How did I fall in love with Japan? What made me go to Japan in 1974?

#1 Two movies: James Bond’s You Only Live Twice and Akira Kurosawa’s The 7 Samurai. Both movies inspired me to made my own research about this country and its people: about the old and modern Japan of that time. Before watching these movies I had already started to practice Japanese martial arts, such as Judo, Karate and Kendo. At that time Germans and Europeans in general had no interest in Japan. During my school days nobody taught or talked about the country “of the rising sun.”

#2 Before watching these movies I had already started to practice Japanese martial arts, such as Judo, Karate and Kendo in Hamburg, Germany. Eventually Kendo became my budo love. My Japanese Kendo teacher at that time, who was from Osaka, was my inspiration. After he went back to Japan he invited me to come to Osaka and study Kendo under him.

#3  When I was a teenager Germans and Europeans in general had no interest in Japan. During my school days nobody taught or talked about the country “of the rising sun.”  But the OSAKA EXPO changed everything. Late at night I watched on tv  a  documentary film of the world fair OSAKA EXPO which was held for the first time in Japan in 1970. In this documentary this world event and especially the West German pavilion was featured as the world’s first spherical concert hall, based on artistic concepts by the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. The pavilion theme was Gardens of Music. The audience was surrounded by 50 loudspeakers around the interior walls of the pavilion. The sound was three dimensional created by a spherical controller designed by Fritz Winckel.  Works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Bernd Alois Zimmermann, and Boris Blacher were played from a multi-track tape. But the main act and attraction was Stockhausen who was invited to present a five and a half hour live program of his own music which was played by 19 musicians of Stockhausen’s ensemble every day over a period of 183 days to a total audience of about a million expo visitors.

#4 The news of the death of the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima in November 25, 1970 who killed himself by seppuku after a failed coup d’état. I couldn’t believe that Mishima had the guts to plunge a short blade into his abdomen and move the blade from left to right in a slicing motion. Ouch…very painful.

#5 The LP Tony Scott’s  Music for Zen Meditation with Hozan Yamamoto on shakuhachi. Man I loved the shakuhachi sound!!!

So when I was 19 I left Hamburg. Almost everybody around me was against my trip to Japan. My parents couldn’t understand why I wanted to leave them. But I did what I had to do……………………………………………………………………..

Besides I would like you to know about an amusing short Japanese movie The 8th Samurai which was directed bu Justin Ambrosino and filmed in Los Angeles. The movie is in Japanese and using many of the actors from Clint Eastwood’s 2006 Letters from Iwo Jima. This black-and-white feature supposes that there were eight samurais in Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai until an omen caused the director to drop one actor.

Written and Directed by Justin Ambrosino.

Starring Eijiro Ozaki, Akiko Shima, Toshi Toda, Hiroshi Watanabe, Takashi Yamaguchi, Ikumo Ando & Yuki Matsuzaki.

Produced by Soojin Chung, Ken Ochiai, Justin Ambrosino & David Stephenson
Cinematography by Lucas Lee Graham
Edited by Soojin Chung
Music by Romeo Scaccia

Brian Prunka, who recently joined SoSaLa, is with his newest Arabic/Jazz/Oud/? project Nashaz back in town! He’se been laying low for the past few months, rehearsing some new music and preparing to make a record. He’s lucky to have some really amazing musicians involved who bring their passion and talents and personalities to the music: Kenny Warren on trumpet, Nathan Herrera on alto sax, Javier Moreno Sanchez on bass,  Vin Scalia on percussion. And Brian Prunka on oud. Nashaz is going to perform two new tunes.

About Nashaz

Nashaz performs original music that imagines what it would sound like if jazz was invented in the middle east. The seeds of the band were sown in 1995 when founder/oud player Brian Prunka was an upstart jazz musician in New Orleans. Catching a cab to a gig one night, the Egyptian driver noticed the guitar and started talking to him about music. As he dropped Prunka off, he suggested, “you should learn to play the oud, it is the most beautiful instrument.

    Although the comment prompted little more than puzzlement at the time, it turned out to be a prophecy of sorts: soon after, Prunka came across an oud album while digging through a record store and bought it on a whim. When he put the music on, he was hooked. He learned as much of the music as he could on the guitar and then started trying to get his hands on an oud–which was not easy in New Orleans. After months of searching, he finally found someone who could ship him one. Within weeks of receiving it, he had obsessively taught himself dozens of tunes and started performing on oud with some of the more open-eared jazz musicians in the city.

    He later traveled to study with renowned Arab musicians including Simon Shaheen and  Bassam Saba and eventually wound up in Brooklyn, where he met Kenny Warren and Nathan Herrera and their mutual interests led to the formation of Nashaz.

The name of the band is a tongue-in-cheek joke in Arabic, as the word nashaz is used to denote musicianship that is aesthetically displeasing, usually by playing out of tune.

If you want a general description, it’s our take on bringing together elements of the Arabic music tradition in original compositions coming from a jazz sensibility.  Or something along those lines.

2pm  Eloise Fornieles The Orbit

Over the course of one hour, Eloise Fornieles will orbit a cement mixer containing a marble head of Mercury, the mythological messenger of the Roman gods. The cement mixer will slowly chip away parts of the head, eroding the iconographic replica of the divine figure to its original material state. Covering distance yet traveling nowhere, Fornieles uses this repetitive motion as a form of ritualistic journey. Fornieles’ installations create a space for contemplation, while her own emphasis on physical endurance provides a backdrop for a more visceral understanding of the body as material, with its limitations and capabilities.

3pm Rose Eken with Nikolaj Hess Embroidered Songs

Rose Eken’s large-scale embroideries from her ongoing project of hand-stitched band set-lists provide the backdrop for a performance by Danish jazz-pianist and composer Nikolaj Hess. Eken has invited Hess to play variations and interpretations of the songs and song titles from the two embroideries, in turn re-stitching the songs. The two original sets are from the Danish singer/songwriter and guitarist Jacob Rathje; one being his entire repertoire of traditional roots and blues songs, the other the first song he taught himself and performed solo.

4pm Michel Auder Talk and screening

For over forty years pioneering artist Michel Auder has compulsively recorded the events of his life. He will speak about how his work relates to notions of time, followed by a screening of several shorter works. Embracing a variety of roles—including silent participant, obsessive voyeur, discreet accomplice, and simple observer—he creates brashly self-referential films and videos. Through raw and archival footage his work blurs the boundaries between what we remember and what we leave behind.

5pm Leif Elggren with Andrea Beeman, Ken Montgomery, Fabio Roberti, Marja-leena Sillanpää and Lary Seven The Kingdoms of Elgaland-Vargaland

Leif Elggren organizes an evening of sound performances together with his good friends and colleagues from New York. They are all part of the ongoing social process, state of mind and physical territory called The Kingdoms of Elgaland-Vargaland. The event will include performances by Andrea Beeman, (Enchantress of Bioluminosity), Leif Elggren (King), Ken Montgomery (Minister of Lamination), Fabio Roberti (Minister of Failure), Marja-leena Sillanpää, (Gravedigger) and Lary Seven (Minister of Audiology).

Text by Aida Shahghasemi 

A few weeks after his son, Homayoun (read review here), Mohammad Reza Shajarian and the Shahnaz Ensemble gave a concert at Town Hall last month which portrayed creativity and innovation within the realm of Persian classical music.

Who’s Marco Lienhard? What does he do here in NY? Oh, he’s a musician. No kidding. What makes him different from other musicians in NY? Many of these questions he’s going to answer in the video interview.

I have known Marco for more than thirty years. We met in Osaka, Japan, when we were thirty years younger. At that time I studied Kendo at a sports college and had just started playing sax. Marco, as far as I can remember, was an exchange student. We both were young and starting our adult lives far in the Far East. Both of us had no idea that we would stay in Japan for a very long time and would master a specific Japanese art. Marco is one of the first Europeans to learn and master the shakuhachi and taiko drum in Japan, and I myself become a Kendo master. In 2008 NY brought us together.

It is very interesting for you to know that people like Marco and me know more about Japan, the Japanese people and Japanese culture than the Japanese themselves. You might think, how can he say that? But it’s true because it’s a matter of fact that the majority of Japanese don’t know anything about Japanese classical music and their classical instruments? It’s unbelievable that a country like Japan lost track of many of its roots by the invasion of American and European cultures after the Second World War.

In fact Marco, I and many other foreigners around the world keep Japanese culture alive because we learned from Japanese masters. We were willing to listen to them and tried to copy them as best as possible. For doing so we had to learn Japanese and study Japanese history. We had to prove everyday that we were not different from Japanese. Because the common Japanese attitude was that a foreigner, a gaijin, would never understand Japanese culture. But Marco and I proved that’s not true anymore. Due to our gratitude to our teachers and their faith in us we follow in their foot steps and continue teaching and performing their art here in NY and around the world with the hope that Japanese culture stays alive.

Please enjoy the three interview videos below in which Marco speaks about himself,  his life in Japan, his shakuhachi and taiko studies, his career and music workshops, and about his NY concert May 4th and 5th. (Read more about his show here.) And he’s performing on the shakuhachi in the last video.

Taikoza uses the powerful rhythms of the taiko drums to create an electrifying energy that carries audiences in a new dimension of excitement. The taiko is a large, barrel-like drum that can fill the air with the sounds of rolling thunder. Roughly translated, taiko means big drums – and that’s exactly what Taikoza brings. Big drums, powerful rhythms, and electrifying, room-thumping energy. This exciting group draws from Japan’s rich tradition of music and performance to create a highly visual performance.  Drawing from Japan’s rich tradition of music and performance, Taikoza has created a new sound using a variety of traditional instruments. In addition to drums of assorted sizes, Taikoza incorporates the shakuhachi, the fue (both bamboo flutes) and the Koto (a 13 string instrument).

Taikoza’s new CD has been nominated as best Asian Ethnic Album for the Just Plain Folks Music Award. Taikoza has appeared on different TV programs such as Macy’s Thanksgiving parade, the History Channel in “History vs. Hollywood” and ESPN S.U.M.O: The battle of the Giants. Taikoza is featured in the Movie: The Commute.

www.undeadmusic.com

May 9-12 2012, BOOM Collective and Search & Restore bring you the Undead Music Festival for

4-days, featuring more than 200 musicians in over 20 venues across the country and beyond.

The Undead Music Festival returns, celebrating the incredible, dynamic, explosively creative jazz, instrumental, and adventurous music being made in New York Cityand beyond.  Launched in June of 2010 our aim was to attract new audiences to serious music while challenging industry standards and redefining the festival experience.  Now in our third year we continue with these goals and have expanded the festival beyond the New York City borders.  the UMF is being presented with support our favorite local brewery, Sixpoint Craft Ales.

On May 7th and 8th We are excited to present a special two-night pre-festival residency with the NYC premiere of a new super trio BBC (Tim Berne, Jim Black, Nels Cline) at Shapeshifter Lab in Brooklyn, 18 Whitwell Place,  www.shapeshifterlab.com.

The Undead Music Festival officially kicks off on Wednesday May 9th with our signature multi-venue Undead Marathon Night featuring over 25 groups performing at three Greenwich Village venues (Le Poisson Rouge, Sullivan Hall, and Kenny’s Castaways).  We are pleased to be working with our friends Melissa Caruso Scott & John Scott, the founders of the legendary haven for improvised music Tonic.  In tribute to the creative music scene they fostered Melissa and John have curated a Tonic Reunion show at Le Poisson Rouge featuring Sex Mob, Vinicius Cantuaria, White Out, Yuka C. Honda, Elysian Fields, Billy Martin and others. On this night audience members are encouraged to bounce around between the three venues to hear familiar groups and to discover new music.  **The full schedule for May 9th is below. 

The festival continues in Brooklyn on Thursday May 10th at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple in Fort Greene with a unique show ‘Medeski Martin & Wood & ?’  We worked with MMW to develop this night which will feature John Medeski, Billy Martin and Chris Wood performing three different sets.  First MMW will perform a full proper set.  Then MMW will perform while each member is replaced by a guest for a song; guests will include Marco Benevento, Anthony Coleman, Marcus Rojas, Oren Bloedow, G Calvin Weston, and Adam Deitch.  In the final set MMW will perform with friends sitting in with the trio; guests will include Marco Benevento, So Percussion, Anthony Coleman, Marcus Rojas, Adam Deitch, Oren Bloedow, Vernon Reid, Charlie Burnham, Chuck Campbell, Miho Hatori, G Calvin Weston, and more TBA.

On Friday May 11th Undead Music Festival presents Night of The Living DIY. This night is a celebration of the artists running the asylum, cutting out the middle man and presenting dynamic instrumental, improvised, jazz and otherwise music in the homes, warehouse and artspaces that suit the music, truly allowing anything to happen. Performances will be happening in select DIY spaces in Brooklyn, Chicago, Austin, Houston, Seattle, Portland, Richmond, Madison, Milwaukee, Oslo, Copenhagen, and more… 

NEW YORK DIY SHOWS (all shows high suggested $10 donation, w/ complimentary Sixpoint beer for each donation):

Seeds (617 Vanderbilt Ave, Prospect Heights): solo performances from Jacob Garchik (trombone / computer), Miles Okazaki (guitar), Greg Heffernan (cello / computer), Dan Weiss (drums), Ohad Talmor (tenor sax), Jacob Sacks (fender rhodes) + special guests!!! 35 Claver (35 Claver, Bed Stuy): Noah Garabedian’s Big Butter & Egg Men + Why I Must Be Careful + First Cousins Once Removed (Adam Schatz, Danny Fisher-Lochhead, Jonathan Goldberger, Skye Steele) + Arts & Sciences IBeam (168 7th st., Gowanus): Denver General (Kirk Knuffké, Jonathan Goldberger, Jeff Davis) + Goldberg Variations for String Trio (Miranda Sielaff, Kristi Helberg, Andrea Lee) + The  Four Bags (Brian Drye, Jacob Garchik, Mike McGinnis, Sean Moran) Big Snow Buffalo Lodge (89 Varet St., Bushwick): Nate Wooley + The Home Of Easy Credit (Louise Dam Eckardt Jensen & Tom Blancarte) + Talibam!! + Vavatican ShapeShifter Lab (18 Whitwell Place, Gowanus): Travis Sullivan’s Bjorkestra VENUE TBA: Andrew D’Angelo + MANY friends!!

The Undead Music Festival concludes on Saturday May 12th with the night of Improvised Round Robbin Duets at 92Y Tribeca.  17 artists enter. Arranged in a random order.  Artist #1 improvises for 5 minutes solo on stage, and is then joined by #2.  After 5 more minutes, #3 enters, and #1 leaves. So on.  It’s a beautiful method for collective spontaneous composition, removing the ego and presenting the music community in a seriously fun way.  Performers will include Mark Helias (bass), Brandon Seabrook (banjo / guitar), Hilmar Jensson (guitar), Allison Miller (drums), Amir Ziv (drums), Mike Pride (drums), Bob Stewart (tuba), Cooper Moore (piano), Miles Okazaki (guitar), Marika Hughes (cello), John Hollenbeck (drums), Matthew Mottel (keys), Fabian Almazan (piano) and more TBA.

The Undead Music Festival is again offering a full festival pass which allows entry into any of the shows between May 9-12 for a very good deal of just $55.  There will also be single night tickets available each night at the participating venues.

**Schedule Announced - Wednesday May 9th 

Undead Marathon Night / Tonic Reunion 

LE POISSON ROUGE / TONIC REUNION SHOWCASE:

6:45 - Heather Greene & Ursa Minor  7:45 - Jamie Saft’s New Zion Trio  8:15 - The Rufuseniks  9:00 - Vinicius Cantuaria Sextet   9:30 - Billy Martin Improv with Shelley Hirsch, Erik Freidlander, and more TBA 10:00 - Dougie Bowne’s Peninsula  10:30 - Yuka C. Honda’s EUCADEMIX 11:00 - White Out w/ Bill Nace 11:30 - Elysian Fields 12:00 - Steven Bernstein’s Sex Mob 12:30 - Ben Perowsky’s Moodswing Orchestra with TK Webb  1:00 - Mike Wolf DJ set (and between prior sets), Danny Blume and Michael Blake

Vernon Reid, Calvin Weston and Jamaaladeen Tacuma Trio to close the show!

KENNY’S CASTAWAYS:  7:00     Secret Architecture 8:00 - Ohad Talmor’s Newsreel (w/ Dan Weiss, Miles Okazaki, Shane Endsley, Jacob Sacks, Matt Pavolka) 9:00 - Nate Wooley Quintet (w/ Josh Sinton, Matt Moran, Eivind Opsvik, Harris Eisenstadt) 10:00 - Greg Ward Trio (w/ Joe Sanders, Damion Reid) 11:00 - Chicago Underground Duo (Rob Mazurek, Chad Taylor) 12:00 -Joe Sanders (w/ Pat Carroll, Rodney Green) 1:00 - Val-Inc

SULLIVAN HALL:  7:30 - Kris Davis Trio (w/ Michael Sarin, Eivind Opsvik) 8:30 - Positive Catastrophe 9:30 - Stabbing Eastward (Ryan Sawyer & Tunde Adebimpe of TV on the Radio) 10:30 - Tony Malaby’s Paloma Recio (w/ Ben Monder, Drew Gress, and Flin van Hemmen) 11:30 - Chris Dingman’s Waking Dreams (w/ Loren Stillman, Fabian Almazan, Ike Sturm, and Jared Schonig) 12:30 - Gerald Cleaver’s Black Host (w/ Darius Jones, Brandon Seabrook, Cooper-Moore, Pascal Niggenkemper) 1:30 - Jonathan Finlayson & Sicilian Defense (w/ Shane Endsley, Miles Okazaki, Keith Witty, Damion Reid)

The 2012 Undead Music Festival at 20+ venues featuring over 200 musicians:

May 9th (Greenwich Village, Manhattan):  Three-venue Marathon Night & Tonic Reunion Show, at Le Poisson Rouge, Kenny’s Castaways, Sullivan Hall. May 10th (Fort Greene, Brooklyn):  ’Medeski Martin & Wood & ?’ at Brooklyn Masonic Temple. May 11th (NYC, Austin, Seattle, Chicago, Copenhagen, Oslo, +more):  Night of The Living DIY at various venues around the world.  May 12th (Tribeca, Manhattan):  Night of Improvised Round Robbin Duets at 92Y Tribeca. 

Tickets & Information:

- Four-Day Full-Festival Passes are available to the General Public for only $55.

- May 9th (Three-venue Marathon & Tonic Reunion Show) Single-Day tickets are available to the General Public for $25 advance, $30 door.

- May 10th (MMW+Guests) tickets are available to the General Public for $30 advance, $35 door.

- May 11th (DIY Night) tickets will be available soon.

- May 12th (Improvised Round Robbins) tickets will be available soon for $15.

More details at www.undeadmusic.com

The idea of blending two different cultural influences in art or music is not new. In fact, the idea has been going on for centuries. It is only now that it is so noticeable, due to the process being accelerated by communication and other technology.
A recent intriguing step in this path is the CD and tour by Anoushka Shankar; daughter of illustrious sitarist and musical ambassador Ravi Shankar. No stranger to multicultural experiments, Shankar has brought about an intriguing blend of Indian raga and Spanish flamenco. According to historical evidence, flamenco’s distant roots are in 9th century India. Punjabi “untouchables” fled persecution and wandered the Middle East and Asia; eventually settling in Europe. There has been, however, little speculation of the common roots of the theory of this music.

All in all, these two musical traditions have been severed over the centuries; and Anoushka Shankar has attempted to rejoin these two lost musical sibblings.  On an unseasonably warm night in New York City, I ventured to City Winery, where Shankar and her new band were performing. The packed crowd waited in anticipation for this new music. There was a very noticeable difference from the atmosphere of a classical Indian raga concert, with the loud conversations, moving around, and waiters and waitresses bustling about serving drinks and food. City Winery is a fine venue, but the contrast was noticeable to one accustomed to classical settings.  Shankar and company took the stage. She began with an interpretation of a well known classical raga ”Bhiravi”. She chose this because she felt it resembles much flamenco music. Her approach was not outside the classical interpretation, except that she played no jhalla at the end. She was very conscious of the melody and carefully invoked Bhirani’s spirit.

Her band consisted of herself, guitar, shenai, flamenco vocalist, and two percussionists (who used Indian – mostly the mridangam -  and non-Indian percussion instruments, such as the cajon and cymbals.)

Photo by Veronique Lerebours

One of the technical problems she was faced with was playing duets with an equally tempered instrument. She has done this on earlier recordings, playing with a pianist. This night she would set her sitar against a guitar. Marrying these two very different types of temperaments inherent in each instrument is something few would attempt, and fewer ever pulled off. However, unlike the late Colin Wolcott of Oregon, who played sitar against harmonies that presented the ear with unprecedented musical form (and whose brilliant pioneering of non-classical sitar never got the recognition he deserved), Shankar had to bring two musical forms together that the ear is not accustomed to hearing. The interplay between instruments was delicate. It was a dangerous undertaking, which threatened at any moment to degenerate into a clashing hybrid, whose components cancelled each other out and created an artistic and aesthetic train wreck. Shankar’s sitar would sometimes search for a way to blend with a musical environment that had, for centuries, been thought impossible and incompatible. It was actually thrilling to listen as she maneuvered this delicate and volatile territory.

Shankar and company, however, managed to pull it off. They blended the essential nature of their instruments well. The best times were when the exact reference to either Indian or flamenco music was indefinable. At such moments, a true marriage between two cultures was achieved, and Shankar’s mission to rejoin the separated music was accomplished. In one piece, the shenai took a dominant role in a song that the guitar played chords in. This was yet another unexpected musical and cultural marriage; and it worked quite well. There were other times when the shenai, sitar, and guitar played counterpoint lines; something foreign to Indian music. Most of the time it sounded natural, but at times they were right on the edge of losing what they were trying to do; but never did. It always worked.

There was also a fearless exploration of the emotional spectrum of the music. With Indian raga, it is often difficult for the untrained westerner to experience the exact mood invoked in a raga. Flamenco differs from this in that its emotions are very noticeable and upfront. One of the pieces they played, which employed major 3rd and minor 2nd (as a westerner would interpret it), suggestive of an Arabic feel, began with a dark, mysterious, and almost angry feel. As it progressed, the guitar harmonies invoked a brighter, more optimistic mood; as if to dispel the darkness with a promise of the triumph of dignity and joy over suffering.

The percussionists were marvelous. Their performance was flawless, and they found absolutely no difficulty whatsoever in demolishing the barriers between the rhythmic traditions of these two musical nations. For them, evidently, there was no east or west, no India or Spain. There was only music.  Later in the set, they performed an interpretation of an old flamenco song that resembled a classical raga. Chords on the guitar set the mood, then the sitar took over. A conversation between sitar and guitar met its climax with the vocals soaring overhead, with accompaniment on guitar. The shenai took over the vocals, and the song ended on a very different mood than the song began on.

The following piece required the sitar to be retuned. While this happens often at classical raga concerts, this audience was not prepared for it. The audience actually made a lot of noise when Shankar was re-tuning; which I felt was inappropriate behavior. However, Shankar had the last laugh when a powerful sitar melody cut through the ambient noise, like a machete slicing through a jungle. The band joined this. This piece invoked the Spanish flamenco essence called “Duende,” which is difficult to translate into English. At times the mood softened. It ended on a flamenco interpretation of a teehi.

Photo by Veronique Lerebours

The following pieces were powerful, bold, and sublime. The performance ended on an interpretation of raga Jog; the most classical piece of the night (along with Bhairavi). The shenai had a strangely blue inspired approach to this raga; almost sounding like John Coltrane; but he never ventured outside the raga. The band played this piece to a powerful climax; teasing the audience with teehi after teehi, never giving a hint when the piece would end. Finally, it ended on a triple teehi.

The audience demanded an encore. Shankar took the stage alone, and played rag “Charukeshi” in alap. This was a real contrast to the power and excitement of the rest of the performance. The music she offered seemed to bring the audience back to its senses after such an emotional journey.  All in all, it was a fine performance, as complete and fulfilling a concert as anyone could ask for.

A few days later, I listened to the CD Traveler which this band toured to support. The overall feel of the CD was actually quite different from my memories of the performance. And this is how it should be. A recording preserves music in time; a live performance is meant to happen only once in the history of humanity.

Photo by Dawoud Kringle

We are at a crossroad in the history of music. We are beginning to see cultures not our own, not as “The Other,” but as something we recognize within our hearts. We are slowly waking up to the reality that humanity is a single tribe manifesting as a multiplicity; and that each component of this multiplicity is essential to the greater whole. Anoushka Shankar’s performance is one voice explaining to the world that this truth can only be communicated and realized by music, art, and spirituality. These are guaranteed to succeed where politics and globalization have met, and will continue to meet with absolute and inevitable failure. Such is the value of music, and the power that musicians hold in their hands; for it is not armies and nations that are conquered by force. It is hearts won through an act of love; a power that no king, president, or prime minister can ever hope to wield.