Last summer I finally discovered Yael Naïm, a French-Israeli song writer that has become immensely popular, and writes some of the sweetest, most delicious chansons I’ve ever heard, and with so much ease, it hurts my teeth. One of my favorite is ‘Paris’, also riddled with it’s own hmmm-hmmm-ness.

A few weeks ago I went to Paris for the second time in my own life. The first time was when I was a child, with my father and sister, and my memories were full of the adventure you have with your father and sister, but not so much of what it actually felt like to be in that city…

This time the entire stay there was nothing short of enchantment. From the architecture and the food to the way the light hit the pavement after the rain, I found myself constantly being emotionally uplifted and filled with longing. I discovered hints of my dear, wonderful grandmother everywhere I turned, and Ms. Naïm’s tune simply refused to leave my mind:

Yes, it can be damn cold in Paris; but for me every drop of rain seems to whisper a promise, and each snowflake falls to the rhythm of a heart-beat.

The milk sitting quietly, the half-put-away shoes.

I thought that you were circling further from me;

There were attempts at waking up.

A concoction of honey and wild flowers -

To heat the bones from inside.

But my soul is dreaming still, on a train, in Poland;

Closing in on grim distance, and a terror of never arriving.

Yet humans, we reach a destination;

And in that place, the farthest I believed you to be

the nearer you were advancing.

Chipping down the caked-on soot, and grime,

and making the Night hold a hope of morning.

But the crux of my inspirational emotions was the challenge of Mahler’s 4th. There are things that I feel I do well naturally (oftentimes with a whole lot of work added on, and with many a thank you to the universe as well…), and then there is what some might call ‘breath support’.

I have not been blessed with an ability for endless phrasing. Let’s be honest, not even half-endless… I have sought many different instruction on this throughout my career, and at the end of the day I always end up in the same spot – with not enough breath (for what I think the composer is asking) and a really yucky feeling of inadequacy.

Small ribcage maybe? I spent too many years being an athlete and dancer, so that my sense of lower-abdominal relaxation is lacking? I’ve just learned it all wrong from the get-go? I give too much in the wrong places within the phrase?  It’s simply inborn body structure? I get too excited? The list goes on for what might be WRONG. What I might be DOING WRONG. And worse -  how I’m incapable of getting it RIGHT.

Add to that my immense respect and admiration for a great work such as the Mahler. And my respect and admiration for those better artists who can ‘do breathing’ so beautifully. Who can sing a sentence of music as though the entire heavens were flowing inside their lungs. And the shadows begin to loom, my brain begins spinning, and my self esteem starts plummeting…

One of the challenges that seems to be stalking me in this lifetime is finding the balance between what I think others expect of me (that can run the gamut – parents, siblings, teachers, audience members, friends, critics, dead and living composers…) and what I can actually achieve.

Even given the awareness that human beings outside myself are too busy with their own thoughts and their own lives (and, surprise surprise, actually not spending half their mental powers thinking about Hila….) still, those horrible ego-driven demons – appeasing, wanting to be liked – quarrel endlessly with my work at inner growth, self knowledge and self acceptance…

And in realizing how foolishly self involved I am lies my temporary salvation. I understand that I can never be perfect. I can let that great expectation go.  And I try to remind myself that others will see me as they see fit (or not see me at all).

And anyway, heck,  if I try to sing this or that particular melody in one breath it will sound bad. If I really, really, really try not to take a breath, and then take one because I’m on the verge of choking – it will sound bad. I’m here, and this is me (however much I might desire it to be otherwise), so I might as well take as many breaths as I need….

OK, I’m ready. So while sitting on stage, waiting my cue, in the midst of the 3rd movement and some of the most heartbreakingly beautiful music I’ve ever heard I am reminded of the words that I am about to sing:

‘Kein Musik ist ja nicht auf Erden
Die unsrer verglichen kann werden…
…Die englischen Stimmen
Ermutern die Sinnen
Daß alles für Freuden erwacht.’

(‘There is no music on earth
That can be compared to ours…
…The angelic voices rouse the senses
So that everything awakens with joy.’)

Let the angels do their job. I’ll just try to keep breathing.

I’ve always considered showing up to sing in some torn jeans. There’s a fantasy in there somewhere. A thought that it might be liberating, and would allow me to blur the line between ordinary and extraordinary – that is, if you’re one to wear jeans on a daily basis. (And yes, yes, all those fringe contemporary folks have been doing it for years…).

There’s an athereal quality to the program on the 11th, and I’m longing to already be performing it…I’ll be singing ‘Sleep my Child’, ‘Good Night Moon’ and a new, haunting piece by the painfully creative Guy Sigsworth. I went to work with him at his studio a few weeks back and the winds were so strong I’m certain we weren’t in Kansas by the end of it…

And, of course, most of the show will be centered around Eric’s magical choral works with his London based ‘Eric Whitacre Singers’ who are simply PHENOMENAL. Hmmm. He’ll probably look all handsome as usual…And so will all those lovely singers….And the pianist….oof. I guess I need to go shopping.

Last night was one of those dreams. I rode down on the train from London to Cardiff to record Eric’s (Whitacre) new piece ‘Good Night Moon’ with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, for his next ablum…There is something about  journeying in trains (for me) that seems to transport (pun intended?) into the realm of magic realism. As if the movement along the earth somehow is revealing tears in the fabric of perceived time and reality. Then this music. That is so heart-achingly sweet and like good music puts a layer of meaning into words that I never felt on their own. And finally the gift of strings (and some superb engineers) leaves me with a feeling that I’d like to stay asleep for a while longer…

I hope you might enjoy what you see and hear, and perhaps even find in it some meaning…In the words of the great 20th Century philosopher Aaron Copland: “The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, Is there a meaning to music?” My answer would be, “Yes.” And “Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?” My answer to that would be, “No.” Heh.

Please take note that my blog, along with all of your wonderful comments, have permanently moved to this site.

And finally, in the words of a great 21st Century awesome dude I know: WOO HOO!!!!

About a year ago he also began sharing some compositions with his friends, and they are nothing short of magnificent. His choice of poetry is always extremely personal, which, combined with his super-strong musical chops makes for seriously moving and compositions (And I personally find this to be true with most composers – the more the poetry is personally connected to their psyche, regardless of whether or not it’s ‘good’, the better the work…).

Recently I had the privilege of recording one song of his with his partner Damon Kirche, who is possibly the best actor I know, has the voice of a GOD and is the spitting image of Clark Kent when he finally takes off his glasses (dammit girls, we can’t have em’ all…).

The phenomenal Tali Tadmor is at the piano, and here below is the full, brilliant set of Andrew’s 3 Walt Whitman songs:

Three Whitman Songs

Music by Andrew Martin, Poems by Walt Whitman

I. I Knew a Man (from “I Sing the Body Electric”)

(ded. to Frederick Kirschenmann)

I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons,
And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons.
This man was of wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person,
The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and beard, the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes, the richness and breadth of his manners,
These I used to go and visit him to see, he was wise also,
He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome.
They and his daughters loved him, all who say him loved him,
They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with personal love.
He drank water only.
When he went with his five sons and many grandsons to hunt or fish, you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang,
You would wish long and long to be with him, you would wish to sit by him in the boat that you and he might touch each other

II. I Think I Could Turn (from “Song of Myself”)

(ded. to Annie, Carolyn and Janet)

I think I could turn and live with animals, they’re so placid and self contain’d,
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the earth.

III. We Two, How Long Were We Fool’d

(for Dan and Aria)

We two, how long we were fool’d,
Now transmuted, we swiftly escape as Nature escapes,
We are Nature, long have we been absent, but now we return,
We become plants, trunks, foliage, roots, bark,
We are bedded in the ground, we are rocks,
We are oaks, we grow in the openings side by side,
We are what locust blossoms are, we drop scent around lanes mornings and evenings,
We are also the coarse smut of beasts,
We browse,
We are two among the wild herds spontaneous as any,
We prowl fang’d and four-footed in the woods, we spring on prey,
We are two fishes swimming in the sea together,
We are two predatory hawks, we soar above and look down,
We are what the atmosphere is, transparent, receptive, pervious, impervious,
We are two resplendent suns, we it is who balance ourselves orbic and stellar,
We are seas mingling,
We are snow, rain, cold, darkness, we are each product and influence of the globe,
We have circled and circled till we have arrived home again, we two,
We have voided all but freedom and all but our own joy.

We had a full day of shooting, with so many different looks and moods, and the team that worked with us was absolutely superb.

My dearest friend and colleague, Omar Crook , who is one of the most talented people I know, came and shot video of the day (as well as his usual supply of comedic relief), and then produced and directed this beautiful video.

Thank goodness he didn’t include all the moments of me trying really hard not to fall in some of those shoes…that’ll be for the outtakes.

if you strip me
the wonderfully hurting of your eyes stripping me;
just before…with no self pity,
so incessantly; fresh smell of tragedy.
layer by layer by layer
dark spell of my womb
elementary physics
flooding up my heart’s room
I try avoiding this yearning -
sweet ginger peach tea;
it’s no use
no excuse
some long forgotten truce
I’m down to my slip
and you just continue to…
layer by layer by layer
dark spell of my womb
elementary physics
crowding up my heart’s room
I try avoiding this yearning -
sweet ginger peach tea
I’m down to my knee
if you strip me.

Find that little pain and stay there
Stay there
Rummage through vast loneliness and stay there
Stay there
Just before the blossoming of the tip of a twig
Just before -
Stay there
You’ve received and incomplete
You’ll be stuck on some odd planet
Stay there with me, with me.
Take that little pain and bind it
Pile that dusty loneliness and mind it
Mind it
Quick cold sharpness of an edge
Sweet completeness in the falling
One more push and all the world lies drenched
In some strange light
Stay there with me
With me.