Crossroads

European Jazz Trio Channel on You Tube

European Jazz Trio has a artist page on YouTube. Visit here to watch videos from the 'Afternoon in Amsterdam' DVD. This DVD was awarded with the 'Best Jazz DVD of the Year' award in Japan in 2005.

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Update on my music adventures

Some new developments! A new European Jazz Trio CD has been released in Japan for the Tokyo based record lable M&I. The new Cd 'Bolero' contains fresh arrangements of classic compositions and features Thijs van Leer on three tracks. It is great to have Thijs on the album with us. He recorded a funky version of the Bolero many years ago. Click on the cover to order at Amazon.

And here is a recent iMix of the duo Cd I recorded with Joshua Samson for the Apple on the Moon record label.

On YouTube this video from the Afternoon in Amsterdam DVD has been uploaded. It is a nice 'making-of' video that wonderfully portrays all the energy and effort the whole team put in to the making of this first European Jazz Trio live DVD. You can order the DVD here.

With Michael Moore in Berlin

This year I was so lucky to be able to celebrate my birthday in a special way. A concert was scheduled at the Berliner Festspiele, a Jazz Festival in Berlin on November 2. A great opportunity to combine sightseeing with a memorable performance - and a nice Italian diner afterwards.

The Michael Moore Quintet has released its first album Osiris in 2006 on the Independent Ramboy Label. Some reviews:

"...On his quintet recording Osiris, Moore unabashedly embraces melody and mood as well with a set of ten of his own compositions that are almost surprising in their straight ahead delivery and deceptively ornamented scoring. Lovely playing is to be found especially from pianist Marc van Roon and bassist Paul Berner." read full article (All About Jazz)

"...the ensemble does manage to excite throughout, particularly on the restlessness displayed on “Playboy”, which displays Hart’s keen depth—both when setting the fluid time or lively rumbling. Hart also lays down powerful rhythms on the urgent flow of “Tallwind To Kyele”, a workout for Moore’s bass clarinet and Vloeimans, as well as the tricky “Movement Specialists” and the record’s most varied piece, “Culture Warriors”." read full article (One Final Note)

Frog is frightened

After the success of the first Frog CD "Kikker Swingt", Tony Overwater's quintet has released their second CD "Kikker heeft the Blues" (Frog got the Blues)!

The first CD is a registration of a live concert in Utrecht, the Netherlands. During this event, Max Velthuijs, artist, illustrator and author, inventor of the Frog children's' books is reading his books to the young audience.

This information I found on the label's website:

Several years ago Tony Overwater started a collaboration with Max Velthuijs, writer of children’s books and creator of the world famous Kikker (Frog). In front of an audience of curious children, Velthuijs red out the adventures of Kikker, while Overwater accompanied the text with his quintet. "Kikker Swingt" (Frog swings), the first CD, was a huge success. So far 10.000 albums have been sold.
In 2007 the second CD, "Kikker heeft the Blues" (Frog’s got the blues), has been released featuring six new adventures of Kikker, such as 'Kikker is een held' (Frog is a hero) and 'Kikker is bedroefd' (Frog is sad). This time the stories are read out by actor Nico de Vries. The album is dedicated to Max Velthuijs who passed away in 2005 at the age of 82.

Read a review in Dutch. And another review.

Other Max Velthuijs 'Frog' children's books include:
Frog and Hare, Frog and Rat, Birthday cake for little bear, Frog and a very special day, Frog and the wide world, Frog and the Stranger, Frog is Sad, Frog in Winter, Frog in Love.

Tineke Postma "A Journey that Matters"

Talented Dutch saxophonist Tineke Postma's invited me to play on her third album “A journey that matters”. That was such a joyful experience. Her compositions are delightful and the other musicians in her band are all so inspiring! On her CD “A journey that matters” drummer Terri Lyne Carrington (known for her work with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Santana, Stan Getz and David Sanborn) was also joining in this 'journey'.

Album reviews: All About Jazz, Billboard, Jazz Podium.

We also performed at the Middelheim Jazz Festival on August 15th in Belgium. Video clips of this concert can be found at the Middelheim Jazz Website.

Before After

Two days ago, on Saturday the 8th of September, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa's choreography 'Before After' had its Swedish premiere at the Gotenborg Opera in Gotenborg, Sweden. The music that I composed for this ballet is made up from different samples of audio recordings some of which have been recorded by my friend Joshua while walking the streets of New York City with Daffy the street poet and the Dera village in India. Other sounds have been added in the studio; a mix of noise sounds, voices, city sounds and Annabelle's voice.

The piece has been performed at the Fall For Dance Festival in New York the 28th and 29th of September one year ago. Reviews have been very good, including a review in New York Times:

"Annual Sampler Ranges From Tableaus to a Pas de Deux
By John Rockwell for The New York Times

Thursday night’s bill was particularly weighted toward big names and elaborate productions. Yet it could be argued that the shortest and simplest number (an eight-minute pas de deux in plain costumes on a bare stage) was the most moving, the most mysterious, the most heartily cheered."read more...,

a review in Village Voice: "The most arresting thing about Ochoa's duet to a score by Mark van Roon is the quiet, dramatically charged suppleness of Julie Gardette and François Rousseau. I'm not referring just to their limber bodies, but to their responsiveness to changes in the emotional weather." read article...,

and another on the Exploredance.com website: "The best piece of the night was from the Dutch National Ballet. The duet...was magnificent and blew the audience away...The music and simple costumes added to this striking and powerful duet. The techno beat by Marc van Roon, involved variable musical notes along with the words "before," "after," "just," and as the light changed the sound changed." read the article..

Jarrett interview

Here's a link to an interesting interview with keith Jarrett.

Jarrett radio interview by Marian Mcpartland

Rhythm & flow at the Monastery

Management Centre-slash-Monastery ‘ZIN’ invited me to be the fifth Artist-in-Residence.

The Dutch word ‘Zin’ translates into English as ‘liking’, ‘use’, or ‘usefulness’, or ‘meaning’, as in ‘the meaning of life’. The ZIN centre for training, reflection and development, is embedded in the Monastery ‘Steenwijk House’ where the Monks of Tilburg found a spiritual home during the last century. With decreasing interest in the Christian monastic religious lifestyle, the few remaining Monks expressed their desire to give new meaning and purpose to their Monastery and transformed it into a centre for personal and group development.

An inspiring lush green park, filled with age-old trees and colorful plants, surrounds the place. The environment proves to be perfect for serving the community as a centre for people in need of reflection and personal development. Employees, managers, and leaders who are connected with companies or government departments are regular visitors. Teams and organizations find at the centre a peaceful silence to listen to each other, to talk, to tune-in, and to grow together, often under the guidance of specialized Zin consultants.

In 2000 the Centre opened its doors for groups and visitors looking for peace of mind, inspiration, meaningfulness, or just a great place to run a training program. Since then, each half year, an artist has been invited to reside in the artist studio. This creative workplace is ideal for the production of almost any form of art because of the natural northern light falling in the studio from a garden filled with pine trees - a rare view one expects to find only in the Zen gardens in Kyoto. The spaciousness of the workplace is ideal for workshops, jam sessions, and music rehearsals.

During my stay in the art studio an inspiring dialogue has emerged with consultants and advisors of Zin about the relationship between art and organization. This topic – also mentioned in my previous post where I talk about my presentation ‘Tasting the Sweetness’ - deals with the creative tension between flow and organizing, between game and play, between natural flow and fixed controllable structures, and between the object and the observer (and the space in between). During this time of reflection we ask ourselves questions. How can we influence a social system in a way that it will (re)organize itself (out of passion, love and the need to create)? How can we (re)discover the key-note, the fundamental tone, that connects us with the heart of the organization?

The main focus of my stay at the centre is to (re)discover the interconnectedness between the artistic, the creative, the spiritual, and the organizational aspects of learning, (work) performance, and living. This special time is used to fine-tune many of the Art in Rhythm sessions and to design new workshop modules. I am regularly writing on the blogs and websites, and am polishing up my presentations. In addition, I am dedicating my time at the art studio to work on solo piano improvisations. For this purpose piano workshop owner and piano technician Henk Hupkes has generously put a grand piano at the studio to be used for the whole period.

Summer Conferences

Sweetness

This summer has been dedicated to the presentation of my short paper 'Tasting the Sweetness' at various conferences in the world. It has been a joyful and inspiring experience. Traveling can be such a rewarding and inspirational experience!

[Download IFTDO-ICQM-Paper-Marc-Antoni-van-Roon.pdf]

The title of the presentation comes from Fritjof Capra's book the Hidden Connections. He talks about what happens when we start to look for the sweetness in sugar. After some research we will find the elements carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. But where is the sweetness?

The sweetness resides neither in the C, nor in the O, nor in the H; it resides in the pattern that emerges from their interaction. it is an emergent property,

Capra writes. He continues;

Moreover, stricktly speaking, the sweetness is not a property of the chemical bonds. It is a sensory experience that arises when sugar molecules interact with the chemistry of our taste buds, which in turn causes a set of neurons to fire in a certain way. The experience of sweetness emerges from that neural activity.

This phenomenon of emergence is like an dance between us - the experiencer of our experiences - and the objects of our experience and perception, their interactive molecule dance, and the space in between 'us' and 'that other thing' - in Capra's case the sugar. This dance interconnects us to the object we experience and the space in between us and them, more than we often realize.

Similar to sweetness, other emergent qualities are happiness and love. In music and art we find emergent qualities such as flow, groove and swing. Emergent qualities can not be controlled, grabbed or dominated. That makes them challenging to deal with. You cannot make people love you instantly. You cannot be happy or sad whenever you want it. Objects, other people, the environment around you, all are interconnected with you and will influence the possible emergence of these qualities. But we can learn more about these qualities, under which circumstances they emerge, how it makes us feel when we experience them, how they change our perception of the world around us when we experience them.

In my presentation I make a humble effort to connect systems theory and cybernetics with art and artistic human qualities. I talk about the desire in most companies and organizations for more 'passion', 'passionate employees', more 'creativity' and more of this magical 'flow'. These are qualities that cannot be demanded or willed by executive order. The can only emerge when the space is created in which the can emerge. Part of creating this space - of allowing this space to be - is to become co-players in finding and discovering new ways of explaining the world we life in. Co-players who create new sets of rules together. Co-players that start alliances to play together. Co-players who accept each other as equally intelligent and creative. Co-players who can experience the space in between them as something instead of nothing (no-thing). Co-players who can truly listen to each other. Co-players who embrace mistakes and transform these into innovative gems. Co-players who value passionate play and creative interaction highly. Co-players who by experience understand the interconnectedness of life.

Music, I feel, and especially making music together, can help us to get in touch with our creative talents and with our passion for living in the present moment. Making music together gives us the experience of operating in a constantly changing, in-stable, and creative environment in which flow, beauty and love can emerge. Music is that universal language that everybody can speak and in which everybody can communicate and explain feelings, emotions and events of life.

Lancaster, UK

The first conference was the Tenth International Experiential Learning Conference hosted by the Brathay Academy in partnership with ICEL (International Consortium for Experiential Learning). It took place at the Lancaster University. Marieke started our presentation with a beautiful short vocal session. The participants seemed to enjoy the combination of actively experiencing the singing and music making we did together, with the theory presented by me on the screen.

We did took some time of to visit the gorgeous Lake District. My friend Victor lend us his Land-rover which made driving through the countryside a joy for Marieke and myself. We stayed in a lovely B&B in Ambleside. The whole experience felt like walking in a 3-D painting.

Tehran, Iran

We spent July 16 - 21 in Tehran. I presented 'tasting the Sweetness' twice at the 7th International Conference of Quality Managers, the ICQM. I was very happy to finally meet with the organizer and chairman of the ICQM, mr. Hesam Aref Kashfi, after many months of corresponding about the presentation, the paper, and logistic details.

It was a fascinating experience to meet with all those wonderful people, both the conference organizers and students, who made us feel so very welcome in their country. I also realized how little I understand and how small my knowledge is of the Islamic culture. Iran has such a rich history of art, poetry, music and architecture. One day we could visit Ispahan, but surely that isn't enough time to fully appreciate all the marvelous buildings, palaces, mosques and people. Hopefully we can visit Ispahan and other cities in the future.

The beauty of Isfahan inspired jazz musician Duke Ellington and his collaborator Billy Strayhorn to write a song in its name, as part of The Far East Suite.

At the conference I met many inspirational speakers. One of them is Steve Unwin. Speaking of synchronisity! Such meaningful 'coincidences' are the food for my soul. We discovered that Steve and I share an interest in interconnectedness, flow, play and change. We endured the burning sun walking and talking - sharing insights - about these topics. We found that we use some of the same examples. We celebrated this moment by exchanging short films and other stuff we can use in our slides and sheets. I learned a lot from that meeting.

Another inspiring meeting we enjoyed was with Ehsan, the one of the founders of the Soroosh Project - a platform for students and lovers of art, culture and poetry to get together and learn about foreign cultures, composers and artists. They organize concerts and study groups and facilitate learning processes. For those of you who read Farsi, check out their 'Kanoon-Khorshid' site. Together with his friend Jeyran he took Marieke and me to some wonderful sites in the Tehran area.

Something that definitely inspired me and brought me many smiles was the strong emphasis the Iranian people put on the spiritual poetry of the Persian poets such as Rumi, Hafez, and Shams Tabrizi.

During the conference, many verses were quoted and recited. I strongly believe that when art becomes part of any meeting where information and ideas are exchanged and communicated, and learning is involved, a better balance is established between the head and the heart - between knowing and feeling - between actively doing and cognitive reflection - thinking. Hearing Rumi's poetry quoted at the conference gave me the inspiration and hope that these meetings of art and business could occur much more frequently in our 'Western' business, management, and conference world.

Here's an Rumi poem I read this morning:

We can't help being thirsty, moving toward the voice of water. Milk-drinkers draw close to the mother. Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, shamans, everyone hears the intelligent sound and moves, with thirst, to meet it.

Clean your ears, Don't listen
for something you've heard before.

Invisible camel bells,
slight footfalls in sand.

Almost in sight! The first word they call out
will be the last word of our last poem.

(#837 - translated by Coleman Barks)

France
Just some valuable space in between. Time to read.
Reading Yann Martel's Life of Pi. What a great read. I love that book.

Kuala Lumpur

After enjoying the relaxing sunny moments in the Provence in south of France, with Marieke and my parents, my friend Victor and I boarded the plane to Kuala Lumpur. There I presented at the 35th IFTDO conference at the KLCC, the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre which is situated right in the middle of the Kuala Lumpur City Centre. IFTDO is the International Federation of Training and Development Organizations. In that same area are the famous Petronas Twin Towers with the shopping malls and the magnificent concert hall, home of the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra.

Again, this conference proved to be a meeting place for kindred spirits. I met with people who too are spreading the message of play and flow. I was struck by the sheer amount of university students in Malaysia. Many students are enrolled in programs at the University Teknology Mara and assisted with the logistic organization of the conference.

For me, it was interesting to be part of the post-conference meeting and brainstorm together with other attendees about bridging the gap between the level and experience of graduating students and the expectations of the level and experience of new employees in the professional industry. For this purpose, a government supported platform is in creation, all very exiting developments.

One the last day we visited the old town of Malacca. We found residue of the Dutch such as an old Stadthuys. This one day gave us the chance to relax a bit before embarking on the twelve hour return flight.

I am grateful for an unforgettable summer filled with meeting wonderful inspiring people and visiting all those fantastic places!

Kyoto

Today I went to Kyoto again. I fell in love with that place. It is so refreshing to be in this natural environment in between our visits to the big cities. Kyoto is a buzzing city too, but somehow it feels quite intimate. It has the river and the old Gion section and all those magical temples, shrines and gardens.

We went to see the Sanzenin temple complex. That is one of the most inspiring places I have ever visited. It has Buddhist temples combines with amazing flower gardens and a fairy-tale like waterfall. Since this place is north east of Kyoto, there weren't many tourist, only some Japanese pensionado's enjoying the site. I felt like walking in a Hayao Miyazake animation complete with the forest spirit, the tree spirits, the bath house, the Gods, and the magical forest. The weather was lovely and I could make some nice photos.