Monday, March 12, 2007

Finally, I found my commencement speech


- My "Graduation Ceremony"- 2006, Bali, Indonesia

It's been almost a year since my four amazing years at the New England Conservatory Music came to an end. On the night of May 21st 2006 my graduating class sat in the awe-inspiring Jordan Hall for the Class of 2006 commencement ceremony. Only, I wasn't there.

That night instead of wearing a silly gown and cap, instead of shaking the hand of the now-dearly-missed, then-president Daniel Steiner and receiving my diploma, instead hearing some words of wisdom to carry me off into the next stage of my life, instead of sitting in Boston with the friends I'd gotten so close to in those fours years, I sat in another awe-inspiring concert hall. In fact, I performed in concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City with two of the best known musicians in classical/bluegrass synthesis, Edgar Meyer and Mike Marshall, as well as a dozen of the soon-to-be best known musicians in that cadre.


me and Mike Marshall @ Carnegie


What an amazing experience! What incredible, beautiful people! What exquisite music!!! The concert was the culmination of a week long workshop entitled The Porous Borders of Music. For seven glorious days from dawn til...well, the next the dawn, I played with incredible musicians from all across the globe, sharing our love for music and developing friendships. It was an experience for which I am forever grateful and I hope to continue making music with these wonderful folks.

But then life went on, as it always does. My summer mostly consisted of teaching, playing a lot with my afrobeat group, traveling, relaxing, and enjoying myself. I hadn't thought too much about taking a new direction in my life. It felt almost like I'd just return to NEC in the fall for yet another round. But fall did come, I wasn't going back to NEC, and I suddenly had to "make a living". Luckily, there was an pretty good opportunity staring me right in the face at that moment: become a public school music teacher. I took the job, stayed in the same house in the same room, and went on with 'business as usual'.


Now don't get me wrong. I love what I'm doing. I have my ups and downs, but I always feel it to be worthwhile when I see a glow in kids' faces.

However, I've been feeling a strange discontentment lately. I don't feel like I've truly hit that "new direction" yet. The teaching is nice, but it feels more like a culmination than a new beginning. I've been doing teaching of this sorts for a while, now I'm making a living at it. It's all so familiar. There's been no huge upheaval, no new quest to embark on. I never encountered the motivating terror of being thrust out the comfy nest that NEC was providing for me. Sure, I was wisked away by positive circumstances, but I never had a moment to really meditate on the closure of my college experience and the opening of something new..

It occurred to me recently that although my decision to play at Carnegie was undoubtedly a wise one, there was one key element of the ceremony that I regret missing out on: the commencement speech. My memory is structured by important or memorable events that appear as beacons of light in the swirling chaos of trillions of memories. These events serve as chapter markers that help me to index my life in a way that makes sense. For some reason, commencement speeches have always been important to me in this respect. They have all presented to me a feeling of closure on the past, an unmistakable stamp on the present moment of transition, and a new vision of my future. Now I'm realizing that four of the most incredible, beautiful, difficult, tumultuous, amazing years of my life were never quite processed in the way I'm normally used to processing them. As such I've been floating around wondering if I'll ever find that kind of closure and truly be able to integrate myself...
....that is until today. I finally found the key.

It came about through interesting means: the movie Contact, Robert Zemeckis' classic starring Jodie Foster as Dr. Ellie Arroway, a brilliant passionate scientist who makes contact with intelligent life from the across the galaxy. I watched it for the first time the summer after my high school graduation in 1998. I watched it again this past week and found myself seeing it from a completely different pair of eyes.


There was so much heart to it that I'd never seen before. I was touched on so many different levels and brought to tears numerous times. One of the things that really struck me was the sheer genius of Jodie Foster's acting. Her face tells a million stories with a simple expression. She has the gift of transmitting the most holy of human experiences: the catharsis one experiences through Art.  This experience, as I know it, involves a kind of merging with the raw and immense Beauty of the world, mirrors reflecting mirrors. The cathartic experience is the vehicle through which I most intimately know ecstasy, love, and truth. I feel it when I listen to holy pieces of music, experience Nature, witness divine works of Art, or commune with others. No wonder I was so moved by Foster's acting in Contact: there is a scene from which I experienced this catharsis by watching Foster act the very experience of catharsis! She brought me right to it by being it! That's pretty amazing.


Jodie Foster's mystical flight- Contact

So Jodie Foster has suddenly become my hero and inspiration. As such, I had to read up on her and see what was behind the genius I saw this week. A Wikipedia search led me to a wonderful biographic sketch that included a web link to my missing link: Jodie Foster's 2006 commencement speech at the University of Pennsylvania!!!

I hereby adopt this speech as my official commencement speech from my graduation from the New England Conservatory. May it become a shining beacon in my memory to assist me through this time of transition. May I live up to the inspiration it instills in me and go out to inspire others in the same way.

(For the readers who skip the speech I'll end the way that Jodie does: with a quote by Eminem.)
"You better lose yourself in the music, the moment, you own it, you better never let it go. One shot, do not miss your chance to blow. This opportunity comes once in a lifetime."- Eminem




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