Saturday, January 28, 2017

Joanna Brouk - Hearing Music



Joanna and I  met as students at U.C. Berkeley in the halcyon years of protest, New Age, and just being young artists in an exciting time in our lives. I created a series of drawings for Joanna and my other friend Felicia, in a collaboration we did to create a book of poetry. I lost touch with Joanna and Felicia, but I put their poems up on my website.  In 2008 I was contacted by Felicia, and spent time with her before she passed away in 2010.  Not too long after that Joanna and I reconnected, and we've been friends again ever since.  

She was one of the early composers of synthesizer music.  I remember a beautiful piece she performed for Hearts of Space using a Tibetan gong....for years I played it on an old tape until it finally stopped working.  I also remember standing in the stairwell of Kroeber Hall, where the art and anthro departments at U.C. B. was, while Joanna recorded me singing to the echoes of the building.  It ended up in a piece of music, and it was ghostly to hear my  own voice from so long ago within the album. 

I was delighted to learn that Joanna's music has been re-released, and she will be doing concerts again, among them in Paris this summer.


https://youtu.be/CDy1dDijsIs

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