Awakening From Forgetfulness: Mindful Music Festival

“🔔… I send my heart along with the sound of the bell. May the hearers awaken from forgetfulness and transcend the path of anxiety and sorrow.” - Gatha for inviting the bell

I’ve heard it said that meditation is a form of remembering, and lately I’ve been remembering all sorts of things I've been meaning to share with you all.

Recently, I find myself remembering:

• I: Why I love music so much

• II: How great it is to play in a band with friends

• III: Where I’m from and why that's important

Part I: The first time I ever played in a rock band, I was a 7th grader just learning how to play keyboards. My music teacher offered up his classroom a few times a week after school so that a group of about 8 of us could practice "Johnny B. Goode" for the school talent show. Rehearsals were always the highlight of my week and I found myself obsessively trying to put groups of friends together to make music. My best friends became my bandmates, and my vision for my future was crystal clear: I wanted to be a musician, whatever that means, whatever it takes.

Since then, most of the bands I've played in, I've played brass instruments, electric bass, or maybe sing with a guitar. Aside from the occasional jazz combo, it had been about 20 years since I've played keyboards with a band. That is, until Deer Park put on the Rhythm of Earth Mindful Music Festival

Part II:  Getting the band back together -

Back in May, the monastery hosted a music festival with an eclectic group of musicians from all over with the common goal of creating a mindful, substance-free festival experience for all who attended.

For about 6 weeks leading up to the show, I had the pleasure of rehearsing with a band of monks and nuns playing all original music. Each Sunday we would all squeeze into this small studio space and learn each other's songs, and each week you could see the whole group get more and more excited with how things were going. I found myself drawing many connections between the joys of working with children on music and the way monastics approach it. This whole season with them was super special and brought us together in a beautiful way. Here's a clip of Brother Minh An introducing the band and leading us in his song "Together We Build The Future."

One of the deepest connections I've made here is with my dear friend, Brother Dao Phuong. Our project, Lazy Moon, has been a lot of fun to produce together, and this festival was the first time we were able to perform together live. I absolutely loved singing in Italian with him in this band of robed rockers. Here's a clip us playing his song Ne Nascita Ne Morte which hasn't made it to Spotify yet, but if you dig the vibe you should definitely check out more Lazy Moon.

In addition to the Deer Park Collective, we also invited artists such as Born-I, Joe Reilly, and Nels Cline (of Wilco!) who came early for an incredibly nourishing musicians' retreat. We had dharma sharing circles, hiked and shared meals together; this was a phenomenal group of people to get to know.

When Joe and his band, The Community Gardeners showed up at the monastery, I felt like I already knew a lot about them because of their legendary reputation throughout Plum Village. They were all such cool people, easy to talk to and hang with; I was so excited when they asked me to sit in on a rehearsal and play some keyboards. There’s something about the way Chris Good connects with his bandmates through his bass playing that made it so easy for me to jump in - I felt like I had been playing with these guys forever. An especially lovely surprise was the chance to reconnect and jam with John Driscoll, drummer and penny whistle extraordinaire, who also happened to be my classmate back at Eastman!

The day of the show, during sound check, Nels Cline also agreed to sit in with the Joe Reilly band. Without knowing any of the songs ahead of time, he blew everyone away with his flexibility, musicality and humility. The guy is a top notch human being with the heart to match his skills. Here's a clip of Nels's EPIC solo on "Infinite Hearts" that I can't seem to stop watching.

Most of this came together because Nels' twin brother, Alex Cline is also an incredible musician who happens to be a Dharma Teacher in the Plum Village Tradition. When Alex was organizing the festival, he asked Nels to be a part of the Free Cloud Collective's experimental performance. Together with a band of incredible improvisors, they put together this genre-bending experience of sound textures and atmospheres unlike anything I've witnessed before. Very cool stuff.

I feel like I have so much more to share about this festival, especially the Nels Cline connection and why it's taken me so long to write this, but I think it might actually be worth saving Part III for its own blog post later...

Thanks for stopping by! Stay tuned for more stories from this magical monastery... and beyond!