Performance of my piece

On Monday I had the opportunity to attend the premiere of my piece "Another year..." performed at the Korzo Theatre in The Hague. It was an amazing experience, to see my piece finally come to life after so many months of revisions. The musicians were very committed to the music, and it showed. I was very satisfied and, after the concert, several people approached me to say they had also enjoyed it.

I feel very happy that other people liked it, but if no one had liked it, or approached me to congratulate me, I would not have felt disappointed in any way. This piece is one of the few pieces I have made so far with which I am completely satisfied. I did what I wanted to do, exactly as I wanted it, and the sound result reflects almost exactly what I had in my mind (of course, with the added value of the interpretation the musicians gave). This is the most important thing to me. 

Allen Ginsberg, who wrote the haiku

I used as text for my piece.

But then, I also think that the fact that other people liked it is really important (I am assuming that the people that approached me were being honest and not just polite). To me, it means that, in some way, there was a connection between us, that, for one moment, we could communicate without barriers. For me, this is also the most important thing. This is the whole point of making music. I remember a quote from the movie Copying Beethoven, where Beethoven talks to his secretary's fiancé, who is an architect. He says, "you build bridges to connect pieces of land, I build bridges to connect the souls of people," or something along that line. While I don't feel as an almighty God that has the power to make others bow to my will and cry when I tell them to, or smile or sing, I do feel the need to share what I do, because it may reach other people in the same way it reached me and motivate them to be more honest with themselves, in the way I am trying to be as honest as possible to myself. 

I don't know if I succeeded in this or not. I don't expect anything, I just want to be myself and try to motivate others to do the same. We cannot love others if we don't love ourselves first, not in the run-down commercial way of "I buy things for myself, I travel the world, I go to the gym, therefore I love myself," I mean the true way, saying "I love myself as I am, I don't put any conditions on this, I shall be as I am and I don't need anything else to love myself." Only when we attain this level of self-respect can we begin to love the world around us. 

Graffiti by Banksy