Where Mahler is an outsider
That is the young muleteer who accompanied me on my trek in Morocco's High Atlas earlier this year - my backpack is strapped to the mule. The photo was taken above the village of Imlil on the Tizi M'zzik mountain pass at 2450 metres. This is Berber country and not surprisingly Mahler's music is almost unknown in Morocco. However on Sunday (Oct 13) l'Orchestre Philharmonique du Maroc performs his Fifth Symphony in Marrakech - which is 67 kilometres from Imlil - as part of a four city regional premiere tour of the work. In today's online culture the outsider is a threatened species thanks to clandestine selective algorithms and self-curated filter bubbles. Which means a vital element of creativity - the sand in the oyster - is at risk. As the American born Naga Sadhu Baba Rampuri explains*:
I think it's the outsider that has the ability, or at least the opportunity, to look at things from a distance, rather than being in the midst of things and assigning some sort of of moral values, the good and bad, the good and evil, to things. So I think that many, if not most, people who have insights, who have particular geniuses in various fields, whether it's music or art or literature or whatever - I think that a requirement is that one is an outsider.* The quote is taken from Aki Cederberg's Journeys in the Kali Yuga. New Overgrown Path posts are available via RSS/email by entering your email address in the right-hand sidebar. Any copyrighted material is included for critical analysis, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s).
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