James Gaertner

Many of my occasional posts are about performances I've enjoyed.  So here are a few recent ones:

I discovered by accident while browsing on Youtube a 1980 show hosted by Oscar Peterson with guests the immortal Joe Pass and the…

Mac Martin, Bonnie Kirchhoff, Carol Wright, and I ran Incredible Productions, a live show, music, and event production company, for over forty-five years, and worked together on many projects for years prior to that. 

Roughly twenty years ago we produced…

I don't mean to complain.  Well, maybe a little.  But I just spent two hours laboring over computer passwords and usernames and updates and multiple authentications back and forth between devices. I know that this kind of effort kind of…

I am glad I discovered this poem by Irish philosopher and poet John O'Donohe.  Its theme resonates at this time of the year, when we make resolutions, imagine possibilities, and, at least for a while, view the future with wide…

Exhilaration is the Breeze
That lifts us from the Ground
And leaves us in another place
Whose statement is not found --

Returns us not, but after time
We soberly descend
A little newer for the term we spent
Upon…

Nature is what we know --
Yet have no art to say --
So impotent Our Wisdom is
To her Simplicity.

When I read these words of Emily Dickinson, I can't help but recall Wendell Berry's reflection on nature and…

I wrote my piano piece "Daffodils" in response to William Wordsworth's poem of the same name. Written in 1804, the poem was inspired by the poet's wandering and discovery of a field of daffodils by a lake. The vision was…

When faced with a creative block, I often ask myself, "What would Sondheim do?"  This in no way is an attempt to position myself on a level even close to Sondheim.  I'm not in his talent or skill set ballpark…

Having recently completed a road trip replete with the sights and sounds of the great outdoors, nature in all its resplendent beauty, mysterious, healing, and intoxicating, I am reminded of Emily Dickinson's poem and that I, too, do not have…

More than 60 years after leaving Russia, Vladimir Horowitz marked his return in 1986 with a concert at the Great Hall of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow.  One can stream videos on YouTube and other platforms of this legendary concert…

In Music and the Mind, psychiatrist Anthony Storr explores the power of music to stimulate the mind, captivate the heart, and nurture the soul.  He writes, "Music exalts life, enhances life, and gives it meaning...For those who love it, it…

A global pandemic, protests that one hopes will galvanize systemic changes and encourage conversations so long overdue, a world in flux...It may seem like the end of time as we know it.

In 1940 in a Nazi prison camp in…

In the midst of this global pandemic, we are being asked to...pause, to simply...stop (not so simple to do), or, as Robert Frost so eloquently expresses in his poem, step backward.  

Not only sands and gravels
Were once more on…

I have always liked that phrase from Michael Shorb's poem "Geese."  I often reflect on it when observing flocks of birds soaring as one during migrations. There is a rhythm and harmony to this "dance" that is musical.  In hindsight…

My daughter and I celebrated milestone birthdays recently with a grand adventure: the "Tour du Mont Blanc," a long-distance hike that circles the Mont Blanc massif and passes through France, Italy, and Switzerland.  The daily hikes were challenging and exhilarating…

I am compelled to post this verse from the The Radiance Sutras.
It speaks for itself and for all of us who have been privileged to experience, if only momentarily, James Joyce's "aesthetic arrest" when carried away and lost…

I've been a fan of "Live from Here," the weekly PBS radio show, since it filled the time slot claimed for years by "A Prairie Home Companion."  Every week I'm newly amazed at what Chris Thile "comes up with"…

Hodie - "This Day" 

I have two Christmas musical traditions: raising my voice enthusiastically - though not always accurately - in the superb Dallas Bach Society's annual Messiah sing-along, and listening to - actually luxuriating in - my recording…

Of Mere Being

The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze décor.

A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.

You…

The sounds of nature are all around us all the time wherever we are.  But we have to pay attention and somehow listen through the noise of our daily lives.  Hearing the music of bird songs, waterfalls, and wind through…