On An Overgrown Path

Visitor logs for On An Overgrown Path show significant traffic from ChatGPT and other AI bots. This current obsession with all things AI reminds me of the Gnostic creation myth. In this the demiurge, or craftsman, employed by the "true God" to create the world, comes to believe that it is really in control, that it is the supreme deity, and enacts a coup d'état, with disastrous consequences. These musings were triggered by Ian McGilchrist's The Master and His Emissary , Gary Lachman's The Secret Teachers of the Western World , and Jordi Savall's The Forgotten Kingdom . The latter is an epic musical depiction of the Catholic Albigensian Crusade against the Gnostic beliefs of the Cathars, which resulted in the massacre of 20,000 inhabitants of Béziers in Languedoc. A powerful example of a fashionable creation myth that ended in tears.

'Heaven and hell do not exist "out there" somewhere. They exist in our own lives, now. Life is a trip, an experience... Everything in our lives is here to teach certain lessons, which ultimately are spiritual lessons. Awareness must come through one's own experience of heaven and hell' - from flautist  Paul Horn 's autobiography. Jordi Savall's recently released Markus Passion is rich in spiritual lessons . More on Jordi Savall via this link .

Seen here are just two of the images that have appeared On An Overgrown Path over the past nineteen years celebrating different cultures and music traditions. That CD by the Music Ensemble of Palestine comes from a 2010 post titled - rien ne change - ' Music from a war zone '. Hezy Levy who represented Israel in the International Music for Peace Festival in Paris, and his album of traditional and modern songs of the Jewish people featured in a 2009 post titled 'Music as the last bulwark against barbarity' . Those celebrity musicians and self-appointed classical influencers who have rushed to show their support for one side against the other in the current Israel-Gaza War should remember that music is a bulwark, not a weapon, against barbarity. In the present conflict there will be no winners, just far too many victims on both sides. As that great humanitarian Jordi Savall tells us in thes introductory essay to his album about the tragedy of the Cathars , absolute ...

'People say, sometimes, timidly: I know nothing about music but I know what I like. But the important questions are answered by not liking only but disliking and accepting equally what one likes and dislikes. Otherwise there is no access to the dark night of the soul... Silence; Lectures and Writings by John Cage Recent listening and reading: Edmund Rubbra: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 4 - BBCSO, Sir Adrian Boult & Edmund Rubbra Circling the Sacred Mountain , Robert Thurman & Tad Wise Oregon in Performance - Oregon Tales of Protection - Erik Fosnes Hansen That Which Colors the Mind - Ali Akbar Khan, Zakir Hussain, Indranil Bhattacharya No Place to Hide, Edward Snowden, the NSA & the Surveillance State - Glenn Greenwald Oriente Lux - Orpheus 21 , Hesperion XXI, Jordi Savall Zen Roots - Red Pine Malcolm Arnold, Complete Music for Solo Piano - Benjamin Frith 

That photo was taken when I was interviewing Jordi Savall for a radio programme in 2008. The interview may have taken place fifteen years ago, but the messages in it - particularly the final paragraph - are, sadly, more true today than they ever were. BS Welcome to the 15th century church of St Peter Mancroft in Norwich, and to An Overgrown Path special that celebrates one of the truly outstanding musicians of our time. The viol player, conductor, composer and early music champion Jordi Savall was born in Catalonia in 1941. He started his musical training at the age of six before going on to study at the famous Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Switzerland. He founded the early music ensemble Hesperion XX with his wife the soprano Montserrat Figueras in 1974, and has made more than one hundred highly acclaimed recordings. In 1998 he founded his own record label Alia Vox which has gone on to pioneer new methods of presentating CDs to fight back against the record industry mov...

Over the years I have played a modest role in promoting the causes of musicians of colour and women musicians , and I believe the UK should remain in the EU . However today I am less sure where I stand on these issues: because I have been alienated by the single issue fanatics on both sides of all three debates. The latest example is a petition to drop Rule, Britannia from the Last Night of the Proms as "it is offensive in today's society". Chi-chi Nwanoku is a prominent signatory of the petition, explaining her reason for signing as "This offensive song is no longer relevant of our times. It's presence serves to hold us back". Chi-chi Nwanoku is founder of Europe's first majority-BME classical ensemble the Chineke! Orchestra and has done much invaluable work advocating the cause of musicians of colour. Now regular readers will know I am not exactly a fan of the Last Night of the Proms. But..... It is not often I agree with Norman Lebrecht . Howe...

That is violinist and concert curator extraordinaire Hugo Ticciati in the photo just sitting . My post about his ' White Light: The Space Between ' project with the Swedish O/Modernt Chamber Orchestra generated considerable interest, including this thoughtful comment from a reader: In addition to the concert hall's rigidity in programming, it has also moved incredibly slowly in timing of concerts - in the UK at least 7.30 remains a norm. OK, so there are some late-night, Sunday morning, and early evening performances, but more imaginative timings, perhaps combined with inter-linked programmes, could prove attractive. After all, since the advent of recorded music we have been able to choose when to listen to music, and not everyone finds the 'main event of the evening' attractive - or even easily digestible - see the 'problem' of providing a suitably complementary first half to Betthoven's 9th, for example. That comment makes an important but overlo...

Classical music faces massive funding pressures as traditional sources of finance dry up. So it is puzzling that when making the case for music funding and music education, the value of art music as a window into diverse cultures is all too often seriously undersold. One of the pioneers of music as a window into diverse cultures has been the Catalan viol maestro and all-round music animateur Jordi Savall. His latest essay in the genre is the 'Ibn Battuta: The Traveler of Islam' project which has just been released as a lavish double CD book and disc package . Jordi Savall's Ibn Battuta chronicles in music the travels of the Muslim Moroccan scholar and explorer Ibn Battuta (1304–1368/1369) during which he covered 75,000 miles journeying across Africa, the Middle East, India and Southeast Asia. With music ranging from Moroccan taksim through Hindustani raga to traditional music from China's Shandong province, this is a typically impressive Jordi Savall survey of mus...

In the Brexit debate there has been persuasive and sometimes shrill advocacy of freedom of movement coupled with salutary warning about how this freedom will be curtailed for UK residents and their children by an exit from the EU. As someone who voted 'remain' in the EU referendum I have a fundamental belief in global freedom of movement as a human right. So I now want to argue the case for freedom of movement for the young people seen above. The photo was taken by me at this year's Marrakesh ePrix . This event in Morocco is part of an international race series for cars that are 100% electric powered. The youngsters in the photo were from just one of the many school parties brought to the race and to the E-Village at the track showcasing renewable energy technologies. Despite its stereotype identity as a quaint tourist destination, Morocco is technologically-savvy. The Noor Ouarzazate Solar Complex in the Moroccan Sahara came on stream in 2016 and when fully commission...

In his French-language memoir Devenir Invincible Michel Guay writes of India that "In this confluence of cultures and history, I finally found my own narrative". Born in Halifax, Canada in 1961, Michel Guay left home at sixteen to travel the world. His travels took him to India, where he studied sitar and voice with distinguished teachers in Varanasi for ten years. He is now based in Paris where he teaches, and his album Song of Benares , recorded with tabla master and Jordi Savall sideman Prabhu Edouard, featured here in 2013 . In his memoir Michel Guay lists Paul Horn Oregon , and Jean-Luc Ponty among his early musical influences; which makes it my kind of book. But Devenir Invincible is far more than a rites of passage chronicle. It is the priceless story of an artist's exploration of the path leading from Āhat Nāda - audible sound - to Anāhat Nāda - transcendental music; a path also travelled by, inter alia, the rishis of the Rig Veda , and by John Cage...

Quite rightly the shockwaves from recent abuse scandals are reverberating through classical music . These shameful scandals, which have done untold damage to classical music's image, were ticking time bombs that too many people in the know chose to ignore. What is worrying is there are other time bombs that are being glossed over, but which may soon explode causing yet more damage. Dangerous thinking has been abroad in classical music for years, namely that its role as a priceless form of high art licenses unacceptable behaviour. It is this dangerous thinking that resulted in the misdemeanours of several celebrity conductors being glossed over for decades, and it is the same thinking that allows other less emotionally traumatising but still highly questionable behaviour to be glossed over. One vulnerability that is all too frequently ignored is the lamentable human rights records of regimes that classical music is consorting with. The United Arab Emirates is one of the new '...

That interview with Jordi Savall about the Catalan independence movement appeared on France24 . There have been many posts On An Overgrown Path celebrating Catalonia and one back in 2011 featured the album Songs from the Thousand-Year-Old Land of Catalonia sung by the much-missed Montserrat Figueras with La Capell Reial de Catalunya directed by Jordi. But, as with Brexit , we must not forget that for every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. Also on Facebook and Twitter . Any copyrighted material is included as "fair use" for critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s).

These photos were taken by me in 2008 at independent record retailer Prelude Records in Norwich. Jordi Savall's impromptu viol recital and signing session preceeded two performances at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival. One was a solo recital by Jordi in Peter Mancroft Church ; the other was an immensely moving performance of his visionary Jerusalem multicultural project at the Theatre Royal*. As reported here Prelude Records closed earlier this year; it was a victim of predatory online retailing, and today its premises stand empty awaiting occupation by a mobile phone or E-cigarette retailer. The Norfolk and Norwich Festival has been the victim of savage funding cuts , but continues in a more modest form due to the dedicated work of its small management team. A few days ago I wrote about a two-thirds empty Snape Maltings concert and proposed that classical music's heartland is facing a perfect storm caused by the convergence of the shifts in consumer tastes and the r...

This interview with Jordi Savall in La Stampa Cultura has been causing something of a furore. Forgive me if I don't have the story quite right, but the article is in Catalan and behind a paywall. But it appears Jordi's harsh comments about the state of Western classical music - formulaic, self-serving and lacking creativity - have been greeted with social media ripostes from within Spain that people in glass houses should not throw stones. Readers will know that over the years I have been one of Jordi's biggest fans , so it saddens me to say that I have sympathy for some of the views expressed by his critics. In recent years I have been uncomfortable with certain aspects of Jordi's work. For instance, his puzzling criticism of the Spanish government's arts policy when he was taken funding from the ethically compromised Abu Dhabi regime , the difficulty of reconciling his humanitarian stance with his concerts in China , and the lacklustre book and CD projects w...

News of Decca/Universal Music's release of an album by a young Syrian refugee violinist Rami leaves me conflicted. Of course the humanitarian tragedy sparked by the Syrian civil war is a terrible thing and any initiative that draws attention to it is laudable. And some of the proceeds from the project are going to the deserving cause of the British Red Cross . But why does a story like this only receive media coverage when it comes from the Universal Music spin machine? And is Decca's motivation in releasing this album entirely altruistic ? Above is a photo taken at the conclusion of a workshop for refugees musicians held this month in Arc-et-Senans, France. The workshop was directed by that tireless advocate of humanitarian causes Jordi Savall who is in the centre of the photo; to his right is the Syrian classical musician  Waed Bouhassoun who collaborated with Jordi at the workshop. I am not on the classical music press release circuit, but this workshop came to my at...

Gustavo Dudamel, Simon Rattle, Daniel Barenboim, Jordi Savall and Joyce DiDonato are among the leading musicians who have performed in the Gulf States in recent years, and the the inaugural BBC Proms Dubai festival takes place in March 2017. So, given classical music's ongoing love affair with social media, the launch of the 140 Characters website deserves a heads up. This is the work of Human Rights Watch , and in recognition of Twitter’s 140-character limit, the interactive website profiles 140 prominent Bahraini, Kuwaiti, Omani, Qatari, Saudi, and Emirati social and political rights activists and dissidents - see images above - and describes their struggles to resist government efforts to silence them. All 140 have faced government retaliation for exercising their right to freedom of expression, and many have been arrested, tried, and sentenced to fines or prison. Dubai, which is hosting the BBC Proms, is the largest city in the United Arab Emirates, and Abu Dhabi, which ha...

Catalonia is a creative powerhouse: Pau Casals *, Joan Miró, Antoni Gaudí, and Salvador Dalí were all proud Catalans, and today Barcelona is a vibrant centre of the arts . Jordi Savall is just one of the contemporary Catalan musicians who has had a global impact, and modern modal master Ross Daly 's Crete-based music co-operative has an annual Labyrinth in Catalunya outreach workshop. My recent plea for the composers in the photo above taken at the summer workshop of the National Youth Orchestra of Catalonia in 2000 to be identified has been answered by Santi Barguñó of Neu Records  with help from Ramón Humet who is in the photo. They are from left to right: Benet Casablancas ( bio & music ), Marcos Bosch ( bio  & music ), Josep Maria Guix ( bio & music ), Carles Tort, Moisés Bertran ( bio & music ), Ramón Humet ( bio & music ), Enric Riu ( bio & music ), Joan Guinjoan ( bio & music ) and Jonathan Harvey . I have added links to biogra...