During the pandemic we all took a hit. Many things we were used to having and doing were suddenly gone. The underpinnings of everyday life were taken away and we had to decide how to move forward. In the arts we had to confront the sudden and serious impact to our medium and how we would move forward. Many of these challenges are being felt even today. A lot of the pandemic left artists re-evaluating their art and their purpose as creators and performers. It had brought upon us a time of self-reflection. My choice has been to compose a requiem, not just to the people we so needlessly lost during the pandemic, but to a way of life and perhaps a mindset that has passed as well and left in its place is a need to re-evaluate purpose and course. I think this has created a great opportunity to begin to examine some of the areas of our lives that we normally ignore and distract ourselves from with the normal diversions of everyday life.
Such undertakings are never easy, but I think that’s what the pandemic has done, it has highlighted the inflection point in history in which we find ourselves. As Bob Dylan once sang, “The times, they are a changing” and I think the pandemic has only accelerated the fundamental changes that were already going on in our society. My approach to this has been to face these changes head on and examine what it is I really believe about the world, about the reason I create, and the fundamental beliefs I hold about myself. In some ways I think the time after the pandemic has been harder than the year during it. Because now we have the stark reality that there is no going back to the world from whence we came. There is a new reality and it is foreign to many of us and we now have to figure out how to operate in it.
Transitions are never easy they are one of the hardest things to navigate in music just as they are in life. I don’t have any definitive answers. The best I can do is to suggest that this time be used to reflect on what we believe and why we create. To better strengthen our understanding of our motivations and goals. I’m not sure there’s an article here, I think it’s more of a postmortem. But what we do have is this moment, right here. You, sitting there reading this article, me sitting here writing this article. This is what art comes down to, the shared moment of now. The moment of connection between creator and audience. That hasn’t changed and I hope it never will.
