John Lennon - Give Peace A Chance

Art and beauty essential, said Princess Haiku

A few days ago, my flute teacher forwarded to me an elegant and moving speech that Karl Paulnac; Music Department head at Boston Conservatory, gave to incoming freshmen. Paulnack's defense of the existence of and spiritual necessity of music (art) struck my heart.

This essay is posted at Not Just Another Pretty Voice on Amanda's blog and should be required reading for all conflicted artists who find that their values, goals and achievements run counter to mainstream values.

I have often questioned my poetic mandate. After all, a person doesn't just wake up one morning and say, my life purpose is to absorb art/beauty and create with words/colors/music etc. Artists are this way because they are born this way and as Paulnack describes serve a spiritual/psychological necessity in humans.

An"altruism" gene has been identified with compassionate individuals who serve a biological survival function and no doubt an "artistic" gene serves its role also; the survival of the human spirit.

Along with the rise of the "creative class" which is a good thing there has also arisen (not so good) expectation that the creative urge be instantly marketed and packaged for consumer consumption. I don't know how many novels I have picked up and dismissed in recent years because their authors came with their own "marketing platform" and lacked the spiritual, intuitive psychological acumen of real artists. We need to separate the market place from the primal sea shore from which all great art comes.

An artist serves a higher master and it is easy to lose focus. In these troubling economic times there may be a turn inward from consumerism to more profound human values. Well, enough said on a Spring morning and now to turn my attention towards splashes of sunlight. Besides which Paulnak discusses all of this with perfect eloquence.

Even with the economic world collapsing, I intend to seek out something today so beautiful that it makes this day pause in my memory. And I have a new piece to practice on my flute.

Princess Haiku lost in the ghostly flute music of Toru Takemitsu

If the spirit of the poet, Basho transmitted his spirit to a composer/flutist it would surely be Toru Takemitsu.

I came across the article, "When East Meets West; Takemitsu's Itinerant For Flute Solo," in The Flutist Quarterly. This article was written in Winter 2006 by Mary Procopio and is well worth looking up. Flutist Quarterly has great archives and it's worth joining just for previously published articles.



Mary Procopio writes, "Toru Takemitsu used influences from very different cultures to create compositions that offer the performer both technical challenges and the opportunity to delve into the characteristics of Japanese music."


Takemitsu described his compositions, "My music is very influenced by the Japanese tradition, especially the Japanese garden, in color, spacing form...When I use Japanese instruments, people say, "Oh, very Japanese!" Sometimes for me it is too heavy. Then, I like to go in another direction..."

Takemitsu was born in Japan in 1928 and died in 1996. Described as a self educated and informed composer he used visual images and music drawn from composers such as Debussy and Messiaen. Eventually, in incorporating elements of both cultures he found his own voice.

I find the most poetic element of Takemitsu's compositions is his awareness of and use of As he said in his book, "Confronting Silence" which is autobiographical in nature, "music is either sound or silence. As long as I live I shall choose sound as something to confront a silence." This reminds me of the solitary existence of the poet, Basho.

Sizukasa ya What a quiet place!
Iwa ni simiiru Penetrating into the rocks,
Semi no koe The cicada's song.

East Village Opera Company is brilliant post modern opera, says Princess Haiku

I recently saw the East Village Opera Company mentioned in one of the new blogs I am reading and had a listen at You Tube. Their music is extraordinary and brilliant; I hope that they will eventually perform in the San Francisco Bay Area. I am posting a few videos of EVOC and you have never heard anything like this.

This is what I read on East Village Opera Company's Website.

"You’ve heard opera, and you’ve heard rock—but you’ve never heard opera rocked like the East Village Opera Company. The East Village Opera Company —a powerhouse five-piece band, a string quartet, and two outstanding vocalists—brings the towering emotion and timeless musicality of opera into the 21st century on its Decca/Universal Classics debut with its inventive, hard-hitting arrangements of the music’s “greatest hits”—including “La donna è mobile” from Rigoletto, “Habanera” from Carmen, and “Nessun dorma” from Turandot — performed at full length and in the original languages.

The concept of the East Village Opera Company is totally fresh, but not unprecedented in pop. In 1985, for example, former punk-rock impresario Malcolm McLaren released Fans, an album of “hip-hopera” that brought funky beats and electronic programming to the works of Puccini and Bizet. But EVOC is a whole new thing: an integrated, eleven-strong working band dedicated to rocking the opera and electrifying the classics, as the ensemble has been doing to spectacular effect ever since its New York stage debut in the spring of 2004.
...

EVOC’s Decca/Universal Classics debut was produced and recorded in April-July, 2005 by Neil Dorfsman, a three-time Grammy Award winner whose credits include international bestsellers by Sting, Dire Straits, Paul McCartney, and Bjork. The string arrangements were recorded in Prague by the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra featuring lead violinist Pauline Kim.


I am going to try to purchase one of their CD's locally and if I can't find one everyone can order one from their online store. They also sell black EVOC hoodys that are too cool.

And now if you will excuse me, said Princess Haiku putting her invisible headphones on, It's almost midnight and I am going to rock out with EVOC.

Artistic Freedom and Jim Morrison

During his brief life Jim Morrison was once quoted as saying, "If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it's to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel."

Jim Morrison was a rebel poet subjected to severe censor and punishment for behavior that today is more or less expected of rock stars. Yet, in March of 1969, Morrison was arrested on stage for "indecent exposure" and sentenced to eight months of hard labor. The real crime for which Morrison was found guilty; was expression of music and lyrics both iconoclastic and anarchist in a refusal to accept social repression and restraint.

Artistic freedom as defined by the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment was on trial and freedom lost the day Morrison was sent to prison. The Morrison that appeared after his incarceration was a ghost of the youth who sang, "You can light my fire." Dispirited and in failing health due to heroin addiction, Morrison disappeared from the limelight.

Morrison moved to Paris with his longtime partner and spent his last days writing poetry. He read the poetry of Rimbaud, Verlaine and Baudelaire and strolled through Pere-Lachaise; city of the dead. It is understandable that Morrison was attracted to these French poets as they were interested in the relationship between music and poetic language. Although Morrison's poetry was rich and promising in imagery, he died of a presumed overdose of heroin before his literary voice reached maturity.

Despite his untimely death, Morrison held the line for art and inscribed on his tomb in Pere-Lachaise are the Greek words; "KATA TON DAIMONA EAYTOVA meaning, True to his Spirit."

Morrison infused rock music with a vital, dynamic and rich literary context. If you are interested in a more scholarly discussion of his music follow the links. Morrison's rock group was named, "The Doors" in the tradition of Aldous Huxley; inviting others to walk through and find their light. To this day Morrison remains an icon and a cult figure.



This poem of Baudelaire written long before the birth of Morrison serves as a fine literary requiem.


by: Charles Baudelaire

AM as lovely as a dream in stone,
And this my heart where each finds death in turn,
Inspires the poet with a love as lone
As clay eternal and as taciturn.

Swan-white of heart, a sphinx no mortal knows,
My throne is in the heaven's azure deep;
I hate all movements that disturb my pose,
I smile not ever, neither do I weep.

Before my monumental attitudes,
That breathe a soul into the plastic arts,
My poets pray in austere studious moods,

For I, to fold enchantment round their hearts,
Have pools of light where beauty flames and dies,
The placid mirrors of my luminous eyes.