Today I am indulging myself and those of you who care deeply about music with a string of videos all either created by or depicting Jacob Collier, a young musician of – and I say so unhesitatingly – genius.

I was alerted to him by my firstborn with whom I frequently exchange musical discoveries, more successfully so in one direction than the other, but still…..

He sent me this video of Moonriver, created way before the pandemic hit, employing techniques of editing multiple, really hundreds, of videos, together and re-harmonizing with the arranger’s own vocals. It is not a song I am particularly fond of, but I was impressed by the arrangement.

Off I went to check the kid out – 25, looking 15, with a proclivity for strange hats, cow-patterned socks (thus today’s photographs) and t-shirts and, man, a musical brain to die for. Grew up and still lives in a musical household in London, with a single mom and 2 sisters, encouraged to be an autodidact regarding his musical education, even though the mom works as a classically trained musician and is a professor of music.

A documentary filmed at MIT, Boston, where he did a residency as composer, conductor, arranger, performer of both multiple instruments and vocals, made it very clear we are not just seeing a gifted producer of pop ballads, or jazz, or whatever you want to call it, but some serious classical moves given that all is specified, if only in the moment when he interacts via computer programs with his supporting musicians. If you have 30 minutes, do watch it, you get to experience a flow of bridging in his composition Hideaway that is mind boggling (with full orchestra in the documentary.)

If you don’t have the time for the documentary, just listen to some of his music. Here is Hideaway done solely by him. (You can read a description here.)

I recommend looking at the videos for a bit just to enjoy his performer’s antics and enthusiasm, but eventually, listening is best done with eyes closed and headphones. I chose a random collection, from more acoustic music (NPR Tiny Desk concert) to singles from his 4 album creation Djesse. The music transports you.

It even makes the cows smile!

“I’m working on human speech [and] I’ve arrived at a melody created by this speech. I’ve arrived at an embodiment of recitative in melody”. – Modest Mussorgsky

We ended up this week with words, didn’t we? Wells’ written words, Hildegard von Bingen’s invented words and now words transformed into melodies. Mussorgsky (1839 – 1881) was interested in realism, by which he meant setting the sound of the spoken Russian language to music. His leanings towards progressive politics and the fact that he was an atheist was evident in the way he selected speech of particular Russians. He set the poetry of Pushkin to music, as well as folk tales and many varieties of ordinary speech – nannies, mothers, children, soldiers. On stage he preferred his evil characters (like Rimsky-Korsakov’s) to be witches, devils, and magicians, as a way to avoid censors.

The music was all about natural rhythm and Russian history, incredibly creative, ahead of its time. Do yourself a favor and listen to what I am attaching below – it is revelatory, particularly if you, like I, were fed on a diet of The Dance of the Bumblebee or Boris Godunov. Slavic tunes, pride in national heritage and a preoccupation with his view of the depth of the Russian soul all colored his compositions in addition to the focus on expressed speech patterns.

The composer, like many of the others (Rimsky-Korsakov, Alexander Borodin, Mily Balakirev and César Cui) in the group of artists he belonged to, known as the Russian Five, – the Moguchaya Kuchka (“The Mighty Little Heap)  – died prematurely. Poverty was one of the reasons (in his case alcoholism was another, he was self medicating for his life-long depression) – there was never enough money earned by performances. The Tzar and his court controlled the musical market and Mussorgsky did not have personal sponsors or foreign fairy godmothers who would provide a regular, sufficient allowance.

And yet, he created such beauty – judge for yourself.

I’ll spare you the sadness of his Sunless song cycle, given that I want you to enjoy a sunny weekend. For similar reasons, you’ll be deprived of Songs and Dances of Death – too much of that on our mind. Then again, for the true music lovers, here is a stellar performance of the latter….. couldn’t help myself.

And I had meant to post NO bumble bee music, just bumble bee photographs from yesterday, taken while weeding under my single blueberry bush in bloom, the impetus for thinking about the composer. But I relent there as well, for the sake of the miraculous hands of Evgeny Kissin.

One of our dearest friends was born on Easter Sunday 1925 – and his 95th birthday coincides this Sunday with Easter again. I am dedicating today’s blog to him since flowers, visits, presents, are all taboo on the grounds of the pandemic.

And anyhow, who wants to blow out 95 candles…..

I had the joy to attend his 90th birthday party where he was feted in style. I wish I could remember all the speeches honoring him, but you know my brain… cousin to a sieve. Luckily we can hear the man himself – here is a recent interview that describes his involvement with the founding of the ACLU of Oregon and his trajectory in life.

Paul is a Yale-educated attorney who has been actively involved in the fields of civil liberties, progressive politics, city government, opera and chamber music groups and numerous Jewish organizations. He served as a machine gunner in the infantry during WW II (70th Oregon trailblazer division from 1943-1046 and was wounded in the last battle of the bulge in Alsace Lorraine in January 1945 (he received Purple Heart and bronze star for his valor.) Well, that’s the official description that you can find if you look for the announcements of awards, too numerous to list here.

My personal description is that of a Mensch, deeply rooted in the Portland community, a man who delights in story telling and jokes, can roar with laughter and melt you with his smile. When I learned that he was born as one of three brothers in St. Louis, Mo., I immediately associated the bridge of that city with his inclination to build bridges, both in his work and in his civic engagement.

During the time that I got to know him it was clear that family means a lot to him – not just as an idea, but in close and actively pursued relationships, with his children (sorry David, did not get a picture of you two ever,) his brother Roger, who died in 2013, and of course his beloved wife, Alice, who makes it ALL possible, forever has.

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I met Paul and Alice around 2005 at the Oregon Jewish Museum, an organization that they have strongly supported since its inception. Friendship grew fast, and shared places – living in New York, his formative experiences during his WW II time deployment in Germany, a love for the beaches of Manzanita – and shared subjects – from politics to the law – were the focus of many of our conversations.

One topic we more than agreed on: not only do we both have a passion for music but we know it is at its core more than passive listening – it is a communal art, at its truest in shared enactment. Paul sang late into his current age and, I may add, singing his heart out. Whether he joined the traditional Boarshead procession and chorale at Reed College,

or sang in the core chorus for Jacob Avshlamov’s Messiah, he s a n g. Well, what do I know, maybe he sings just as much today, in preparation for Happy Birthday (or for timing the ritual hand washing of these times…) I was told that he was also a guest conductor at the Portland Baroque Orchestra on his 75th Birthday, conducting the 1st movement of Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony. Before my time in the Meyer household, but I would have loved to have heard that.

I have taken many portraits of Paul over the years, but here is one of my favorites of last summer. Don’t let the softness of the face fool you about the steely intellect underneath, or the laugh wrinkles about the determination to pursue some of his main goals in life: justice, fairness and civil liberties. The wistfulness in his gaze encompasses true caring for humanity.

Here is my musical selection for him on this day: Paul might have actually sung it in high school with Paul Robeson, who also has a birthday this week. It is a message of unity that found a receptive ear in 1940. Sounds like a birthday wish for our own times to me!

Happy Birthday, dear Paul.

The legal and political obscenities surrounding the Wisconsin election have kept me awake at night. The whole package – making people choose between their health, potentially their life on the one hand and their right to vote own the other, reducing 170 polling stations to 5 within the largest city of the state, not sending absentee ballots in a timely fashion (somehow they got delayed, no one can tell why….) so that they could be dropped off by today, refusing to permit vote by mail in general, it all is too much. Too many poll minders excused themselves for fear of infection, being replaced by national guard soldiers, and lines extending for 4 plus hour waits had many people give up and go home. The (conservative!) German Handelsblatt called it the insanity election. And here is a summary of the implications – far reaching in ways that most people, myself included, did not grasp.

The US Supreme Court showed its partisan power in full force by not even allowing a delay to that absentee ballots could be received and could be counted, thus disenfranchising 10s of thousands of voters, while they themselves refuse to sit in the face of the viral anger – it all is in itself a step to undermine democracy, but also a sign of things to come. When we have barely come out of the trauma of these months, mourned the losses, should that be the case in November, we have to deal with voter suppression of un-imaginary large and cruel proportions.

In short, I got the blues. As an anti-depressant I decided to make it all about music today, singing the blues, as a form of protest, from prison labor, to the acknowledgment of racism, from a description of the feelings to an admission that they are hard to shake.

From prison:

to the acknowledgment of racism,

from a description of the feelings

to an admission that they are hard to shake.

And then: you look at this historical footage, and feel the spirit (whether you share the religious affirmations or not) and realize what people have overcome – enough to encourage us that we, too, can organize and join another movement to pursue what’s morally right.

Tired, yes. Scared, you bet. Feeling helpless, check. We simply cannot afford to give up, though. 2030 is rapidly approaching and 1930 is not what we want to repeat!

Montages all contain blue….

Yesterday was International Women’s Day and it seems appropriate to celebrate women this week – particular after we have seen female presidential candidacies collapse (among other factors) under the weight of ongoing misogyny.

I want to start the week with women composers, particularly since I stole today’s title from a series of musical compositions by Joan Tower. Tower, who teaches music at Bard college, composed the 6 part piece, a response to Copland’s Fanfare to the Common Man, between 1986 and 2016, dedicating it to women risk takers and adventurers. I chose the most recent segment, with full orchestra for us to contemplate.

Before I introduce two more uncommon women, female composers who left their mark in a male-dominated domain, I also want to stand in solidarity with the common women of Mexico, who organized an unprecedented strike today to demand attention for their (literally) existential struggle: the number of women murdered in their country (which leaves the even more incomprehensible numbers of hurt and raped women to the side.) Almost 4000 women were murdered in Mexico last year alone, some mere girls, 7 years old. The strikers ask every woman in the country to simply stay home and not do the work for one day – it would cost the Mexican economy 1.37 billion which might do more to start a serious national conversation and effect substantive changes across Mexican society than women’s voices alone. Alas, Mexico’s new president, touted a progressive, is not exactly supportive of the efforts. Details here and photographs today from the streets of 2017 Mexico City.

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Here are two courageous women providing us with empowerment and joy: let’s start with Clara Schumann’s Piano concerto in A Minor (Op.7). Wife to Robert, friend to Brahms, she actually composed this when she was 14 years old and performed it at age 16!

On the other end of the spectrum we find Florence Price whose Symphony No. 1 in E Minor was premiered in 1933, when she was in her mid 40s. It was the first symphony by a black female composer to be performed by a major American orchestra. Price suffered from the effects of racism in addition to gender bias. She pretended to be of Mexican descent to be admitted to the New England Conservatory; moved from Arkansa, her home, to Chicago when she was denied work and racial tensions and lynchings were threatening her family. Chicago friendships with Margaret Bonds and later Marian Anderson helped her music to be performed eventually.

Here is one of my favorites, Langston Hughes’ poem set to her music:

Songs to the Dark Virgin

by Langston Hughes

I 

Would 
That I were a jewel, 
A shattered jewel, 
That all my shining brilliants 
Might fall at thy feet, 
Thou dark one. 

II 

Would 
That I were a garment, 
A shimmering, silken garment, 
That all my folds 
Might wrap about thy body, 
Absorb thy body, 
Hold and hide thy body, 
Thou dark one. 

III 

Would 
That I were a flame, 
But one sharp, leaping flame 
To annihilate thy body, 
Thou dark one.

The poem is often interpreted as a black woman staring into the mirror, trying to hide her blackness by the shine of jewels, or the folds of her dress, to finally annihilate herself because her blackness cannot flourish in a racist world. Florence Price did not give in to that sentiment or give up – she provided the world with beautiful music that combined classical elements with those from her own tradition, spirituals and jazz. Tomorrow I will introduce other role models who also defied that despair. Things must, will change!