Greetings All,

Just a quick note to announce a couple of upcoming concerts on the Holiday weekend.

Firstly, I’d like to announce the emergence of a new summer music festival on Governor’s Island in NYC, in which I’ll be participating in the inaugural concert. I’ll let the press speak for the new Rite of Summer Music Festival:

Pianists Blair McMillen and Pam Goldberg announce the first annual Rite of Summer Music Festival, taking place Summer 2011 on Governors Island, New York City. This will be the first classical-contemporary concert series on Governors Island, a place the New York Times has called a “Playground for the Arts.” The aim of the Festival is simple: to present the highest quality live performances, and to bring free contemporary classical music to as many people as possible in a relaxed, fun, outdoor setting.

Each Rite of Summer show will be presented twice the same day, at 1pm and 3pm, for each respective date. Audiences should feel free to walk by, stop and listen, lay down a picnic blanket and relax, eat lunch, intermingle, and take in these exciting live performances.

The festival’s opening concert, a blowout performance of Terry Riley’s infamous minimalist manifesto “In C,” will be performed July 2. Led by keyboardist/conductor/musical impresario Jed Distler, the show will feature over 40 of New York’s top freelance musicians (my note: including yours truly on soprano saxophone )

Rain date will be the following day, Sunday the 3rd, same performance times of 1 and 3.

Jed Distler and I have worked a great deal together in recent years. He is an incredible musician and a wonderful friend, and it will be a joy to perform with him again this weekend. Below is a video clip of us performing Terry Riley’s In C for “Make Music New York” June 21, 2007:

Terry Riley\’s \”In C\” @ MAKE MUSIC NEW YORK

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The other concert I have this weekend I unfortunately will not be in attendance. This one is happening on July 4 in Beijing, China, where the TIMI Modern Music Ensemble under the direction of Dr. Benoit Granier will perform my composition Gymnopaedia, which I adapted for their unique ensemble (originally written for clarinet and piano) for performances in Boston and NYC, with me on clarinet. The ensemble will give my piece its China premier with a local clarinetist. I’m delighted and honored that they have decided to program the work.

Here is a video of the premier performance at Northeastern University in Boston on April 7, 2011:

Gymnopaedia, premiere with TIMI Ensemble

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Thank you all for your continued support. I wish you all a safe and enjoyable Holiday.

Yours,

Demetrius

Greeting All,

Well, I made it home safely and soundly. Not surprisingly, the first thing I did when I got to my neighborhood was to have some good ol’ NYC pizza…

ARTErra is a wonderful place. I think that for an artist wanting to be left to their creativity and to be able to experience as much or as little of the local culture as they wish to, ARTErra is a perfect setting. This was a new experience for me, being able to focus on one project and to be away from everyone or anything as much as I wished. The amount of work I got done was tremendous, and yet I did still get the benefit of experiencing local/rural Portuguese culture when I wished to. A win-win situation.

Time spent in this manner can be quite cathartic. I mean, there were times that I didn’t interact with anyone for days, which I think for some artists is a preferable state, but not really so much for me. I am a social creature, and I think that I need human interaction–spending too much time alone with my own thoughts can be an educational experience to say the least, if not downright disturbing…although I did learn a lot about myself and maybe also learned a little more about who I am and what I can do to improve my life…hours upon hours of silence–save for the sheep in the meadow next door–leads one to reflect and assess one’s life and actions and decisions and future plans.

[Side note: I used to have this utterly Romantic notion of living in a lighthouse somewhere on the New England coastline, barring myself away from society to create with nothing but nature as influence and companion...in retrospect, I don't think this would be a particularly good idea anymore...]

That being said, I did create a CD’s worth of music. I like this music, but the question now is what to do with it.

Herein lies my existential question, or at least existential in-so-far as the music industry is concerned:

In 2011, is it prudent, or even worth it, to create a physical CD?

As I have mentioned in the past, I believe I am a part of the last generation of musicians who need a physical ‘token’ to show others and say: “look, look what I have created”…those of us who grew up in the 70′s and 80′s remember the awesome album covers, especially the double ones, with fold-out posters and booklets and pages of liner notes and real artwork. An album was not just a collection of songs, but a unified concept. This has changed drastically over the last years, and physical album sales–not to mention surviving physical record stores–are marginal at best, and dropping every day. My college students don’t own CDs; everything is digitalized. Are record companies a dinosaur, best left wallowing in the past? Sure, you can sell CDs at live shows (which seems to be the ONLY real sales outlet for them) but you also can sell digital download cards for far less money; I mean, let’s face facts, even if you’re a major artist in a fringe genre (like contemporary classical or jazz) you’ll be lucky to break even (*very* lucky) on CD production costs, so forget any idea of profit for the rest of us. But profit is not why you do it…

Also, I just may not want to go the way of this recording. These new pieces may serve me better by being sketches for other pieces later. Some parts can be incorporated into other styles, like world music, and others may have a better life in the commercial world of television or radio advertisement. What I need to do is shelve them for a few weeks, maybe months, and decide what is best.

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Lisbon is a gorgeous city. An absolute jewel and full of life. I am happy that I spent a couple of days there to help lead me back into city life (remember that NYC and the entire country of Portugal have almost the same population) and I really enjoyed the sites, especially the Castelo de Sao Jorge and the Alfama quarter. Below are a few photos of my two days there.

Thank you all again for your interest and support. Concerts and other announcements, as well as more of my verbose musings, coming soon.

Demetrius

Lisbon and Castelo de Sao Jorge, view from Bairro Alto

Baixa cafes and shopping

Praca Do Comercio

View from Pavilhao dos Desportos

Av. da Liberdade

Rossio and Castelo de Sao Jorge

Lisbon, view from Castelo de Sao Jorge

Castelo de Sao Jorge

Alfama Quarter

Final meal, in Alfama cafe

Well, it’s done…

I finished it…well, I finished composing and arranging all of the music for it, anyways. The content of the CD is ‘on paper,’ now I just have to record it…which will happen back in the States, hopefully in the fall.

I was a tad worried at the end, I must admit. I was having trouble with two of the pieces: Ruthless on 2nd Avenue and Sweet Rain, which are the 5th and 6th tracks (out of 7) on the CD, respectively. The problems were different with each.

Sweet Rain I thought had a wonderfully strong beginning (if I may be as so bold to say; in many ways it’s my favorite piece of the lot) but I had no idea what to do with it after that; Ruthless on 2nd Avenue just felt kinda lame…

I’ll start with Ruthless on 2nd Avenue because I fixed it first. I liked the idea of the piece: a ‘dirty swamp funk’ influenced by tunes like Steely Dan’s Josie and Miles Davis’ Tutu (being honest here). It’s a blues with ‘altered’ harmonies and a chromatic (chordally speaking) bridge–very me. I liked the melody, too, but there was something missing…

So, I was walking down by the river (where it seems most of my better ideas for this music came from) and I was thinking about if any of the tunes on the album could be rearranged for my Jazz Orchestra at Five Towns College. This one came to mind and I started thinking about it–arranging it in my head. That’s when it hit me…”HORNS,” I exclaimed, perhaps out loud, “it needs horns!”

So, that’s what I did–added a horn section a la Tower of Power to it, playing hits and counter-lines. Of course, that means five more people on the CD ($$$$..and one more $), but that’s OK. It’s for art’s sake

Sweet Rain was really bothering me. I loved the idea of the piece: a meditative work featuring a soaring saxophone in its stratosphere. I really loved it, but after the first presentation of the melody, I was stuck. “What do I do now”, I thought, “it’s not quite meant for improvisation, but I’ve got less than 2 minutes of music”.

The worst part was that it was one of the first things I wrote here; after the first day on it, I stopped working on it because of being stuck, so it was needling me for three weeks…

The idea of what to do came to me while standing in the sunlight on Tuesday morning. It’s funny, all I was doing was standing there, and really not thinking about the piece (at least not consciously) at all. I was looking over the fields where the sheep are–the ones that wake me up at dawn with their bleating–and for some reason (and this shows you the oddity of my psyche) I thought ‘fretless electric bass’…the music on the CD is conceived with an electric bass (5-string, to be exact) in mind, but it never occurred to me to have the bass player switch instruments (embarrassingly odd for an arranger/orchestrator, I know…).

So, what I ended up doing is just using the initial melody I wrote three times. The first and third with saxophone melody, the second with fretless bass on melody. The drums/percussion intensifies as the piece evolves through the melody, and the piano stays exactly the same. It works, methinks. It really is just a show-off piece for me and my altissimo playing, but now it’s far more interesting.

I spent Wednesday listening through everything to make sure I still liked it all, and by the afternoon declared the CD complete.

Thursday I rested, really feeling the weight and intensity of the past month.

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Today, I was a guest (along with fellow resident Gil Trythall) of the Instituto Piaget in Viseu. I spent the morning giving a demonstration performance and talk on improvisation to most of the student body, and in the afternoon gave a master class on equipment and performance interpretation to the students of Henrique Portovedo, the saxophone teacher there. This is really a delightfully lovely campus, and the students and faculty were very attentive to my presentation, which I’m sure was a tad out of their more musically conservative upbringing’s realm.

The photos below are from the day.

Tomorrow is my last day at ARTErra; Sunday I travel to Lisbon for two days, then finally back to New York City on Tuesday morning. As much as I have loved this experience here at ARTErra, I honestly am ready to go home. My final blog on Lisbon will probably happen sometime after I return.

Until then,

Demetrius

The day begins

Improvising on Gershwin's "Summertime"

Lecturing on improvisation

Saxophone master class

Working with a student on the Glazunov "Concerto" (yes, I remember it )

At the end of the day, with saxophone students and faculty

I’m posting a blog that has absolutely nothing to do with music.

Or me…amazing, isn’t it? Don’t worry, I’ll get back on track with the next blog.

The fact of the matter is, I have been surrounded by pain and death very recently. Not only in my own family with my uncle/Godfather passing, but also the passing of friends and members of friend’s families. My Memorial Day post referenced my close friend Sam Parkins who passed–along with another dear friend halfway across the world–the week of Thanksgiving. I have been touched as recently as this past week by the death of people and also learning about the struggles of others who are fighting with their last will to survive.

So what I want to do today–here and now–is publicize some links and give information that may potentially make a difference in someone’s life. Much of this is Boston/Lowell, MA centric, but information is applicable anywhere.

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First and foremost, if there is any plague or pestilence ever levied upon mankind that could ever be traced to Infernal doings, it is cancer. I am at a loss to even go into my feelings towards this one, having lost so many people to it very recently, including my father who passed on Father’s Day weekend–that anniversary is coming up next week for those of you outside the US. The pain, the slow decline into oblivion…horrible…and it seems that more and more people that I know are getting it.

A friend from my high school has it. He is not winning…

There are kind and loving people who are helping by organizing a benefit to help his family pay their bills:

Skaff Family Benefit

If you are in the Greater Lowell area, please consider helping this family.

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Also in Lowell on September 23rd will be the Show Of Hope Benefit Concert

Website:

“The best laid schemes of mice and men / Go oft awry…”

This is actually one of my favorite sayings; seems appropriate most of the time.

Of course, I could also reference the Grateful Dead and say “what a long, strange trip it’s been.”

I’ve been having a difficult time with my titles. Not only the complete album title, but the titles of the individual tracks. The original working title, as you may recall, is Painting, referring to the fact that the pieces on the album were to be musical sketches or portraits of places, ideas, feelings, relationships, etc. That may or may not still be the case, but it seems that the ‘model’ I’m painting is wearing different clothes…

The original concept of the album was about relationships: to each other, to nature, to spirituality. My idea was to come to this lovely rural setting at ARTErra in Portugal to write esoteric music that communed with nature and dealt with Transcendental spirituality…

…well, that didn’t happen.

You know what happened: I started composing very intense jazz fusion music instead. I even started writing these pieces with the original titles that I had in mind, but that didn’t change how the music evolved…my esoteric titles about nature and relationships quickly became obsolete, and inappropriate…

It really didn’t hit me until a couple of days ago: I came to rural Portugal to create an album that for all intent and purpose is a love letter to New York City…

…funny, ain’t it?

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder”…another oldie but goodie…

So here I am, in the most idyllic and Arcadian of setting writing the most intense and aggressive music I have ever written.

Which leads me to my titles…once I came to grips with this fact, the titles were able to work themselves out (with a lot of help from me and a scratch pad and pencil…). My lovely Edenic titles like The River and Spring became more appropriately Broadway Boogie and Ruthless on 2nd Avenue.

[Side note: Speaking of Edenic, there's an "after the Fall" joke just begging to be told here--the implications and parallels are frightening, aren't they?]

But I’m now OK with it, really. I was feeling very unsettled about the whole project, but I’ve learned to (ahem) “Let it Be”…

The album title? I don’t know…maybe that will change, too…I need another week or so to work that one out.

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But onto my last day trip!

On Wednesday I took a trip to Porto, the major city in the north of Portugal.

In all honesty, there is a certain vibe that all ‘second cities’ have. The main cities in a country are usually bustling international centers. The second cities have learned their role, become comfortable with it, and take on an air of a big city with small city values; the quality of life is usually extremely higher, albeit a tad boring. One loves the excitement and energy of a New York City, a Moscow, an Athens, but the draw of quality of life in a Boston, St. Petersburg, or Salonika (Thessaloniki) is quite appealing, as well. It’s easier to live there…you can breathe.

Porto is beautiful, reclining on the Duoro River and basking in its charming splendor. Needless to say, this is also the center of Port production, of which I indulged at the Sandeman factory (and museum!). But, the city is just lovely to walk and relax in and take in the scenery. This was a much needed break from the intense, daily grind of my work here.

I’ll let the photos do the talking for me.

Until Soon,

Demetrius

Avenida dos Aliados and City Hall

Torre dos Clerigos

View from the Torre dos Clerigos

View from Ribeira

View from Gaia

Attention: we have found the motherload...

Typical city street

Trecking up to The Se

The Se

So today, it happened…

Over the last couple of days, I have been listening to the tunes (well, midi realizations of the tunes, somewhat arranged) of what I have written. I was starting to become of two minds about this project. The issue was that balance was missing…I seem to have written pieces that were falling into two categories: some more rock/fusion oriented, others more new age/esoteric. The problem was that there was no flow to the tracks in and out of each other; the adjacent tracks were too different, thereby undermining any sense of a unified artistic whole…I was starting to get frustrated…I mean, I *like* everything I’m writing–really like everything–but how to bind them into one, complete statement?

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Rewind to the early 90′s: I am spending a week with my closest friends from high school–granted, we were in our mid-20′s by this point; but we were all still close–up on the New Hampshire sea coast. Now, I won’t bore–or frighten!–you with the details of that week, which was probably run-of-the-mill for guys in their mid-20′s in a resort area (this is a family show, after all…) but I will say that a series of ‘recreational events’ led to the creation of this little bass-line–a little funk bass-line–that for the last 20 or so years has decided to occasionally pop in and out of my psyche…

Fast-forward to my first week at ARTErra: I’m reclining on my bed, between working on things, and I hear this insipid little bass-line knocking on my consciousness…knock…knock…”Who is it? Oh…it’s you…OK, well, come on in for a bit”…the funny thing that occurred to me is that I never wrote the bass-line down before, so then I did. It’s actually quite tricky and syncopated, so I had to think about it for a minute. I played it on my computer a few times, and went back to work on my other tunes.

This morning…after a long day yesterday and a long frustrating night (until well after 2AM) listening and listening over and over and not being happy about the record’s balance, I woke up to this little bass-line…knock…knock…

OK, fine…you wanna hang around and play with the big kids? Let’s see what you got!

So…I started playing around with it. It’s actually quite catchy. I started to think what kind of melody would work over it, and what kind of drum beat. I needed it to be hip, real hip.

I started to like what was happening…it felt right…I got excited…

After a few hours, it came together really nicely. It was definitely in the funk/fusion realm, but with a great deal of melodic/rhythmic counterpoint which throws everything off at an obtuse angle, if this makes any sense. It also begged to be placed in the middle of the CD: 4th of 7th–batting ‘clean-up,’ if you please–as a way of rotating the rest of the tunes around it. needless to say, I’m delighted.

I do find it amazing that little melodies and ideas I wrote so many years ago have been finding their ways into my current work. It’s like remembering your ‘roots’ and where you came from–this helps you see where you’re going.

But…I won’t tell you the name of the tune just yet. I really can’t–I’ll have to then explain it, which will give far too much insight and breed many questions about the ‘recreational activities’ and circumstances that created it. (shhh…I’ll tell you all later )

I will, however, add that I have been in discussion with a record label about this new CD. In fact, I edited and sent them short clips of all seven today (yep, including the one I penned today) to bring the discussions to the next level. I, of course, can’t tell you the record label *just* yet…but we both want it to work out–I will, however, give that information well before I tell you the title and explanation of the new tune…sorry…

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Tomorrow, I will head to Porto for the day to breathe in the culture of that city. I need the break–it’s been an intense weekend–and I must take day-trips like this to really experience Portugal’s culture. Being at the residency is wonderful, but we are somewhat abstracted and removed from daily life here. That, and I spend numerous hours without seeing or talking to anyone, save myself…sometimes I’ve completely missed daylight…can’t do that too often, it ain’t healthy.

I am at the moment enjoying a glass of Port in honor and anticipation of my journey tomorrow. I may even not work anymore tonight after publishing this…imagine that…

Until Soon,

Demetrius

View from my favorite work studio at ARTErra

It’s my third Saturday here at ARTErra.

The work has been going very well. I have ‘down on paper’ six pieces (or at least parts thereof) which I know will make the new CD. I feel that the magic number for this project is seven–I like the number seven–because I think that the music selections will be best in-balance with seven. I think I have an idea of what the seventh will be, but I need to see how the other six will come together. I am spending this weekend editing and arranging what I’ve got to see what I’ve got.

I am enjoying working here tremendously and I am having great fun writing the type of music that I’m writing. However, as I’ve mentioned, the entire vibe of the CD has changed, which will in-turn completely change the eventual production of it. Style of music aside, the project has gone from an ensemble recording to an entirely me-centric recording. This isn’t a bad thing, mind you, just different. Initially, I was to create this ensemble and rehearse for a couple of months since most of the music would be through-composed. The recording sessions then would’ve been the entire ensemble in the studio at the same time; the chamber-music nature of the music would demand this since success would depend upon visual communication.

Now, since everything has changed, this process becomes obsolete and unnecessary.

Considering the fusion (jazz-rock) nature of what I’m doing, and considering the fact that this CD is really about ME, after all, what I will probably do is hire session players to come in and lay the tracks down, not unlike a rock album. I can also use different players for different tracks, depending on the vibe I want. The music’s structure will be pretty concrete, and for the most part purely as a platform for me to play over. I can worry about live performances and touring after the fact.

The nature of the music I’m writing is very virtuosic on numerous levels, not the least being harmonically. I am writing music that will show me off, most especially my improvising and technique. I do have to be careful, however, to make sure that it’s not all fire and flash. I think that this is potentially an issue for many composers who are also performers. In my case–and I’ll be completely honest here with all humility aside–I have very fast and clean technique; I’m very proud of this. In my mid-20′s, I was savvy enough to realize that my technique was lacking, so I spent years (still do!) working my technique, sharpening those skills. This has served me well since many composers and producers will call on me to play virtuosic music in performances and sessions, and is also the basis why there have been so many pieces written for me as a soloist or for me within an ensemble, across all genres. I am known as a technical player, and I am constantly called on to stretch the envelope and the limits of the horn(s); this is funny considering that early on in my career my lack of technique was almost my downfall professionally. Practice does make perfect…

Needless to say, the classical composer that I most identify with is Franz Liszt.

Franz Liszt

Liszt was the greatest pianist of his–if not ANY–time. He was also a great and innovative composer and conductor; he also led a very interesting life. Liszt wrote for himself, and did it beautifully: the music was firery and virtuosic yet had incredible levels of substance far beyond most concerto or solo works written before or since. This is the standard that I aspire.

I am editing this weekend so that I can at least have saxophone parts to start working on Monday. As I said, the music is hard…real hard. My harmonic relationships sound very smooth, but are very difficult to play/solo over, which is *exactly* what I want. Even though I wrote it, I will have to spend time working out all of the possibilities on the horn; considering that I do only have the soprano sax with me, this won’t be easy. The music has all been conceived for tenor–I actually don’t think that I’ll use the soprano at all, after all–and is very ‘tenor-oriented.’ In layman’s terms, this means that trying to produce on soprano some of the ‘tenorisms’ I use will be very difficult: the horn is half the size and considerably less flexible, especially in the extreme registers. There is at least one tune that I won’t even attempt for fear of damage to myself or anyone in listening distance…I’ll wait until I get home for that one…

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On a completely different topic, I took a lovely day trip on Thursday to Coimbra: a Medieval city that was once Portugal’s capitol and is also the location of it’s oldest and most prestigious university. This is exactly what I needed to ‘get out of my head’ for a bit. The Old City is built upon a hill and is capped by the University; the modern city surrounds it. The Old City is a lovely maze of winding cobblestone streets that are at very steep grades. Climbing up to the University via this route ain’t easy, but it was fun. At the University, I got to see the newly-renovated Baroque Library (no photos allowed, unfortunately), which was breathtaking with its gilding, carved walls, and paintings…not to mention the incredible collection of old tomes. The neat thing is that one of the ways that they protect the books from insects is to care for a colony of bats in the Library: every night, they cover the delicate furniture and shelves and let the bats go to work on the insects. Brilliant, really.

I spent the rest of the day lounging about at lunch (close to 3 hours, but who’s keeping track), visited the Santa Cruz Cathedral and Monastery, and poking around the city, both old and new. I need to remember to take days like this and actually enjoy this lovely country once in a while…

Until Soon,

Demetrius

Coimbra; at the foot of the Old City

Gate to the Old City

Old City street

Old City street 2

The University

View from the main University building

View of the City

Santa Cruz Cathedral and Monastary

Inside the Monastary

Praça do Comércio (Commerce Square)

Greetings,

I want to muse about perception and the sense of belonging.

I think what has generated this topic has been my work here at ARTErra. Probably the crux of it is the type of music that I’m writing. I am writing what I’m hearing, and I am having fun doing it, but…maybe my concern is expectation; what is expected of me, from my peers and colleagues…I think I’m bothered that what I’m doing may actually be perceived as nothing but a vanity project and go no further…I mean, the music is good, really quite good, and maybe part of my perception of this project is clouded by the fact that it has been so easy to write (granted, being away from my normal over-taxed lifestyle probably has something to do with it…).

And it IS fun…but it is also causing me some existential angst…

You know, I am an improviser. I came to through-composed music from a  jazz/rock background. I have always had my career on both sides of the fence–classical and (for lack of a better term) jazz/commercial–and had taken quite a lot of grief professionally for it during the Boston-centric period of my career: the jazz guys called me classical, and the classical guys called me jazz. I saw it as making a living…it wasn’t until I started to become more in touch with the NYC scene (and eventually moving there) that I realized that what I did was purely acceptable, even lauded.

Boston is a rather small and conservative music scene…a great place to study, and greater place to leave…

But back to my dilemma:

After my first solo CD (classical), I swore never to do another classical CD; my second, however, was also classical–granted, more experimental with more improvisation, but still contemporary classical. Both of these CDs were on Capstone Records. There were numerous reasons why I did these, and many had to do with certain composers who I liked and worked with and who supported (both artistically and financially) the projects. I have no regrets, but I’ll still never do another one…

My third CD was a collection of improvisations with vocalist Galina Parfenova (Sfumato); this was a gem, but a once in a lifetime gem. It won’t (probably can’t) be repeated. And to be honest, I didn’t know what to do with the masters, but it was the end of 2009, it had been almost 3 years since my last CD, and I had to get something out, so I produced it. Even if it could be repeated or evolved, I don’t know if I would.

Which brings me to what I’m writing now. I have been wanting to do something like this for years, but maybe I’ve been afraid of perception and no longer ‘belonging’ within certain circles…of course, I never really was in any given circle, which is what makes a lot of this ambivalence very funny…I NEVER felt I belonged…sure, I skimmed the periphery of certain circles: orchestra, music theater, big band, etc., even the NYC contemporary music scene, but I never felt part of the clique…but again, I don’t think I ever wanted to…

I am a soloist…a loner, really…that’s how my career, my life, has evolved. Outside looking in…invited to all the parties, but never go…

[Side note: You know, it's funny. On Facebook there is a lot of action happening on a page dedicated to my Lowell High School graduating class because of the upcoming 25th HS reunion. I'm thoroughly enjoying the interaction with people whom I haven't seen since that time, and many whom I didn't really speak to that much then. It's interesting because sites/pages like this also create an interesting sense of belonging...very human while being very abstract...if I actually go to this reunion (which will more than likely be when I'm out of the country; these things usually are) I'll tell you if this sense is actually reality...]

Perception is a funny thing. I was discussing with my host about the village here. She said that it is 1000 years old, and also jokingly said that something “100 years is very old in America, but here, this village is 1000; Americans are babies!” My response: well, my family is from Greece; 1000 years? Please. Villages there are well over 3000…you are babies. Of course, I then related similar conversations with colleagues from Egypt…”3000? Please…you Greeks are babies!”

Reading Don Quixote hasn’t helped matters. In fact, it’s quite difficult to read because I think it hits very close to home. Artists live in a state of perpetual illusion: our perception of the world is a little different…our perception of what we do and our connection to it defines our psyche; the fact that our ties to reality are gossamer at best enhances this. The sense of delusion in Don Quixote is similar, in certain ways. I mean, we’re not clinically crazy, us creative types, but we do see the world in a very different way. What we create relates in a way to the Platonic Ideal…are we just Demiurges of our own little universes trying to put in physical terms what can’t ever be? Are we ’tilting at windmills’…?

I’d like to believe that what I’m doing with this project isn’t ’tilting at windmills’ but that it is a representation of my purest expression in a different format. I feel as if this needs to happen at this point in my life. I am actually more convinced today then yesterday; this morning, I penned what will be probably be the closing track…I’m calling it Only The Beginning…

Let’s hope so.

Yours,

Demetrius

Quiet contemplation...