Theo Bleckmann

“A Hundred Ways”

Here’s my setting of a Rumi text that I had grappled with for a while. I finally fleshed out the final arrangement with pianist Erik Deutsch. I hope you can accept my offering. This poem so deeply reflected my numbness and inability to create any music in the beginning of the lockdown and Rumi actually tells us to put down our instruments, to be quiet and listen, to be present. Kneeling and kissing the ground (praying perhaps) and that sense of a larger, uncontrollable force being there, with this unknown future and death all around us along with this political horror show was definitely affecting every aspect of me. Isolating. Marching in the streets helped at times, and that seemed to be giving me a sense of purpose for a while. Putting on blinders and plowing through music-making regardless of the outside seemed something I absolutely could not and did not want to do. Music, for the first time, did NOT seem like the answer and I needed to stop and assess why I would want make music in general. My identity as a performer got deeply questioned through all my tour cancellations, but then strangely it clarified my main purpose in this life: I am here to perform in from of actual audience, in a room we all share and tour with my beloved co-musicians. The bond, the joy, the travels, the community. That’s me at my happiest. Audiences and performers are equally important in creating that powerful exchange of playing and listening when people come together. No live stream can ever rival that secret ritual in my book.Prayer reference in the “kneeling" aside, this text is also talking about giving over control to nature (or God or a higher power) and this suddenly all made sense. Acknowledging the ground along with my insignificance first, while being in awe of it too, negated the notion of having to put anything out, to be creative no matter what, to be even more productive, and to self promote against my deepest inclinations to finally stop. More importantly, I wanted to find a way to be in this time and not block it out. I wanted to be grateful (instead of being bored, frustrated, annoyed, lazy and angry). Grateful to be alive, to not be sick and to have my (virtual) friends, a loving husband and other emotional resources in my life to get me through this, and this most importantly included your grant, making me feel that I am still part of this family, this fabric of creative forces, young and old and of all backgrounds, styles, and heritages. If we include creativity (of any kind) as part of the hundreds of ways to kiss the ground, then any music, no matter how small or strange it may be, is a way to do that. And so I started to write the beginning of this piece a while back again. A seed was planted and I just watered it, trimmed it and found a vessel to put it in - and and that is what I am sending you here.