6 A harvest of wishes
At the very beginning of the creation, the name of this theme was Fruits from people and wanted to represent those wishes I asked to some friends around the world. The question I forwarded had a relation with la Tronca, the death and empty log with magic qualities, and it goes as follows: If I tell you that a dead trunk, that already passed all stages of life, has special power to make reality some of your wishes, what would you ask? Interestingly, just before the concert started, I also asked the musicians participants to write a wish in a paper. Here are some of the wishes:
‘I wish to have the sun inside me’
‘May greed never occupy my heart’
‘I wish we could listen to each other more’
‘I wish people would accept each other more’
‘I wish that all humans respect the mother nature and its children’
‘I hope we all wake up one day to find out that the world is actually free for all, without barriers to countries and ethnicities’
From this reflection text the name of the theme got extended as A harvest of wishes, representing the recollection of fruits. In this song seven members of the team were present, the same as in the fourth theme, Darkness and Light. In some parts of the music there is the reading of the wishes that is combined with instrumental solos. Zane was the wishes reader and took them from the logs where they have been being cared for from the beginning of the performance.
The way I created this musical material was by playing the song of El cant dels ocells (The song of the birds). From those melodies that are part of my culture, I took freedom and twisting free I created individually a new musical material. In this way, the musical material created contained inherently the seeds of freedom that are present in the song. Maybe only at a subtle level, but this musical material would better connect with the following theme of Freedom and Peace.
In this case, the process of creation started directly towards Workshop Model Two (Hendrickse, 2005) as I brought from the beginning the created material which consisted of a melody and harmony. The participants contributed to the development of the final realisation. I was aware that everybody carried their own stress, reaching the end of the academic semester, bringing a challenging situation of interaction. The musical material was presented by ear as well as some support of chords. The general structure was done by all of us during this collaboration. Together we figured out the importance of establishing a common structure, finding common letters to understand the musical material. (Figure 1.12).
The last practises, with everybody together, were very joyful. Although the structure was almost completed, there were parts of solos that still had to be decided on the last stages of the practises. The Brazilian rhythms fitted very well in the song bringing so much energy to the music. The fact that we didn’t know all of the wishes brought a deep listening connection that definitely affected our musical interaction. The last wish was planned to be the one my mother wrote. She made a beautiful connection of humans and trees and what we can learn and benefit from in personal levels,
‘With the power of a strong wind I wish that my leaves, understood as negative thoughts and experiences that I carry, could get removed making them fall’ (The last wish, the HumanTree, 2019).
The visual projection that appears after reciting the last wish reflects on the importance of taking care of eachother. The projected video shows a hand taking care of a tree stump.
