It was not a surprise to find music-related memorabilia everywhere—from a simple bar of soap covered with purple and blue music notes to a library and CD collection that could rival the Smithsonian’s.

Eight hours is a long time, but it flew by like the snap of your fingers.  Her world is compelling.  Talk about history, psychology, blogging, and music … she dusted fallow crevices in my mind.

She’s preparing a concert series for Russian friends, she shared.  My mind drew a blank, and I said, “Russian composers?”  “Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov …, “ she shot back.

She has written, directed and produced History Alive Through MUSIC, showcasing seven young up and coming actors from ages 10 – 17.  She walked me through the behind-the-scenes 15-hour Saturdays and Sundays working with the kids and searching for that perfect example of drawing forth the emotions as though you were actually experiencing:

• The Gettysburg Battlefield

• A slave who didn’t even own a pair of shoes

• An immigrant at Ellis Island being “processed” after a grueling transport in a ship’s steerage class

She sees kids (along with adults) losing rich history that our forefathers left for us, and it is her burning desire to educate and impassion today’s younger generation with a rich understanding of America’s grand history.  To that end, she is now launching into social media to open this world to others.

Sharing a meal with a creative genius is a meal all by itself.  There have been few times in my life when I’ve met someone who I could have stayed up all night talking with and never skipped a beat.  This was one of those occasions.

Not only was this a lunch I shall never forget, where I sat at the feet of a creative genius, it was also a lesson  for me to dive deeper into MY passion, squeeze the juice out of every second, and laugh, eat well, and let my pet give me slobbery,  wet kisses—and  very often, too.  That kind of grounds you!

Who has inspired you to reach beyond yourself?  When have you left an event ready to set the world on fire with your passion?  Who would you choose to spend an eight-hour lunch with?  Stories, please!  I’d LOVE to hear your stories.

Living Life With Passion,

“People make a mistake who think that my art has come easily to me.  Nobody has devoted so much time and thought to composition as I. There is not a famous master whose music I have not studied over and over.”  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Welcome to the world of the creative genius!

We feasted on a musical Jeopardy at the Creativity and Genius—The Fire Within Concert.  Jacquelyne Silver opened her wealthy storybook of knowledge and performed music that lingers in my mind (and yes, some ring tones on my cell phone as well).

In her own words, “There is an anagram in the word ‘listen’.  It has inside of it the word ‘silent’.  In order to listen you have to let things come into you in a new way.”   Here is the essence of creativity and what the creative process was that burned the fire that gave us music.

Check out a skeleton peek into the lives of just a few of the creative geniuses Jacqui reviewed in story and song.  Play their music in your mind and envision them sitting at their desks composing.   Appreciate the genius that goes into their works.  Remember that composers of music have only seven notes to work with.

1.    How did Beethoven write his 9th Symphony with seven notes, or his 5th Symphony where he was shaking his hand at the world because he was a young man soon to lose his hearing?  Listen for the silence.   It speaks volumes.  Beethoven was the man who held our hands as we walked from the classical period to the romantic one.  He “lived a lot in the minor key … a little bit smaller contraction of the heart,” as Jacqui sees it.  The Sonata Pathetique is his autobiography.

2.    Mozart composed music from the tender age of 4.  He actually held a grudge for 11 years against a less known composer, Muzio Clementi, and then plagiarized his work in The Marriage of Figaro. He died at the tender age of 35.

3.   Chopin spent an entire day looking for a “blue” note.  He was a different kind of drummer.  Chopin said there were 12 notes in the scale—you are making the other 5 orphans.  He was a sickly man his entire 39 years.  He tells his life story in the Prelude, Op. 28, #4.

4.    Ragtime has two components:  the left hand and the right hand.  “The left hand is the man who wears the [drab] gray suit.”  He is the foundation that gives the right hand all the leeway to play and have personality.  The right hand comes in offbeat and does whatever she wants to.  “She is the raindrops between the window sills.”    Scott Joplin, the king of ragtime, was lucky to be born after the Civil War.  He was free, but he was still considered chattel.  He picked cotton in the fields for 18 hours a day.  Slaves didn’t know what else to do.  When you are in the field picking cotton, you sing to each other.  “Brother, are you okay? “ Let’s sing it all together, but softly so as not to bother the foreman.  Listen to The Entertainer as the slaves ask each other in the fields picking cotton, “Are you there?”

5.    Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera was written in D major—Chopin’s favorite key to compose in.  While Webber may not fit in the genius category as a composer, he mastered the use of the stage.  He knows Broadway shows—the lighting, the dynamics of stage production, and how to captivate an audience.

Jacqueline Silver’s passion for music has no boundaries; however, in the last several years she has focused on the younger generation’s lack of our Nation’s history and its music.  Are The Battle Hymn of the Republic, Yankee Doodle Dandy, or I’ve Been Working On The Railroad, lost songs (and history) to our children?

Jacqui created Silver Pathways to Music, a nonprofit organization with the devoted Mission Statement:

• To inspire children and the public-at-large to appreciate the depth, magnificence, and power of music and its endless varieties

• To connect young people to themselves, each other, and their historical roots through music, history and the arts

• To bring the healing powers of music to children, particularly those at-risk, and the public-at-large

• To encourage and nurture the natural creativity that lies in every child through music and the arts.

Towards that end, Jacqui produced a 4-part series DVD using a diverse cast of brilliant child actors who recreate 50 years of American history and its music.  This is a rich, emotional experience that transcends time.  It feels like you become a part of our beloved American history.

Each time I watch this movie I see new aspects of our history … my Grandmother arriving at Ellis Island … the connection of the transcontinental railroad … Gettysburg … the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.  Combining music and history cements those events in your mind and heart.

I challenge you to listen to the type of music YOU enjoy with new insight and passion. Share with me how the appreciation and love for music has changed for you!

Yours With Passion,

Dar

~Ludwig van Beethoven

Can you fathom life without music?  How long has it been since you fed your passion for music at a concert that left you yearning for more?

Jacquelyne Silver’s concerts touch my soul.  She makes me laugh, cry, sing, and engage with her.  She will teach and entertain you.  You will leave her performance with joy in your heart, a firmer appreciation for music and an unbridled love for her music.  She is witty, erudite, versatile and oh so entertaining.

Jacqui was three years old when her ragtime-player father brought a piano home.  They both sat on the piano bench and he taught her two chords in the bass clef.  As she played a chord, he improvised the melody in the treble clef.  He would say “change” when she needed to switch to the other chord.

When the exercise was finished, she said, “Okay daddy, let’s change places now.”  She played back the melody he had just rendered, and told him to “change” at the appropriate time.  Thus began the brilliant career of a child prodigy.

From Juilliard (on a full scholarship at the age of 15) to Broadway, her repertoire has no limits.  She has worked in close collaboration with Luciano Pavarotti, Marilyn Horne, Leonard Bernstein, Andre Kostelanetz, and Barry Tuckwell, to name a few of the greats.

Jacqui pulls you into the lives of the composers whose works she performs.  You leave her concerts hungering and thirsting for more knowledge about whatever form of music you appreciate the most.

In one of her performances entitled “Happy Bedfellows:  The Law and Music,” she explores the connection between music and the law.  “There are many famous composers who studied the law and indeed were active composers,” she shares.  Tchaikovsky, Robert Schumann, Gilbert & Sullivan and Cole Porter were but a few of the attorneys whose first love was music.

Jacqui brings them to life in her lecture and music.  For example, she told the story of how Robert Schumann’s parents sent him to law school.  He was an intellectual and a journalist, who came to music late in life.  He began writing about the law and connecting it with music.  Robert fell in love with his teacher’s daughter, Clara,  and after she turned 18 they were married.  This remains one of the great love stories in all of musical history.    He wrote a beautiful piece for children.  The music represents the imagination of a child dreaming.  As you hear Jacqui play Traumeria, new meaning flows into this comfortable, well-known melody.

As a very young child I was privileged to attend concerts given by Arthur Rubenstein, Myra Hess and Van Cliburn.  What sets Jacquelyne Silver apart from these world-renowned artists is her breadth of knowledge and how she can jump from fascinating details and music of Frederic Chopin to Scott Joplin’s ragtime, or Emmanuel Chabrier’s Habanera.  She imbues you with her passion for music—even if you don’t know the difference between a quarter and a half note!

Frederick Nietzschie states, “In music the passions enjoy themselves.”  My hope is that this few minutes of sharing a creative genius with you, will spark your originality.  Jaquelyne Silver  has certainly touched my life and given me “wings” to soar.

To Your Creative Passion,

Dar

P.S.  This Sunday, March 21, 2010,  Jacqui will be performing at the Athenaeum in La Jolla, California.  The  Concert title is the “Creativity and Genius–the Fire Within!”  She will be exploring where creative genius comes from through works by Beethoven, Chopin, and Duke Ellington, to name a few.  For ticket information call 858-454-5872.