Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Boston Marathon 2013 Tragedy
It's too soon after this horrific event for me to be articulate, so I will postpone my commentary until more information is available. My heart is broken for the parents of the 8 year old boy who was killed in the blast, and for the families of the others killed and terribly injured. I am sending healing Reiki and prayer and I am praying that the killer, who is still at large, will be captured.
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Kata Kozma: My former student and genius
"Genius" is not a word I apply lightly. It's a rare thing, and I know it when I see it. Even as a Berklee professor teaching at a college where there is an abundant amount of extraordinary young creativity, I have only come across genius once among my many students.
I first encountered Kata Kozma in my Reading 2 lab at Berklee. We got to talking about Diana Krall, Oscar Peterson, and jazz piano/singing in general, and I learned that she had an extensive background in classical piano. What astonished me was her jazz piano playing ability--she could swing harder than any student I had ever heard, and had excellent technique and improvisatory skill. She was extremely modest about this, and expressed her admiration of Diana Krall, who was her role model at the time.
I did not see Kata again for a couple of years. When she was a senior, I was pleased to have her as a private lesson student. Before this, I had heard that she was selected by a panel of famous jazz pianists (including Joanne Brackeen, who also had Kata as a student and has very high standards) to perform in a concert featuring young female jazz pianists at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. I watched the video of the concert and I am not exaggerating when I say that she was by far the best of the performers. I also listened to tracks she made of her own performances on both piano and vocals: she performs both standards and originals in a very original way
By the time she became my private student, I wasn't sure there was anything I could teach her. Yet she insisted that she needed help in learning how to replicate open position jazz voicings with tensions, so we worked on that. She and I made some informal recordings of us playing jazz piano duets and vocal duets which are amazing. Also at this time (2010) Kata helped me revamp my website, designed new business cards, and took professional photos of me. It was then that I discovered that Kata is not only a brilliant musician but also a painter and graphic designer, and a phenomenal photographer who could be a professional--she even made an aging and unphotogenic college professor look beautiful and glamorous! She and I share a love for Lady Gaga (at least as she was then) and I had a secret hope that with Kata's help I might become the Lady Gaga of jazz. It hasn't happened yet, and I'm afraid the jazz world already has its over-the-top diva in Haromi. But you never know...
Kata is a young woman who could excel in several different fields. By the time she graduated, she was more interested in being behind the scenes (producing) than she was in performing. I was a little disappointed because she was such an extraordinary jazz player/singer. But I wanted her to follow her dream, and I believed she ought to be in New York. I told her so, as did many other people, and at first she was not convinced, but now she realizes that New York is where talent like hers belongs.
I have been following Kata's career with interest on Facebook. In a remarkably short time, she has established herself as a writer/producer with her own production company in New York and has created a jingle-writing collective. She produced Sanura's first CD and is currently producing CDs for several up-and-coming neo soul artists. She is the hardest-working person I know.
There is no young musician I know who is more deserving of an artist's visa than Kata Kozma. Someday the world will take notice of her and give her the acclaim she deserves.
I first encountered Kata Kozma in my Reading 2 lab at Berklee. We got to talking about Diana Krall, Oscar Peterson, and jazz piano/singing in general, and I learned that she had an extensive background in classical piano. What astonished me was her jazz piano playing ability--she could swing harder than any student I had ever heard, and had excellent technique and improvisatory skill. She was extremely modest about this, and expressed her admiration of Diana Krall, who was her role model at the time.
I did not see Kata again for a couple of years. When she was a senior, I was pleased to have her as a private lesson student. Before this, I had heard that she was selected by a panel of famous jazz pianists (including Joanne Brackeen, who also had Kata as a student and has very high standards) to perform in a concert featuring young female jazz pianists at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. I watched the video of the concert and I am not exaggerating when I say that she was by far the best of the performers. I also listened to tracks she made of her own performances on both piano and vocals: she performs both standards and originals in a very original way
By the time she became my private student, I wasn't sure there was anything I could teach her. Yet she insisted that she needed help in learning how to replicate open position jazz voicings with tensions, so we worked on that. She and I made some informal recordings of us playing jazz piano duets and vocal duets which are amazing. Also at this time (2010) Kata helped me revamp my website, designed new business cards, and took professional photos of me. It was then that I discovered that Kata is not only a brilliant musician but also a painter and graphic designer, and a phenomenal photographer who could be a professional--she even made an aging and unphotogenic college professor look beautiful and glamorous! She and I share a love for Lady Gaga (at least as she was then) and I had a secret hope that with Kata's help I might become the Lady Gaga of jazz. It hasn't happened yet, and I'm afraid the jazz world already has its over-the-top diva in Haromi. But you never know...
Kata is a young woman who could excel in several different fields. By the time she graduated, she was more interested in being behind the scenes (producing) than she was in performing. I was a little disappointed because she was such an extraordinary jazz player/singer. But I wanted her to follow her dream, and I believed she ought to be in New York. I told her so, as did many other people, and at first she was not convinced, but now she realizes that New York is where talent like hers belongs.
I have been following Kata's career with interest on Facebook. In a remarkably short time, she has established herself as a writer/producer with her own production company in New York and has created a jingle-writing collective. She produced Sanura's first CD and is currently producing CDs for several up-and-coming neo soul artists. She is the hardest-working person I know.
There is no young musician I know who is more deserving of an artist's visa than Kata Kozma. Someday the world will take notice of her and give her the acclaim she deserves.
Saturday, April 6, 2013
First post in 2013
It has been almost 6 months since my father's death in October. His demise was followed not long after by the decline and passing of my Uncle Buddy, beloved patriarch of a large family with 6 great-grandchildren, husband of 60-plus years to my Aunt Joan, who has suffered a crippling loss.
Of course death has been on my mind these many months. And instead of becoming less depressed, I become more and more energyless and despondent. I have forced myself to deal with matters concerning Dad's estate: the minutiae are endless and they have robbed me of any creative spirit I might otherwise have had. A composition I began months ago sits on my desk with a note on it saying "Edit in Finale," but I don't have the energy to work on it. I'm not practicing much due to tendinitis in my right elbow which doesn't go away. I used to deal with this by practicing with my left hand only, but now it's easier just not to deal.
On weekends I lie abed late in the morning. This morning I awoke at 11, full of free-floating anxiety about what needs to be done, even though it's Saturday, not even a business day. My faithful cat is nestled beside me hoping I won't get out of bed. His mute empathy (or so it seems) is the one thing that comforts me, and I close my eyes and go back to imagining various final episode scenarios for The Mentalist until I fall asleep again briefly. I wake up again a few minutes later trying to think of a good reason to get out of bed. I'm not hungry, so it won't be necessary to cook breakfast. Curtiss, who never sleeps much, is already up and at his computer.
Finally I pull myself out of bed and go into the kitchen to confront the huge pile of bills and other paperwork that I have been avoiding. Not only must I pay my own bills, but there are my father's bills too--the cable/wireless, electric, and the $700/month oil bill that gets deducted from the new estate bank account I set up two weeks ago. The other day, the new credit card was rejected when the oil company ran it, and I had to run to the bank to activate the card by using the ATM. I expect things like this to happen. This morning I find an email from my father's accountant saying she still needs some more papers to file my father's return by April 15, which is looming. I have to wait until Monday to get any business done, and I already have several to-dos on my iCal for that day. I make a note of the phone calls I must make, then make a call and leave a text trying to track down a "handyman" who has been using my father's garage as a storage facility for two years. My father, in a weak moment, apparently agreed to allow him to do this. The man is said to be an alcoholic and utterly irresponsible. The good news is, he's apparently come to take away some of it. The house is being shown, and it doesn't help to have the garage stuffed floor to ceiling with junk.
Then there's the contractor I've been playing phone tag with. The hall light ceiling fixture in dad's house has filled with water and no longer works, and there is water leaking from the roof in another part of the house according to our house sitter, Tasha. I can only hope that the house doesn't need a whole new roof. As Dad's gambling habit grew worse, he neglected repairs to the house. The landscaper who mows the lawn and prunes the trees said that Dad had neglected the grounds for years because he didn't want to pay for the care that would have prevented the property from becoming overgrown.
There is about $6000 in the estate account. This has to be enough to pay for remaining expenses, or I will have to dip into my inheritance money which is supposed to be for our retirement in France or Ecuador, whichever will take us with the least problems. (To that end, I am reviewing my French and learning Spanish online, also reviewing my Italian since it's there--this has become a daily distraction from the bureaucratic black hole I have been sucked into.) Of course, the sale of Dad's house will enable us to pay any unpaid bills, but who knows when or if that will occur? There have been at least 3 showings but no offers. The beautiful old 18th century house with its barn, guest house, and garage on 3.5 acres of land enclosed by extraordinary stone walls, with ancient trees and my mother's perennial beds which still survive 28 years after her death. Selling for $220,000 asking price, which means we will be lucky to get $210,000. It's a travesty--the house was assessed at $350,000 just a few years back. But Connecticut is in a depression. The state is out of money, so the Town of Mansfield levies taxes on every possible thing, including the privilege of taking your bulky and large trash to the dump. The Holts' Georgian mansion, furnished with antiques, now a bed and breakfast, is still on the market, down to $800,000 from the original listing price of $1,000,000. Mrs. Holt is the heiress to the Holt, Reinhardt, and Winston publishing fortune, and if her mansion were in Newton, MA, it would be selling for 2.5 million.
I have come to believe that I am unlucky as far as money is concerned. It's not because I don't manage money well--I do--it's just that my father gambled away the money my grandfather meant my brother and me to have, and Dad just assumed we'd recoup the money when we sold his house. He also thought that when he hit the big jackpot at the casino his kids would be set for life. Instead, if he ever won any money, he just gambled with it again. And lost. He died without any winnings.
No one compelled me to become a musician. In my 20's, I thought with the arrogance of youth that I would make a lot of money some day. Instead, it meant a hand-to-mouth existence my entire adult life, always worrying that I would not have enough money to pay the rent or later, the mortgage. What I feared most was ending up on the street, a bag lady muttering to herself. While this has never even come close to happening, I have had to budget strictly. I have not bought a new car since 1999 and I paid cash so as not to have loan payments. Even then, I had to beg my father to give me the $12,000 I needed along with $3000 I borrowed from Barbara. My own condo needs repairs that we cannot afford. Curtiss, who generously gave me a lot of money (when he had it) to do repairs on the house, is now on disability. I am 60 years old and have no pension--I am part-time, paid by the hour, lucky to have health care thanks to the Berklee union. I have been functioning this way since 1995. I will probably not be able to retire--they say you need at least 1 million saved up. I work very hard, am always exhausted, and make very little money. I have a lot of company. The corporate culture has created this scenario for the majority of my generation. And now they are taking away our Social Security, which in any event will be a pittance and not enough to retire on.
I remind myself every day that there are things to be grateful for.
my eyesight: saved by Dr. Sang, one of the best retinal surgeons in the country
my son: doing well at his job in Ecuador, planning to go to grad school along with his girlfriend, whom I also love
Curtiss: one of the few people who always have my back, who is getting well slowly but surely, and talking about getting a job
Barbara: another of the few who always have my back, still my loyal friend after all these years
my other girl friends: Debbie, Fay, Jeri, Phyllis, Lori, Yanni. They keep me sane.
my little students: Gavi, Ella, Ally, Sarah, Ava, Pete, Aashini, and Pranati. Learning to play the piano, improving, getting ready for a recital in May! Their drawings have covered a wall behind my piano.
my cat Sparky: a lap cat, doglike, he follows me around trying to console me in that mute animal way
my Aunt Joan: who also has always had my back, now needs me to have hers. I have never seen her cry before until she lost Buddy. Like me, she is embarrassed to cry in front of others and usually manages not to. At 83, she is hanging onto her health, talking optimistically about coming to visit me in June or July and having me show her around Berklee. She still goes to work every day as a counselor. She is strong and courageous, but she has been crippled by this loss. Something of her energy may have been lost for good. She used to be relentlessly optimistic, cheering me on through my darkest hours; now her optimism is still there, but for the moment it is eclipsed by grief. We spent some time with her in NJ and Curtiss made a video of her talking to me. I am afraid of losing her, too, and if she dies this year I will be overcome with despair. But I have to face the possibility. Not be prepared, because no one can be prepared for the death of someone you love. Death will always drag your loved one to the unknown. No matter how hard you hold on, your grip will be broken and Death will win.
One day I will open my arms to life again and stop thinking about death. I must embrace life or I will never perform or write music again. Life is what gives us the ability to create. At the moment, I am just getting through each day. I sit in front of the TV night after night, anesthetizing myself as I multitask with Facebook, email, word games, language lessons, and various web sites so I don't have to feel the pain. I feel guilty about being a slug, so I forced myself to go to my personal trainer on Thursday and signed up for a once a week session for a month. I'm not exercising as much as usual, and eating sweets and other unhealthy carbs. It's not that I don't care anymore--I just have to muster the strength to care.
Of course death has been on my mind these many months. And instead of becoming less depressed, I become more and more energyless and despondent. I have forced myself to deal with matters concerning Dad's estate: the minutiae are endless and they have robbed me of any creative spirit I might otherwise have had. A composition I began months ago sits on my desk with a note on it saying "Edit in Finale," but I don't have the energy to work on it. I'm not practicing much due to tendinitis in my right elbow which doesn't go away. I used to deal with this by practicing with my left hand only, but now it's easier just not to deal.
On weekends I lie abed late in the morning. This morning I awoke at 11, full of free-floating anxiety about what needs to be done, even though it's Saturday, not even a business day. My faithful cat is nestled beside me hoping I won't get out of bed. His mute empathy (or so it seems) is the one thing that comforts me, and I close my eyes and go back to imagining various final episode scenarios for The Mentalist until I fall asleep again briefly. I wake up again a few minutes later trying to think of a good reason to get out of bed. I'm not hungry, so it won't be necessary to cook breakfast. Curtiss, who never sleeps much, is already up and at his computer.
Finally I pull myself out of bed and go into the kitchen to confront the huge pile of bills and other paperwork that I have been avoiding. Not only must I pay my own bills, but there are my father's bills too--the cable/wireless, electric, and the $700/month oil bill that gets deducted from the new estate bank account I set up two weeks ago. The other day, the new credit card was rejected when the oil company ran it, and I had to run to the bank to activate the card by using the ATM. I expect things like this to happen. This morning I find an email from my father's accountant saying she still needs some more papers to file my father's return by April 15, which is looming. I have to wait until Monday to get any business done, and I already have several to-dos on my iCal for that day. I make a note of the phone calls I must make, then make a call and leave a text trying to track down a "handyman" who has been using my father's garage as a storage facility for two years. My father, in a weak moment, apparently agreed to allow him to do this. The man is said to be an alcoholic and utterly irresponsible. The good news is, he's apparently come to take away some of it. The house is being shown, and it doesn't help to have the garage stuffed floor to ceiling with junk.
Then there's the contractor I've been playing phone tag with. The hall light ceiling fixture in dad's house has filled with water and no longer works, and there is water leaking from the roof in another part of the house according to our house sitter, Tasha. I can only hope that the house doesn't need a whole new roof. As Dad's gambling habit grew worse, he neglected repairs to the house. The landscaper who mows the lawn and prunes the trees said that Dad had neglected the grounds for years because he didn't want to pay for the care that would have prevented the property from becoming overgrown.
There is about $6000 in the estate account. This has to be enough to pay for remaining expenses, or I will have to dip into my inheritance money which is supposed to be for our retirement in France or Ecuador, whichever will take us with the least problems. (To that end, I am reviewing my French and learning Spanish online, also reviewing my Italian since it's there--this has become a daily distraction from the bureaucratic black hole I have been sucked into.) Of course, the sale of Dad's house will enable us to pay any unpaid bills, but who knows when or if that will occur? There have been at least 3 showings but no offers. The beautiful old 18th century house with its barn, guest house, and garage on 3.5 acres of land enclosed by extraordinary stone walls, with ancient trees and my mother's perennial beds which still survive 28 years after her death. Selling for $220,000 asking price, which means we will be lucky to get $210,000. It's a travesty--the house was assessed at $350,000 just a few years back. But Connecticut is in a depression. The state is out of money, so the Town of Mansfield levies taxes on every possible thing, including the privilege of taking your bulky and large trash to the dump. The Holts' Georgian mansion, furnished with antiques, now a bed and breakfast, is still on the market, down to $800,000 from the original listing price of $1,000,000. Mrs. Holt is the heiress to the Holt, Reinhardt, and Winston publishing fortune, and if her mansion were in Newton, MA, it would be selling for 2.5 million.
I have come to believe that I am unlucky as far as money is concerned. It's not because I don't manage money well--I do--it's just that my father gambled away the money my grandfather meant my brother and me to have, and Dad just assumed we'd recoup the money when we sold his house. He also thought that when he hit the big jackpot at the casino his kids would be set for life. Instead, if he ever won any money, he just gambled with it again. And lost. He died without any winnings.
No one compelled me to become a musician. In my 20's, I thought with the arrogance of youth that I would make a lot of money some day. Instead, it meant a hand-to-mouth existence my entire adult life, always worrying that I would not have enough money to pay the rent or later, the mortgage. What I feared most was ending up on the street, a bag lady muttering to herself. While this has never even come close to happening, I have had to budget strictly. I have not bought a new car since 1999 and I paid cash so as not to have loan payments. Even then, I had to beg my father to give me the $12,000 I needed along with $3000 I borrowed from Barbara. My own condo needs repairs that we cannot afford. Curtiss, who generously gave me a lot of money (when he had it) to do repairs on the house, is now on disability. I am 60 years old and have no pension--I am part-time, paid by the hour, lucky to have health care thanks to the Berklee union. I have been functioning this way since 1995. I will probably not be able to retire--they say you need at least 1 million saved up. I work very hard, am always exhausted, and make very little money. I have a lot of company. The corporate culture has created this scenario for the majority of my generation. And now they are taking away our Social Security, which in any event will be a pittance and not enough to retire on.
I remind myself every day that there are things to be grateful for.
my eyesight: saved by Dr. Sang, one of the best retinal surgeons in the country
my son: doing well at his job in Ecuador, planning to go to grad school along with his girlfriend, whom I also love
Curtiss: one of the few people who always have my back, who is getting well slowly but surely, and talking about getting a job
Barbara: another of the few who always have my back, still my loyal friend after all these years
my other girl friends: Debbie, Fay, Jeri, Phyllis, Lori, Yanni. They keep me sane.
my little students: Gavi, Ella, Ally, Sarah, Ava, Pete, Aashini, and Pranati. Learning to play the piano, improving, getting ready for a recital in May! Their drawings have covered a wall behind my piano.
my cat Sparky: a lap cat, doglike, he follows me around trying to console me in that mute animal way
my Aunt Joan: who also has always had my back, now needs me to have hers. I have never seen her cry before until she lost Buddy. Like me, she is embarrassed to cry in front of others and usually manages not to. At 83, she is hanging onto her health, talking optimistically about coming to visit me in June or July and having me show her around Berklee. She still goes to work every day as a counselor. She is strong and courageous, but she has been crippled by this loss. Something of her energy may have been lost for good. She used to be relentlessly optimistic, cheering me on through my darkest hours; now her optimism is still there, but for the moment it is eclipsed by grief. We spent some time with her in NJ and Curtiss made a video of her talking to me. I am afraid of losing her, too, and if she dies this year I will be overcome with despair. But I have to face the possibility. Not be prepared, because no one can be prepared for the death of someone you love. Death will always drag your loved one to the unknown. No matter how hard you hold on, your grip will be broken and Death will win.
One day I will open my arms to life again and stop thinking about death. I must embrace life or I will never perform or write music again. Life is what gives us the ability to create. At the moment, I am just getting through each day. I sit in front of the TV night after night, anesthetizing myself as I multitask with Facebook, email, word games, language lessons, and various web sites so I don't have to feel the pain. I feel guilty about being a slug, so I forced myself to go to my personal trainer on Thursday and signed up for a once a week session for a month. I'm not exercising as much as usual, and eating sweets and other unhealthy carbs. It's not that I don't care anymore--I just have to muster the strength to care.
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