It is one of the profound joys of my life to write alongside fellow songwriters, to bring songs to life solo or in collaboration, and to share them with the world.
This Friday, April 23 at 7:30 pm via Facebook and then 9:30 pm via YouTube, we are streaming the Haiku Milieu Virtu-Concert: Duos edition here, then here.
These people, these songs, these videos -- and perhaps best of all, these people -- are INCREDIBLE.
Here's who is participating: Ashley and Simpson, Jim Bizer and Jan Krist, Annie and Rod Capps, Steve Dawson and Diane Christiansen, Rachel Drew and John Syzmanski, Jonas Friddle and Anna Jacobson, Ingrid Graudins, Klem Hayes, Anne Heaton, Ernie Hendrickson and Pete Muschong, Deb Lader and Evan Silver, Ron Lazzeretti and Dave Walker, Anna Sacks and Marcus Trana, Jodi Walker and Kay Williams.
I am one of those people who feel the audience is the final collaborator. I know not everyone feels this way. For instance, Nora Roberts. Read what she has to say on the matter here.
Myself, I feel like I don't always know what I am doing, while I am doing it. So I like to collect what I make in one place, the better to see them for myself, and with an audience.
This is why I make albums, why I started gathering each previous week's haiku here. Maybe it is also why, as soon as one Haiku Milieu concert ends, I'm thinking about the next one!
And honestly, right now, I just feel an urgency to create. It makes me feel better.
It looks like we are getting to the other side of the pandemic. As Robin and I take what look like the final steps across the bridge from our lives before the pandemic to our current life, we are fortunate to be missing only four of the gentle souls we walked into it with.
While these losses still sting (will they never not?) we are conscious that many others have been much more profoundly affected: by C-19, the epidemic of gun violence, or by the simple fact that the color of their skin makes their earthly walk trickier than ours.
Things are different now. Whether on behalf of those who are no longer with us, those experiencing hardship, or the need in own souls, we need bridges from what was, to what is.
For me, that bridge is creating. (You too?)
And more and more, that means collaborating. For me, anyway.
When I was putting together this Friday's Haiku Milieu show, I knew I wanted to feature musical duos, to create a "bridge" between this virtu-show, and Robin's and my live Twos-Day Night Special, a residency on the last Tuesday of the month at Hey Nonny starting on May 25. So that, and the fact that creating anything makes me feel better, is all I knew.
Creating anything, in and of itself, is healing.
And then if we are brave enough, if we are willing to share what we make...there is the potential for something even more beautiful to happen, when something we create speaks to someone else. Now all of a sudden, there's a bridge. Safe passage across our greatest divides. A span across the yawning gaps between us, or within us.
That song you were writing? That poem? That memo at work? You didn't know you made a bridge, until you were done.
The fifteen duos you'll see in Friday's Haiku Milieu concert have created fifteen magnificent bridges, in song and video, to get you from where you are to what comes next.
And this is where I say again: for me, for my art, the audience is the final collaborator.
Your presence MATTERS.
Anyone who experiences a work of art through the prism of their own thoughts, feelings, and experiences, helps the artist see what they made, and brings it more fully into the world.
We love to have you with us, and we hope you'll join us live or on replay, if you're up for being part of this amazing cycle of creativity.
Fingers crossed. And THANKS, for being here and reading all the way through.