Sparks from the Fire

This is a story sent to me by a friend.  It touched me and inspired me, so I thought I’d send it on to you.

One day, when I was a freshman in high school, I saw a kid from my class walking home from school.  His name was Kyle.  It looked like he was carrying all of his books.  I thought to myself, “Why would anyone bring home all his books on a Friday?  He must really be a nerd.”

I had quite a weekend planned (parties and a football game with my friends tomorrow afternoon), so I shrugged my shoulders and went on.  As I was walking, I saw a bunch of kids running toward him. They ran at him, knocking all his books out of his arms and tripping him so he landed in the dirt.  His glasses went flying, and I saw them land in the grass about ten feet from him.

He looked up and I saw this terrible sadness in his eyes.  My heart went out to him, so I jogged over to him as he crawled around looking for his glasses, and I saw a tear in his eye.  As I handed him his glasses, I said, “Those guys are jerks. They really should get a life.”

He looked at me and said, “Hey thanks!”  There was a big smile on his face. It was one of those smiles that showed real gratitude.  I helped him pick up his books, and asked him where he lived.  As it turned out, he lived near me, so I asked him why I had never seen him before.  He said he had gone to private school before now.  I would have never hung out with a private school kid before. We talked all the way home, and I carried some of his books. (more…)

The Philadelphia Orchestra

“A Sad Day for Culture: Philadelphia Orchestra Declares Bankruptcy…“

From: Digital Music News
Monday, April 18, 2011

“There’s a serious debate over where classical music is headed, especially as audiences worldwide continue to gray. Well, cite this as evidence of a demise: over the weekend, the Philadelphia Orchestra decided to declare bankruptcy after years of audience declines.  ”We’re in a state of shock, really,” principal oboist Richard Woodhams told the Associated Press.  ”I think it’s a very, very sad day for culture in the United States and the world.”

A number of problems were cited, the biggest being less butts in symphony hall seats.   The Orchestra received an emotional standing ovation this weekend following the performance of Mahler’s 4th, though even that crowd was thinned.   Now, it’s off to the negotiating table and internal fighting, as unions, management, and even donors are likely to spar.

The big question is whether this 111-year old outfit finds a way to survive. And, what this means for orchestras and classical music worldwide.   The Philadelphia Orchestra is one of the big ones – in fact, it’s one of the “Big Five” in the US.   But it seems that audiences are shifting away from the seriousness and length of classical and operatic works, and simply lacking the patience and appetite from such full-length fare.

Indeed, the more common appetite these days is for bursts of multi-tasked enjoyment, and attention spans are quickly moving south.   Which is bad news for orchestras and their hours-long performances.”

I’m flabbergasted by this tragic news.  This is my favorite orchestra in the world – an orchestra that I’ve seen and heard play countless times and every time thrilled to their musicianship and inspired playing.

What is wrong with us as a human race that we are getting so small-minded that we can’t support one of the great music institutions in the world?  I blame it on television.  It’s dumbed us down until we cannot sit and pay attention to anything that doesn’t give us a commercial break.  It has taught us that we cannot hold our attention to anything longer than an hour.

It’s a sad day for American culture and just one more step down the ladder for American leadership in the arts, American civility and American maturity.

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Life Lesson for a Pole-Vaulter

Tonight I shall forego my usual thoughts on Inspirational music and concentrate instead on a great lesson learned decades ago by a young man out on his own in the world for the first time and struggling with life’s many temptations.  I shall kid you not and tell you right from the beginning of this tale that the young man in question was I.  The tale is true.

I was a sophomore in college and at spring break, when all my friends went off either skiing in Colorado or partying in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, I, of pole-vaulter fame, went off instead to get a jump on the track season and practice my skills at the University of Illinois.

I had gone to the University of Virginia my freshman year on a track and soccer scholarship where I had tutored under a great college pole-vault coach by the name of Lou Onesty (interestingly enough pronounced like the word “Honesty”).  As a pole-vaulter it had been a wise decision to learn under this man, for he had been the first true pole-vaulting coach I had ever worked under and I had added a full two feet to my best height that previous freshman year.

Trouble was, though I was thrilled with my progress as a pole-vaulter, I was otherwise pretty miserable at UVA and decided to transfer to a small college in Illinois named Principia College where many of my friends attended.

These were difficult times for pole-vaulters.  “Why”, you must ask?  Because literally three years before, at the end of my high-school experience, the pole-vault world had switched from Swedish steal poles to the new and much improved fiber-glass poles and the world records had shot up as never before.  Now, vaulters, instead of muscling up a stiff steel pole, had to learn how to be catapulted by a flexing fiber-glass pole through the air to greater heights than ever before.

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Wouldn’t it be great if, before we pass on to wherever we go next, we could transfer our knowledge base from our brain hard drive to someone younger’s brain hard drive?  That way the things we discover and the skills we acquire in this life would not be lost upon passing.  Wouldn’t the human race evolve much faster if this were possible?

Unfortunately we humans have not been built with a USB port located just behind our left ears.  Instead we have to put up with a slower form of data transference called “teaching”.

As we gain knowledge and acquire skills, we owe it to the human race to pass that knowledge on to others.  “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.  ~Henry Brooks Adams

I’ve always loved to teach.  I’m deeply indebted to the great teachers in my own life – most of which were tough, sometimes scary and yet ultimately loving deep wells of vital information.  They passed that food of life on to me in a variety of ways and, thinking back on them, I realize now that each of them had that same central quality – they too loved to teach.

And so, we here at Watchfire Music recognize this necessity to communicate knowledge and have decided to create within the company a center for data transference – the Watchfire Music Learning Lab, a school of sorts, for students of all ages, where specialized professional music classes of a most interesting variety will be taught.

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This article has been reprinted from an article first appearing in the Principia Purpose, Peter’s High School and College Alumni Magazine in December of 2010.

Peter Link’s music career flowed naturally from his days at the College. After serving under Jack Eyerly as assistant choir director his sophomore year, Peter went on to be its main director until he graduated. “Jack believed in my ability, mentored me, and provided opportunities,” Peter recalls. “I really learned my craft from him!” Peter also directed a College production of Carousel. After seeing it, a parent told him, “If you directed this production, you can make it in New York.” With that encouragement, Peter packed for the Big Apple soon after graduation.

During the next two years, Peter studied acting under Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse. From there, he landed a lead role in the TV soap opera As the World Turns as well as a lead role in Hair on Broadway. “Doing Hair and the soap was an incredible two-year ride as an actor, but I soon found that my real interest was composing for the musical theatre,” Peter says. During Hair he wrote the hit musical Salvation. Out of that score came a gold record that sold two million copies. “This was a whirlwind start for a young guy!” Peter notes.

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I have recently had the privilege of experiencing one of the most profound healings of my life – certainly the most powerful of the last several decades.  In my prayerful resolve to get well, it became clear to me that I had to clean up several areas of my life, for it was those areas that were the cause of the problem.

I knew that once I truly tackled the job of spring-cleaning my human thought, I would be immediately better and this was, in fact, the truth of the matter.  I went about the task like a man determined to clean out a closet on a rainy Saturday afternoon.

The physical problem was intense, so it was clear to me that the healing work would have to match the enormity of the problem.  So I sequestered myself in my room for three days and did little else but study, ponder and pray.

I’ll write about this experience a lot now because it was such an Inspirational moment for me in my life.  It conclusively proved once again the incredible power of prayer as a total healing agent in a time when the world clearly leans towards medical and holistic solutions.

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Christmas in Central Park

Christmas in NYC!  There’s nothing quite like it.  Truly beautiful, but sometimes a bit too much about Santa and not enough about Jesus.  Each year I go back to the same moment years ago when I first wrote this song to try to rediscover the essence of Christmas.

I’ll share it with you now:

Christmas In My Soul

Music and lyrics by Peter Link

It looks as though

There won’t be snow on Christmas

And the holly and the mistletoe

Were sold out long ago

The midtown rush was just a little too much

And this year Santa and his reindeer

Never left the pole

Suddenly it just don’t seem like Christmas

Suddenly it don’t seem so natural

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The idea that a chariot of fire would sweep down out of the heavens and carry off a man in a mystical spiritual process called “ascension” has fascinated me since childhood.  When I first heard the story in the Bible of the master Elijah and his devoted disciple, Elisha, probably in Sunday School, I tucked the tale away in the back of my mind for further imaginary consideration on those nights when sleep would not come easy.

Later in life, as I taught Sunday School, I began to study thoroughly the story so that I could best relate it to my boys in the class I taught.  I watched them too become fascinated with the tale and found that the discussions around the story went on for weeks in my classes.  Every step of the experience was questioned and thrashed about.  “What was ascension?”  “Why did Elijah say to Elisha that if he could see him ascend then Elisha might be able to someday ascend as well?”  “Why did Elijah ask Elisha to hold his garment?” (more…)