A few days ago a young woman arrived, born in Siberia, around 35, musician, pianist, and composer. Quite unremarkable in bearing, in spite of looking decidely Russian, it turns out, as I discovered through Pamela and Liz (who can find out everything about every one of us, thanks to Google), that she is known worldwide and that her works are performed everywhere. Her name is Lera Auerbach
"Russian-American composer and concert pianist Lera Auerbach is one of today’s most sought after and exciting creative voices. Auerbach’s intelligent and emotional style has connected her to audiences around the world and her work is championed by today’s leading performers, conductors, choreographers, choirs and opera houses.Auerbach was raised in the Russian city of Chelyabinsk on the border of Siberia. She graduated with bachelor’s and master’s degree in composition from the Juilliard School and a post-graduate degree in piano from Hanover University. Her work is published exclusively by the Internationale Musikverlage Hans Sikorski. Her music is available on Deutsche Grammophon, Nonesuch, BIS, Cedille and other labels." She came here to rest between concerts and composing, and she is very nice.
3:00, I head towards the Rio Grande from the south. At one point a branch of the river is frozen, footprints, slightly translucent traces. I descend to the snow covered edge. Beyond the red willows, I can see the Rio Grande running fast. Looking down right below me, the traces of two feet, quite strange, 10 cm long, are they footprints of the hind legs of a hare or of a short uncomplete human?The Pacific or red willow? Canadian geese or black and white ducks? Poplars, these tall golden trees? I don’t know.
My penchant for Nature seems elemental, without a desire for scholarly knowledge, a taste for landscape, either very close or very distant, to contemplate the details of water, to see the forest from the height of a child or the vast, ageless landscapes through a tiny hole in a wooden box. A space and a time without landmark or date, a kind of uninterrupted line between the past which lives within me and the consciousness that I have of myself in the present.Near rivers, near rocks, I lose the self-consciousness that pursues and bothers me. At last it dissolves in a very strong feeling of belonging to this world without existential questioning. I'm real. Full stop.There I live with an infinite pleasure of solitary contemplation.No one to contradict me, no doubts. The unlimited freedom to follow my own rhythm even if I'm off beat. It doesn't show and even if it did, who cares? I feel well.
