Musician’s names

Jason Kao Hwang, Rosi Hertlein, Fung Churn Hwei (violins), Stephanie Griffin (viola), Lenny Mims and Carol Buck (cellos), Steve Swell (trombone), Vincent Chancey (French horn), and Waldron Mahdi Ricks (trumpet), Richard Keene (oboe), Elliott Levin (flute, tenor saxophone), Ras Moshe Burnett (soprano and tenor saxophones), Michael Lytle (bass clarinet), Michael Moss (Bb clarinet), Steve Cohn (piano), Billy Stein (guitar), Rick Iannacone (ambient guitar), Larry Roland (string bass), Warren Smith (percussion, vibraphones), Badal Roy (tabla), Chuck Fertal (drums), and Michael Wimberly (djembe, African bells and percussion).

“I cannot do more than hint at what intuition and creativity are, even though I wrote my doctoral dissertation on it. The music took me over. I would awaken with new musical ideas emerging from my unconscious, opening a portal so more musical ideas came streaming in. I wanted every musician to solo—accompanied by fluctuating combinations of orchestral elements with varying colors, shades, and textures. C# or Bb, See Sharp or Be Flat memorializes an accident:  I tripped over a curb, breaking my leg. It grew from a 32 bar phrase into a contrapuntal theme and variations for 22 musicians. The Old One, named after Einstein’s penchant for referring to God as the Old One, follows a musical transmigration of souls transitioning from death to rebirth as the soul progresses from one state to another on the way to reincarnation or attainment of its Buddha nature as described in The Tibetan Book of the Dead, and alternatively describing the passage of the soul from the death of the body to sitting at the feet of God as described in the Qabbala.