Murals Speak to the Heart of Living Community, says Princess Haiku

Murals speak to the heart of living communities and they spring up as vividly painted wildflowers in San Francisco; especially the Mission District that is home to over 1,000 murals. Yes, amazing isn't it?

Community murals are splashes of color, hope and vision, cropping up on concrete faces of abandoned buildings, beside asphalt terrains, near empty parking lots, above garbage cans as well as next to perfect lawns and impeccable hotels. In other words, they exist within the soul of a community. Benjamin Lerch conceptualizes mural as "A Painted Song."

San Francisco offers many tours of its murals and for more information contact: Patricia Rose, tour coordinator of "Precita Eyes Mural Arts and Visitor Center. Patricia Rose has painted vibrant murals of her own including one of the "Virgin of Guadalupe." When asked how she felt about the fact that they will fade in time, exposed as murals are to the elements, she responded "It's about the process, mural making is celebratory and about community." For more vivid images click here.

Dark Face of the Sun: the Life of Lili Boulanger

The temporal beauty of the life of Lily Boulanger makes her a perfect subject for my blog. Like a flower awakening at midnight, Lily was given only twenty-four years and the dark face of the sun. Despite this she wove together architecturally perfect, harmonies of spirit and left music behind for the world, that would endure for as long as the sun rises.

The composer and conductor Igor Markevitch once remarked, "The works of Lili Boulanger, impress me with their solitude."

Lili was the first woman to win "The Prix de Rome" and was awarded this honor in 1913 for her cantata "Faust et Helene." Christopher Palmer wrote in "The Boulanger Connection, "Lily acquired a totally professional technique with unnerving speed and facility. Her orchestration, for instance, is masterly. she was essentially a poet-in-sound, with an artist's feeling for beauty of color and texture."

Lili Boulanger is best known for her "Hymn to the Sun or Hymne au soleil," and this is my favorite of her compositions. She became ill at an early age from bronchial pneumonia and was left with an undermined resistance to infection, eventually dying of cancer. Lili knew that time was of great essence and her works; luminous and transcendent, were written in the dark eye of a night enfolding her like angel wings.


Hymn to the Sun
Casimir Delavigne (1793-1843)
Translation Nick Flower

"Let us bless the power of the reborn sun.
With all the universe let us celebrate its return.
Crowned in spendour. It rises, it soars.
The awakening of the earth is a hymn of love....."

Alchemy and Pathos "Helene Grimaud Plays Chopin Rachmaninov"

Pathos and Alchemy as twins are the leitmotif of the 2005 Deutschegrammophon recording "Helene Grimaud Chopin Rachmaninov." In this CD Helene Grimaud plays the Piano Sonata no. 2 of both composers and explores musical intertextuality within and between the composers. This beauty intermingled with the colors of pathos and alchemy is a lush, colorful, whirlpool of profound sound complemented by extreme virtuosity.

Grimaud's performance is as edgy as it is provocative in that her interpretation of the music is a fuse to light primal, human feelings. It's not surprising that musical conformists are threatened by her work; which is as intellectual and deliberate as it is emotionally rich. The use of leitmotif as a musical or literary strategy goes back to Greek mythology and dramas. Anyone who has read Helene Grimaud's book, "Wild Harmonies" will be aware that myth-speak is her opus.

The postmortem dialog of this recording between Chopin and Rachmaninov, delivers the listening audience to uncharted territories within. And there Helene Grimaud leaves them to find their own way out of the necropolis and to define their experience. As a poet I experience this recording as a text within texts and the point of transformation occurs by integration of the resulting cognitive dissonance. In short, this gorgeous music results in catharsis and deeper experience of self. And- this is what all great art or alchemy is about.

Most of the great composers have an amazing poetic capacity and I see that quality in Helene Grimaud and have an intuition that she may surprise us suddenly with compositions of her own. We can only dream....