Author Archives: joemiller

Poem: When you come to the river crossing of Death

Albion's Dance - Blake

Albion’s Dance – Blake

When you come to the river crossing of Death, don’t
bring your wallet, credit cards, cash. Pictures of your beloved,
leave those too. Don’t wear a cross around your neck.
Your family’s Koran leave closed on the shelf. Don’t come
expecting pet views and peeves to amount
to anything more than moments of Sun on
the glinting surface of Be.

When you come
to the that still and moving Body of Omniscience,
unclasp your clothes, let them fall. Cut
your hair to the scalp. Know then the smallness
of your life’s speech, the vanity, the noise, the
irrational tangle of gaggle and gasp. Only then
will you know the truest Word was God
riding your breath in the surrendered silence
of dreamless sleep. Recall then
what the unlearned body never forgot.

Joseph Miller, Virginia Cyn, August 2015

Anoushka Shankar audio interview 3-31-16

Interview with Anoushka Shankar by phone to Washington D.C. on March 31, 2016, the day before the beginning of a month-long tour for her new album Land of Gold, inspired by the current refugee crisis. The varied elements of Land of Gold grew “from the ground up,” says Shankar, and represent a new level of artistic strength and truth. At foundation is the quartet of sitar, double-bass (Larry Grenadier), shehnai (Sanjeev Shankar) and hang drum (Manu Delago). Vocal appearances include M.I.A. in an electronica-rap track; singer-songwriter Alev Lenz with lyrics and voice for the title song; and actress Vanessa Redgrave delivering a powerful reading of a new poem by Pavana Reddy about belonging and resilience. Shankar brought her quartet to Campbell Hall on Monday April 11 at 8pm, courtesy of UCSB Arts & Lectures.

Ian Ruskin audio interview, Feb. 2016

This week on DirecTalk Radio: Actor and writer Ian Ruskin as Thomas Paine speaks with Joseph Miller.

Anglo-American actor IAN RUSKIN trained at Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and performed in England for 15 years. He came to Los Angeles in 1985 and worked primarily in television; usually guest starring as the intelligent bad guy in shows such as “Murder She Wrote”, “Scarecrow and Mrs. King” and “MacGyver”. This work paid the rent but did not in any way fulfill his dream as a student at RADA – to work in plays that would affect an audience.  A pivotal moment arrived in 1994 while playing the lead in Rob Sullivan’s Strike Story: The Harry Bridges Story. A rehearsed reading before the ILWU, the renowned labor leader’s own union, was capped by a ten-minute standing ovation. Some years later Ruskin put his hand to writing and recording radio documentaries and one-man plays, including From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks, which was eventually directed and filmed for PBS by the legendary Academy Award-winning cameraman, the late Haskell Wexler.

In 2010 Ruskin received a COLA [City of Los Angeles] Fellowship to write To Begin the World Over Again: the Life of Thomas Paine, and has toured over 60 performances to date, including Harvard Law School, The American Philosophical Society, the ACLU, and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. What’s more, a film adaptation (Wexler’s final project, before passing away at 92), narrated by Elliot Gould, is now complete and will be featured on PBS nationwide later this year.  Ruskin brings his play to Santa Barbara on Saturday afternoon February 13 for one performance at the Faulkner Gallery at the Central Public Library. The performance is free, and hosted by The Institute of World Culture.

Equality and Exceptionalism

stock-illustration-60962316-justice-greek-goddess-themis-equality-a-fair-trial-law-Our country suffers from a peculiar schizophrenia when it comes to the notion of equality. In idealistic moods we want to affirm it; in practice we often trounce it. We readily defer to the words of the Declaration of Independence, “that all men are created equal,” but what this means exactly is not very clear. Is this some sort of inherent equality? Some invisible metaphysical dimension? Obviously the statement is not supported by empirical evidence. Or is this really an ethical principle—a guideline for how we should frame rights and duties—no special privileges based on class or wealth; no special access to the law? Men judged not by their wallet, ancestors or skin color, but by “the content of their character.” It’s that ‘judging’ business—equality erases differences; judging defines them.

Political equality is a concept with enough sentimental force to compel assent, and enough obscurity to guarantee controversy. The ideal was never articulated with all implications spelled out. Like a seed, it has required root and growth to take shape; and so the slow sequence of political awakenings in civil rights, universal suffrage, workers’ rights, child labor laws, environmental laws, etc. Justice means fair dealing. Equality is justice in practice.

And yet, a strong stripe of American character loves inequality; believes, in fact, that inequality is essential to the meaning of America. Continue reading →

DAVID PRATT – Santa Barbara Symphony (audio interview)

INTERVIEW WITH DAVID PRATT

courtesy of SB Symphony

courtesy of SB Symphony

Australian native David Pratt recently joined the Santa Barbara Symphony as Executive Director after serving in the same position for the Savannah Philharmonic. Pratt also has held senior positions for the G’Day USA Festival connecting the U.S. and Australia, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Australian Festival of Chamber of Music, and the Melbourne Film Office for the State of Victoria.

I met with Pratt at the Santa Barbara Symphony offices in downtown Santa Barbara on May 7, 2015.

ON DOUBLING MY WEDDING AGE

Joe & Kim, 1988

Joe & Kim, 1988

HALF LIFE WITH WIFE

I came to the altar in 1988 with a bucket filled with pebbles, one for each of the 9987 days I had lived since birth. It wasn’t a bucket anyone else could see; no orange five-galloner with Home Depot Homer.  But the weight was there, every one of the nearly ten thousand days had left its tally and contributed a cumulative gravity.

Since then, slow and regular has proceeded a calendar of subtraction—one pebble taken out for every day lived since. And today I remove the last one: the bucket is empty for the first time since birth. Continue reading →

Temmo Korisheli – DirecTalk interview (audio) 5-20-15

Adelfos 1

This week on THE CLASSICAL NOW, my interview with TEMMO KORISHELI, director of Adelfos Ensemble. For eleven years the a cappella vocal ensemble Adelfos has grown and evolved from its beginnings as a men’s-night-out group, equal parts camaraderie and art (self-described “drinking group with a singing problem”), to its current splendor as a mixed ensemble consisting of some of the finest and most experienced singers in Santa Barbara. Korisheli, an early music scholar and cataloguer at the UCSB Arts Library, began directing Adelfos in 2008, and changed the group forever in two key ways: thematic programming, and in 2010, adding women’s voices. I sat down with Temmo for a wonderful hour at UCSB in anticipation of Adelfos’s performances next weekend: “All Angels Cry Aloud: Music for the English Church,” a program of Anglican cathedral music featuring the recently-appointed organist of Trinity Episcopal Church, Dr. Thomas Joyce.  Visit Adelfos on Facebook for more information.

Alessio Bax Interview, Audio, March 3, 2015

AlessioBaxByLisa-MarieMazzucco

AlessioBaxByLisa-MarieMazzucco

Pianist Alessio Bax with the SB Chamber Orchestra, directed by Heiichiro Ohyama at Lobero Theatre, Tuesday March 17, 7:30 pm.

You’d be hard-pressed to find any blarney when Italian-born pianist Alessio Bax joins the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra (SBCO) on March 17, St. Patrick’s Day—unless you count the craft beer tasting event afterwards, open to subscribers. The first half of the concert, however, belongs to conductor Heiichiro Ohyama and the orchestra, and will celebrate music from or about the British Isles, including works by Frank Bridge and Frederick Delius, as well as Felix Mendelssohn’s deeply affecting The Hebrides. But the second half has nothing to do with St. Paddy, and everything to do with Bax, and the fulfillment of his dream to perform Brahms with the SBCO. According to Bax, Brahms’ first piano concerto reveals a subtle level of new meaning when played with the intimacy of a chamber ensemble instead of the larger orchestration that is customary. The international piano star and 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient has garnered kudos in Santa Barbara in recent years, principally due to repeated appearances with the SBCO. Late last year, UCSB Arts & Lectures brought Bax to the Granada stage with violinist Joshua Bell, for a memorable performance that included a masterful articulation of Sergei Prokofiev’s Sonata No.1 for Violin and Piano.  Bax spoke with me from his home in New York on March 3.

Interview with Colin Jacobsen of Brooklyn Rider string quartet

Brooklyn Rider string quartet

Brooklyn Rider string quartet

Sting quartet heaven — that’s what we are experiencing in Santa Barbara right now — with Julliard, Emerson and Brooklyn Rider all performing in a span of 3 weeks. But Brooklyn Rider–performing Thursday at Hahn Hall, courtesy of UCSB Arts & Lectures–is in the forefront this week on DirecTalk Radio, a special spoken word feature of THE CLASSICAL NOW. Starting at 7am, I will air my exclusive interview with COLIN JACOBSEN, violinist and composer with Brooklyn Rider. Jacobsen credits the poetry of Russian painter and art theorist Wassily Kandinsky, as well as the writing of David Byrne, as inspiration for his most recent composition. Rider is touring their new album, The Brooklyn Rider Almanac, which throws the compositional gauntlet to thirteen progressive musicians who have little to do with the traditional classical concert hall.

This interview originally aired on the January 19 episode of THE CLASSICAL NOW – 6am – 8am on 91.9 FM KCSB Santa Barbara. And streaming live at www.kcsb.org.