Program

Program

Ken Bakodesh Traditional East-European Jewish

Halelu Traditional Sufi-Qawwali/Jewish-American

Avinu Malkeinu Traditional East-European Jewish

Avinu: The King's Precious Diamond

Hatikva Traditional Eastern-European

Yonat Rechokim Traditional Iraqi-Jewish

Ya Ribon Olam Traditional Iraqi-Jewish

All prayers arranged by Yuval Ron

The Frame

Today is a series of stories presented by my new dear friend Yuval followed by music without words. Like many performers, Yuval sees his musical practice tied to a secondary identity as a storyteller. I often feel the same, for me there is something about the ubiquitous use of text as part of song and our assumptions about how the voice will carry language that conflate in my mind.

This particular performance is titled Nefesh, a Hebrew word commonly translated as “soul” or “sentience”. According to Brittanica, Nefesh originally meant neck or throat, which for me connects the idea of sentience to language. Biblically, the very concept of sentience, and creation itself, is connected directly with the concept of language. In the beginning was the word. And God said, “let there be light.”

The structure of this program, however, plays with the concept of storytelling. Here we have stories, prayers really, that have been turned into song, and then arranged for an instrument to be played without words. Even so, the narrative arc is still present, one that tells an emotional, introspective story of the heart.

Even so, the form of music is often familiar with an introduction, rising action, climax, and resolution. Even if there are no specific characters or a plot, there is a sense of a journey. Storytelling in a narrative performance becomes a kind of ritual, one where we are given the opportunity to undergo the formative arc of the story, gaining insights and understandings along the way, and are thus changed. What determines the depth of that transformation is the space we keep between ourselves and the true substance at the center of the story.

We can look at a story intellectually, analyze it, uncover the themes, motifs, the moral, and debate the philosophical merits.

Or we can take it as an emotional experience, be swept up in the beauty, moved by the heartache, the triumph and loss, and experience a personal catharsis alongside the characters.

Or we can go a step further, enter the story completely, and let it change us from the inside out.

Let me elaborate this idea about stories with a story:

One day, a group of moths gather,
discussing how they might better understand
the nature of a burning candle.

At first they send an intellectual moth
Who examines the candle and reports back.
“A candle bright, a candle is warm, a candle is inviting.”

But the other moths respond,
“What use is that information you know-nothing moth!
Let’s send a poet to investigate.”

And so the poet-moth approaches the candle,
Studying the flame and feeling it’s heat
until it flickers and catches the end of its wing.

The poet returns and says,
“A candle blazes, it is red and gold flame.
It rises like the sun and burns. Look how it singed my wing!”

But the moths respond,
“Poet, these are beautiful words, but we still don’t understand.
What is a candle?”

Then, in a burst of spiritual ecstasy,
a moth rises up and violently flings itself into the flame of the candle
and is consumed.

A silence falls on the moths as they realize
only one who merges fully with the flame
Will understand its true nature.

While this is an allegorical Sufi story, which uses the moth’s flight into the fire as a metaphor for overcoming the ego in order to reach oneness, it also demonstrates what is possible when we fully open ourselves to the soul-changing magic of art.

For the willing listener, storytelling becomes a collaborative effort, the arc of the journey echoing the trajectory of our own experiences, the dissonances and resolutions matching the internal longing of our hearts. Or, if we dare, we may abandon ourselves entirely, let the story seep into our bones, and come out the other side entirely transformed.

Program

Program

Ken Bakodesh Traditional East-European Jewish

Halelu Traditional Sufi-Qawwali/Jewish-American

Avinu Malkeinu Traditional East-European Jewish

Avinu: The King's Precious Diamond

Hatikva Traditional Eastern-European

Yonat Rechokim Traditional Iraqi-Jewish

Ya Ribon Olam Traditional Iraqi-Jewish

All prayers arranged by Yuval Ron

The Frame

Today, presented by my new dear friend Yuval, is a series of stories followed by music without words. Like many performers, Yuval sees his musical practice tied to a secondary identity as a storyteller. I often feel the same, for me there is something about the ubiquitous use of text as part of song and our assumptions about how the voice will carry language that conflate in my mind.

This particular performance is titled Nefesh, a Hebrew word commonly translated as “soul” or “sentience”. According to Brittanica, Nefesh originally meant neck or throat, which for me connects the idea of sentience to language. Biblically, the very concept of sentience, and creation itself, is connected directly with the concept of language. In the beginning was the word. And God said, “let there be light.”

The structure of this program, however, plays with the concept of storytelling. Here we have stories, prayers really, that have been turned into song, and then arranged for an instrument to be played without words. Even without words, the narrative arc is still present, one that tells an emotional, introspective story of the heart.

It’s the form of music that matches the familiar arc of a narrative. It starts with an introduction, then rising action, climax, and resolution. Even if there are no specific characters or a plot, there is a sense of a journey. Storytelling in a narrative performance becomes a kind of ritual, one where we are given the opportunity to undergo the formative arc of the story, gaining insights and understandings along the way, and are thus changed. What determines the depth of that transformation is the space we keep between ourselves and the true substance at the center of the story.

We can look at a story intellectually, analyze it, uncover the themes, motifs, the moral, and debate the philosophical merits.

Or we can take it as an emotional experience, be swept up in the beauty, moved by the heartache, the triumph and loss, and experience a personal catharsis alongside the characters.

Or we can go a step further, enter the story completely, and let it change us from the inside out.

Let me elaborate this idea about stories with a story:

One day, a group of moths gather,
discussing how they might better understand
the nature of a burning candle.

At first they send an intellectual moth
Who examines the candle and reports back.
“A candle bright, a candle is warm, a candle is inviting.”

But the other moths respond,
“What use is that information you know-nothing moth!
Let’s send a poet to investigate.”

And so the poet-moth approaches the candle,
Studying the flame and feeling it’s heat
until it flickers and catches the end of its wing.

The poet returns and says,
“A candle blazes, it is red and gold flame.
It rises like the sun and burns. Look how it singed my wing!”

But the moths respond,
“Poet, these are beautiful words, but we still don’t understand.
What is a candle?”

Then, in a burst of spiritual ecstasy,
a moth rises up and violently flings itself into the flame of the candle
and is consumed.

A silence falls on the moths as they realize
only one who merges fully with the flame
Will understand its true nature.

While this is an allegorical Sufi story, which uses the moth’s flight into the fire as a metaphor for overcoming the ego in order to reach oneness, it also demonstrates what is possible when we fully open ourselves to the soul-changing magic of art.

For the willing listener, storytelling becomes a collaborative effort, the arc of the journey echoing the trajectory of our own experiences, the dissonances and resolutions matching the internal longing of our hearts. Or, if we dare, we may abandon ourselves entirely, let the story seep into our bones, and come out the other side entirely transformed.

Performers

Yuval Ron

Yuval Ron is an internationally renowned World Music artist, composer, educator, peace activist and record producer. Graduating Cum Laude as a Film Scoring Major at Berklee College of Music in Boston, he has continuously researched various ethnic musical traditions and spiritual paths worldwide. Among his many honors, he composed the songs and score for the Oscar winning film West Bank Story in 2007, was the featured artist in the Gala Concert for the Dalai Lama’s initiative Seeds of Compassion in the Seattle Opera Hall in 2008, and has collaborated with the Sufi leader Pir Zia Inayat Khan since 2006. His awards include the Los Angeles Treasures Award in 2004 and prestigious grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, American Composers Forum, California Council for the Humanities and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Under his leadership, the internationally renowned music and dance group, The Yuval Ron Ensemble, has been actively involved in creating musical bridges between people of the Jewish, Muslim and Christian faiths and has been featured on CNN, National Geographic, and in the international press and media, performing at The United Nations International Day of Peace Concert in 2019. Yuval Ron has produced field recordings in the Sinai Desert with the Bedouins, archival preservation recordings of the sacred Yemenite, Moroccan and Andalusian Jewish traditions, and the album of master musician Omar Faruk Tekbilek titled, One Truth – A Window into the Divine Passion and Poetry of Sufism.

His TV and films scores includes the PBS/Nova special, Breaking the Maya Code, Proteus, Oliver Twist, The Spiral Staircase, Golda’s Balcony and Road to Victory and he has collaborated with numerous film directors including, Jeremy Kagan, Ari Sandel, David Lebrun. He received commissions from various international choreographers including Daniel Ezralow (American Repertory Ballet), Ashley Roland (ISO dance company), Oguri (Renzoku Dance Company) and Zen priest and visual artist Hirokazu Kosaka. His original scores for theater productions include Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Yeats’ Amer’s Jealousy and Becket’s Casscando. In 2020 he wrote the music for the Rose River Memorial, a massive art installation by artist Marcos Lutyens.

Yuval Ron has also collaborated with neuroscientists Mark Waldman, Andrew Newburg and others to explore the connection between sound and the brain and has received commissions from Metta Mindfulness Music to create music for medical and healing use in clinics and treatments centers. His recent album Four Devine States of Mind met with rave reviews worldwide in 2020.

​Yuval is a noted lecturer and has been invited to speak at numerous schools including: Yale, John Hopkins University, UCLA, Middlebury College, Brandeis University, MIT, Berklee College of Music, University of Chicago, Pittsburgh University, Texas University in Austin, UCSD, Jerusalem Sam Spiegel Film School and many others. Yuval Ron has been on the faculty of Esalen Institute since 2009, is an affiliated artist with the Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity, and a “Guiding Voice” for Seven Pillars – House of Wisdom.

Yuval’s book Divine Attunement: Music as a path to Wisdom, won the Gold Medal Award for Best Spirituality Book at the Indie Book Awards 2015. He was awarded the Presidential Gold Medal Award for Volunteering for founding and leading the charity non-profit organization Inspired Sound Initiative.

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