with Carl Czerny, who studied with Beethoven. This astounding discovery confirmed everything she’d been given by Mr. Mittman and had passed on to me. She taught me what makes music sing.
I’m bringing that musical sensibility to bear in an entirely new context with a new, evolutionary goal. In my work with these women, I have absolute confidence that they are capable of expressing profound beauty. Last Sunday, they proved to me and the audience in that small recital hall that it's true. Even in the realm of professional concert-making, real beauty is extraordinarily rare. The audience member who later wrote to me about his experience was right, and his unsolicited observations confirmed what I’d suspected: Beauty is not merely a function of talent, as we generally define it—it’s deeper than that. Beauty is a dimension of the human soul unfettered by any limitation. On Sunday, I saw it emerge before my eyes and witnessed the effect it had on the audience. People were so impacted. There was hardly a dry eye in the house. At that depth, beauty becomes what Steve McIntosh calls an evolutionary “attractor of perfection.” Only that kind of beauty can catalyze a new, integral art and music—-one that can have an evolutionary impact on our consciousness and culture.
In recognition of the event’s significance, “Flying Free” was jointly sponsored by the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Community Education Program, the internationally acclaimed theater company, Shakespeare and Co. and Miss Hall’s School, a private girls’ high school. It was also supported by a grant from Caroline and James Taylor, which was of special meaning for me, as James Taylor was one of my earliest musical influences. (I can remember the moment in 1971 when I first heard “Fire and Rain” playing on a small, transistor radio.)
A video of the event will be completed next week and posted on YouTube and on this blog site. It will give you an experience of what occurred. We will be disseminating the video to organizations and individuals throughout the country, including the Obama team. As solicited on his website, this is certainly an "American Story" that generates ideas and insights that can "change the future of this country."
Thirty years ago – in 1978 – the concert pianist, Vladimir Horowitz was invited by Jimmy Carter to perform at the White House. The videos of that concert are among the most sublime I have seen.
The evolution of that performance, three decades later, would make evident that everyone, including the women I work with, can express the same kind of undeniable beauty. That’s what happened on Sunday and that’s what needs to be heard at the White House and throughout culture, to inspire every man, woman and child in this country to realize that beauty is inside of them!!
I believe that the "center of gravity" of an entire culture/country can be determined by the treatment received by it most vulnerable citizens--by "the least of us." When people with disabilities are treated inhumanly, the society—in ways that may be less than visible—is stifled. Similarly, when the true, creative human "VOICE" of someone with a disability is allowed to come forth, seen and heard, it ripples through us all and speaks of a NEW POSSIBILITY.
