In January 2018 my mother passed away. Perhaps she became my angel in heaven. But I missed her and like all survivors I questioned whether I could have done more for her. I grieved heavily, even though I knew she was tired, and spiritually she was already passing over into the next world in the days before her death.
After that I couldn’t continue as I did before. The months before her death had been exhausting. I even lived in a German hospital with her for 30 days while she was undergoing treatment for her respiratory problems.
All of this deeply affected my relationship to music. Whenever I approached the piano and touched the keys I thought of my mother. I couldn’t find meaning in the daily repetition of scales or past compositions. Every once in a while I felt free at the piano and began to improvise. But still, words like concert or recital or performance became meaningless for me. I needed a completely empty space, a break from music and the stage.
The Miraculous Power of Music
Finally, in this empty space, I understood that I know nothing. The divine mystery, the mystery of life, is a total mystery. But as I worked through my grief under the heavy yoke of co-suffering with all my afflicted close ones, I realized that even if I understand nothing I can open myself to the music which is always ready to come from some unknown source, music which contains a unique message for each soul.
Today I’m grateful for this experience. Yes, it was emotionally difficult. But it led to a revelation, a new vision for the way music can contribute to life.
What is important for me today is the co-creation of music together with people (whether it’s one or 1000) in full consciousness. One of our greatest needs as human beings is the need of contribution. Contribution to LIFE! This contribution, though, has to begin with ourselves. This contribution is only possible if we first make a connection with ourselves and what is alive for us in the moment. Music facilitates this connection. Music has this miraculous power, the power to connect us with ourselves. The result is the best kind of prayer.
Through music we can discover something new in ourselves. It’s only after this discovery and deep connection that we can truly begin to serve and contribute to LIFE.
L’Atelier d’Amour
When I returned to the piano, and the so-called stage, I threw out the program, the plan, and the “performance.” I asked the so-called audience, which for me is really just a group or participants in co-creation, to connect their mind and their heart. The music which flowed from this encounter was not my music but result of our communal connection.
It was a Musical Encounter.
A Conversation with the Soul.
I’m calling this new vision the “Atelier d’Amour.” It’s a Studio of Love.
And so I’m sharing with you some wonderful new footage provided by a venue in Kuwait where I’ve played four times. There are four shorter clips below, and if you scroll to the bottom you can watch the whole one-hour event.
At this event I experienced the power of trust, of abandonment to the Source in the present moment. I hope you will experience this power as well as you watch and listen. And I hope in the future we will meet face to face in this Atelier d’Amour.
I need your help to co-create this music. I invite you to take a moment to connect yourself with your heart, perhaps with your eyes closed it will be easier. It will be our first encounter.
I’m happy to know you now, to be in connection with you. Another sign for me was to trust the present moment. That means no more program, no more knowing what I will play – I can only surrender myself to the present moment in trust. What’s coming now, and what’s coming very often: we each have our own story with our parents, with our father and mother. Through music we can meet our father and mother, even if they are in another world now. It’s also very important to wish our parents a long and happy life and to enjoy their living presence as much as possible. Now I ask you to mentally place your father on your right side (including previous generations which can also be invited through the music) and your mother on your left side. Invite them now.
Now I invite you to participate in the well-being or healing of one of your friends or relatives. I don’t know how it is in your life but in my life right now there are many people (and it seems to be more and more all the time) who need the energetic support in their fight with cancer. Even one small vibration of the light, I believe, can help these people, especially if this light and love are magnified – because of our trust and thanks to the power of music. Sometimes a miracle happens. I invite you to put in your heart someone who is very important to you and we will send the light and love to this person.
Now we will connect with the most beautiful state and emotion – gratitude – which heals everyone and everything all the time. As one elder said, ‘I don’t blame, I don’t complain, I just say thank you.’ So together we will enter and remain in this state of gratitude and we’ll see what music will appear.
