I’m not exactly a frequenter of doctors.  I think I remember visiting all of two in my lifetime.  As a practicing Christian Scientist, I handle my physical problems through prayer and it works, so I’ve simply not had to go that route in life.  Nothing against doctors, in fact I think most of them do wondrous work helping people survive the trials of the body.

Last week, however, I had occasion to have a requisite eye examination and so I trooped off to a local College of Optometry where it would not cost me an arm and a leg.  There I was ushered into a room with a 4^th year student, a young Asian lady who, I’m sure, will one day soon make a fine doctor.

I spent a little over an hour under her care in a chair surrounded by the world’s space age machinery all designed to help her look deeply into my eyes.  And oh so deeply she did.

She explained that she could see down the tunnel of my pupil, the little black hole in the center through the lens into the jelly, the vitreous gel, that makes up the eye, all the way to the back of the eyeball where the retina lives.  There the world imprinted its colors, light, shapes and patterns onto my camera-like lens only to be transported to the tiny receptors in the form of blood vessels, the optic nerve, carrying the image to my brain.  It’s probably a bit more complex than that, but that’s the basic idea.

As I sat there in my space chair and she probed with her light into the recesses of my eyeballs I began to consider this wondrous world of seeing.  In the course of an hour the thoughts that raced through my brain totally blew my mind.  What an amazing gift we have that we can see!

Consider the concept!  Who but God could have possibly invented such a thing as to see – to take in the world around us through two balls of jellied protein and focus these two little tools on whatever we choose far more quickly and for most far more accurately than a Nikon camera.

I began to talk to my young doctor about the miracle of seeing and share my thoughts about the act itself.  She explained the technical side of it, but I was more interested in getting to the spiritual side of the whole idea.

I hauled out of my memory bank one of my favorite sayings of Albert Einstein and laid it on her.  “It’s not that something is out there and so we see it; rather, we see it and so it’s out there.”  I asked her what she thought of this concept knowing that Albert’s credentials and good name would grab her attention.

She paused in her examination and yet still looked deeply into my eyes.  “He said that?” she answered.  “Wow, that explains what I’ve been thinking about and considering often lately in the back of my mind.”  Here was someone who will spend her life exploring the transference of light and shape to the brain thinking and reconsidering the entire structure of Optometry.

Think about it.  In this world of illusion we’re actually making it all up.  After all, we made up electricity, we made up the Internet, we made up the ability for man and things without wings to fly.  Why not make up the ability to see?    The complexity of the act is astounding.

In my own world I have explored the world of sound and vibration and it’s just as astounding that sound comes into our ears in the form of tiny vibrations passing through the air and hitting an eardrum.  Not so difficult to understand until you consider that those little wiggles convey the intricacies of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and that that little thin piece of membrane tissue can pick up the difference between the cellos and the violas.

Seeing is perhaps even more astounding.  If Einstein’s right, that in reality, perception works in reverse, if we actually understood this phenomena, would that not change the world – especially the world of the five physical senses?  Medical science explores the one theory, but who’s exploring the other?  We, the human race, could be missing a big bet here and wasting our time on the wrong theory.  Remember how the world used to be flat and if you got too close to the edge, you’d better be careful ‘cause you might fall off?

Then along came a guy named Christopher and blew a few minds.

Where out there is our modern day Christopher?  Seems like we have much more to learn about this wondrous concept of seeing.

Visualize this: An old white haired man in a rowboat floating through a red sea at sunset.  Got it?  Aren’t you seeing it?  I am.  I made it up.  You may not be seeing the exact detail that I’m seeing, but with 15 word symbols I was able to give you a vision.  What’s the difference between our imagination and what we actually see with our eyes?  Maybe none.  Perhaps Einstein was right.  Perhaps we have it backwards.

Food for thought.

For more inspirational music, thoughts and ideas from Peter Link,
please visit Watchfire Music.

Even More Inspiration

• Inspirational Einstein

Let’s take a turn from inspirational music for a moment and discuss America.  If you consider yourself an American then you need to take part in America – to pay your taxes, to vote for its leadership, to embody its freedoms and to respect the freedoms of others.

You must also know its history to take part effectively in its future.  The National Parks – America’s Best Idea is as great a history lesson on America The Beautiful as I can imagine.  Rent it, buy it, but watch it.  It’s fascinating and oh so well done.

“I often wonder what man will do with the mountains.  Will he cut down all the trees to make ships and houses?  If so, what will be the final and far upshot?  Will a better civilization come in accord with obvious nature?  And all this wild beauty to be set to human poetry and song?  What is the human part of the mountain’s destiny? – John Muir, mountain prophet

John Muir has become my new American hero.  If you take the time to watch these inspiring films, he will become your hero as well – guaranteed.

The history of the development of the National Parks system in America is full of beauty, drama and light – therefore inspiration.  Ken Burns has again captured it all in living color and historic black and white.

Joining John Muir on the role of heros are also great Americans like Stephen Mather and Horace Albright, Teddy Roosevelt and Enos Mills who all play a huge parts in saving the beauteous wonders of our great land.  To them we owe endless homage.

Watching these films has had a dramatic impact on my life.  Before I leave the planet I must take a summer off and go visit the beauty of America through our National Parks system.  It has become a life goal through the watching of these documentaries.  It has also dramatically changed my thought to care less about short-term gain and instead care more for long term vistas.

In the words of new hero Stephen Mather in his moment of triumph establishing Grand Canyon National Park, “Now I want you to know that our job is not over.  It is just beginning.  Remember that God has given us these beautiful lands, but none of them will mean anything unless we have a safe haven for these wilderness places.”  These ‘vast schoolrooms of Americanism’ are out there waiting to be explored, appreciated, loved and experienced.

After watching these films, I’m not going to miss the great opportunity.

For more inspirational music, thoughts and ideas from Peter Link,
please visit Watchfire Music.

Stay tuned for more Inspiration

• Siyahamba-1st Installment
• Siyahamba – Cape Town Installment 3
• Insight – Cy Young Aesop’s Fables For The 21st Century
• Feed the Hungry – Heal the Thought
• Insight: Larry Steelman
• It’s Called Stealing

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhh!

Pardon me if I howl a trifle, but occasionally things go even better than one dreams.  The Watchfire Music Listening Room debuted this past week to a sold out audience and by the end of the evening clearly became a dream defined.

Here is an idea whose time has truly come.  A place where one could come and spend an evening in intimate and elegant surroundings, Jenkins House Concerts just off of Central Park on the West Side of Manhattan, and do little else than simply listen to great “live” music in an un-mic’d setting.

Here was music at its natural best, parlor performed by two multi-talented ladies.  The audience was a wild mix of melting-pot New Yorkers – young and old, professionals and fans, black and white, and all went home full of good food and rich blessings – and only for a $15 ticket.  Such a deal!

The evening kicked off with singer-songwriter, Rebecca Minor, at the grand piano, inspiring us with four terrific new songs personally penned and sung with delightful conviction.  If this is beginning to sound like a review, so be it, though not exactly one from a bipartisan critic, admittedly.

Rebecca is a beautiful gal in her late twenties with a huge future talent that definitely bears watching and listening to.  Word has it that she will soon be selling her sacred songs on none other than the Watchfire Music Digital Sheet Music site.  Stay tuned for a rich treasure trove of contemporary and most accessible solos for your church events.

After a short intermission of delicious finger food and drink, we reconvened in anticipation of Julia Wade, our evening’s headliner.  Ms Wade did not disappoint.  Instead, she sang, she soared, she enlightened us with her gifted instrument, deep commitment to her musical text and great natural beauty.  Perhaps I’m a bit prejudiced here, but it was one of her finest moments witnessed over the past 15 years.

Transitioning from a 3 domed 4000 seat church in Boston where she has performed for the past 5 years weekly to an intimate parlor setting requires tremendous adjustment of style, but Ms Wade pulled this off with aplomb.  In this laboratory setting we had the rare opportunity as an audience to visit and watch the development of this superb vocalist’s new CD, entitled Every Day.

The one gaff of the evening, provided by Ms Wade, came early in her set, in fact, in the second line of her first song as she “went up” and never came down.  Forgetting the words of her song, she struggled on in delicate mumblings for two lines finally giving up and stopping.

She then calmly requested the soundman to start the track over.  The audience sat patiently, albeit a bit nervously for her, as she regrouped and began again.  We had the opportunity to see how a professional gathers her focus, taking it to a much higher caliber and simply begins again leaving the difficulties of the moment behind and moving assuredly on.

In an odd way, it was one of the highlights of the evening.  In my 40 years of show biz I’ve seen this happen many times.  I’ve seen singers forget lines, go up and never recover.  I’ve seen these kinds of moments multiply and become epidemic, destroying the continuity of the act, but here was a moment that actually helped both singer and audience.

We had the opportunity to watch a human being falter and then recover in dramatic proportion.  She then went on to deliver a breathtaking performance of powerful commitment.  This lady has both the instrument and the depth of performance that moves to greatness.  She brings a fresh original sense and sound to Inspirational music that is both classic and accessible, a true classical crossover talent along the lines of a Josh Grobin or a Andrea Bocelli.

She will headline two more evenings with two different opening acts in the same venue Thursdays, September 16 and October 7 at 7:30.  She’ll be joined first by newcomer, singer-songwriter Megan Neale and then by Watchfire Artist and multi-gifted Margaret Dorn in October.

Don’t miss this opportunity to be part of something new, something different and something truly special.

Bring your friends, bring your ears, bring your appetites.

Get ready to howl.

For more inspirational music, thoughts and ideas from Peter Link,
please visit Watchfire Music.

Even More Inspiration

• The Watchfire Music Listening Room
• Working Vacation
• From Inside The Music
• On Teachers
• House Concerts
• Synchronicity

Many artists are obsessed with the idea of “making it”, but if you were to ask many of them what they meant by this, you would receive a myriad of divergent answers.  It is a term that is pretty much an entertainment industry concept only.  We rarely hear of a chemical engineer, a doctor or a school teacher making it. 

No, it is an invention of the ego driven entertainment industry and probably has a lot to do with another great confusion of our industry – Award Shows.  Don’t get me started on that one.  Actually, for those interested, I already wrote my rant about that one. Read The Grammys.

Making it seems so important to some that the concept ruins their lives, throws them into mad depressions, steals away any success that they might have already attained in the past and engenders a misperception of life and its purpose.

“Making it” becomes so all important that it ends up, for most, unattainable.

And yet, most don’t even know what it means.

I like to ask people what is the “it” part of “making it”?  What is the “it” that you are trying to make?  When pressed, most have no clue, but on they press trying and fretting and basically feeling like failures because they haven’t “made it”.

We have an odd business.  The saying goes, “You’re only as good as your last show.”  If your last show, or song or movie, etc. was a hit, they you’re great, but, of course, if it wasn’t, you’re a failure.

Would you say Julia Roberts has made it?  Most people would, and yet she’s had her share of stinkers.  They all have.  Anybody who is anybody has had to take some bold chances to get up on top of the pedestal for their couple of moments and some of those chances were wrong choices – human choices that just didn’t work out.

Julia is probably going to be pushed up on that pedestal once again with “Eat, Pray, Love” but what about Blood Red (1988), Dying Young (1991), Hook (1991), I Love Trouble (1993), Something to Talk About (1995), and Mary Reilly (1996).  Sorry, Julia.

I guess there were months and months of Julia’s life when she just hadn’t made it.  What a sad life!  What a failure!

Yes, of course I’m being facetious, but along the way, trying to make a point.

In baseball, Hall of Fame hitters fail 70% of the time.  Great stars have long lists of failures.

In my own life, I had a song that was a number one single on the Billboard Pop charts and sold over 2 million records.  It’s not a song that I would place among my 250 best today.  It’s not even a song that I ever need to listen to again in my life, but for a forgotten minute there I had really made it.

What did it really mean to my life?  I’m not going to belittle the importance of the moment, but it doesn’t rank up there in the top 1000 moments for me.  I hardly remember the year, much less the pedestal.  And yet it’s what so many aspire to.

No, for me, “making it” is what I do every day when I compose, when I struggle with the scanning of a lyric, when I craft a harmonic relationship between a cello and a bassoon, when I comp a singer’s takes into a perfect vocal.  That’s when I’m making it.

If I’m working for that Rocky moment on the steps in Philadelphia, I’m cruisin’ for a bruisin’.  That’s a movie moment, not a life moment.  Even when the Yankees A-rod hit 3 homers last week, he didn’t get a hit the next day and struck out twice.

For me, “making it” is the act of creation, not the result of creation.  I’ve been protected all my life from the roller coaster highs and lows of this crazy industry by just this understanding.  If, in my work, I made it right, then I’m successful, I’m triumphant right there in the moment and I find my immediate happiness.

If I fail, then I just go back to work and work until I get it right.  The triumphs are personal and private.  The failures are short-lived because they’re just seen as part of the natural process of creation – taking chances, trying something new, making mistakes, but turning the mistakes into originality.

I like to think I make it every day.  Perhaps the world doesn’t know about it, but that’s where the confusion and the mistakes lie for others.  The real question is what does it matter what the world knows?  That’s the ego’s big concern and that’s what gets most of us in trouble.

The rush of creation is infinitely more profound and satisfying than the rush and roller coaster ride of stardom. Read the post, “On Fame“.

I’ve made it over and over all my life.  I also have just a terrific list of failures.  If you’re interested, I’ll share them both with you, but probably you’re just not that interested.  I don’t blame you.  In fact, your interest in the results of my work would seem like a waste of time for both of us.

I’d be much more interested in your appreciation of the actual work itself rather than the results of that work – the so-called “making it”.

If my work, my thoughts, my melodies, my corner on life touches you – just one of you out there and in some way sparks a thought, inspires a moment, warms the heart, invokes a chuckle, then I’ve “made it”.

That’s enough.

The rest is a world of confusion that I’d rather not be a part of.

For more inspirational music, thoughts and ideas from Peter Link,
please visit Watchfire Music.

Stay tuned for more Inspiration

• Siyahamba-1st Installment
• Siyahamba – Cape Town Installment 3
• Insight – Cy Young Aesop’s Fables For The 21st Century
• Feed the Hungry – Heal the Thought
• Insight: Larry Steelman
• It’s Called Stealing

Now, for the first time online, get Help!, the Musical Handbook for Life, in a new and revolutionary delivery system. You’ll be able to download musical solutions to some of life’s most challenging moments.

Each chapter of the handbook is an Inspirational superabundance of solutions to some of the age-old problems of life.  Filled with inspiring lyrics, new and classic songs, quotes, tips from the masters and in-depth advice, Help!, the Musical Handbook for Life, is a necessity for anyone battling through the 21^st century.

While the iPad and iPhone App is being developed, we’ll even start with a beta test of a Compilation CD and downloadable WFM Digi-book sometime in late September.

Watchfire Music partners with the Universal Music Group combining their celebrity artists with ours in this unprecedented approach to better living.

Our first chapter of the handbook presented, entitled Starting Over – How to Re-kindle Love, will feature songs performed by such classic artists as Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Joe Cocker, The Temptations and Aaron Neville and Linda Ronstadt, plus great new and original songs from Watchfire Music’s roster of Inspirational music artists.

Soon you’ll be able to just sit back wherever you are with your iPad in your lap, put on your headphones and enter the world of Watchfire Music Inspiration.  Help!, the Musical Handbook for Life, will inspire you with great songs, great artists, Inspirational lyrics and in-depth advice on a myriad of subjects.

Each song’s lyric will be elegantly presented with beautiful graphics creating thematic backgrounds.   Each Handbook Chapter will present 10 musical/lyrical classic and original song solutions plus an extravagance of additional content to fit your particular need.

Need help getting through an emotional crisis?  Got a problem?

We have an inspiring solution.

Help!, the Musical Handbook for Life.

Coming soon!

Even More Inspiration

• Spirit Of Giving
• Apple Does It Again

Give me the money that has been spent in war and I will clothe every man, woman, and child in an attire of which kings and queens will be proud.  I will build a schoolhouse in every valley over the whole earth.  I will crown every hillside with a place of worship consecrated to peace.  ~ Charles Sumner, American politician and statesman from Massachusetts.

War is the absolute folly of mankind.  Without war the human race would evolve to its next highest level and Planet Earth would be a place of a much higher civilization.

After the Viet Nam war, we had the first period of peace longer than 20 years in the history of our country.  I actually thought we had learned something by that travesty, but then we went back at it again and have been doin’ it ever since.

Heroism at command, senseless brutality, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.  ~ Albert Einstein

If one of the five most intelligent men who ever walked the planet felt this way, why do we go on fooling ourselves and giving others excuses for this, man’s gravest mistake?

We must daily act!

The pursuit of peace and progress cannot end in a few years in either victory or defeat. The pursuit of peace and progress, with its trials and its errors, its successes and its setbacks, can never be relaxed and never abandoned. ~ Dag Hammarskjold, second Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Of course you ask, “But what can I do?  I’m just one person.”

We don’t have to engage in grand and heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people,

can transform the world.” ~ Howard Zinn (Historian) Author of: “A People’s History of the United States” & “and Terrorism and War”

Here’s an opportunity to do your part:

Odyssey Networks invites you to participate in A Million Minutes for Peace.

People of different faiths from all over the world will stop at noon and pray for peace for one minute – each in their own way on September 21st – the U.N. International Day of Peace.

Join us.

http://www.amillionminutesforpeace.org/

It’s simple.

It’s global.

I am presently orchestrating and recording Sebastian Temple’s classic song, The Prayer of St. Francis, to be performed at this event by Inspirational music artist, Jenny Burton, from Watchfire Music.

Make me a channel of your peace
Where there is hatred, let me bring your love
Where there is injury, your pardon, Lord
And where there’s doubt, true faith in you

Make me a channel of your peace
Where there’s despair in life, let me bring hope
Where there is darkness only light
And where there’s sadness ever joy

It’s just 10 minutes of your life.  Spend it the right way.

Either war is obsolete or men are. ~ R. Buckminster Fuller

Even More Inspiration

• Interview With Jenny Burton
• Jenny Burton’s New CD – Released
• Evolution of a Category: Inspirational Music
  - part 2
• On Forgiveness
• The Parting Of The Light
• Hallelujah!-The Power of the Word

In a departure from the usual post on Inspirational music, today I’d like to tell you about a kid I just met.

Kids!
I don’t know what’s wrong with these kids today!
Kids!
Who can understand anything they say?
Kids!
They are disobedient, disrespectful oafs!
Noisy, crazy, dirty, lazy, loafers!
While we’re on the subject:
Kids!
You can talk and talk till your face is blue!
Kids!
But they still just do what they want to do!
Why can’t they be like we were,
Perfect in every way?
What’s the matter with kids today?

From Bye Bye Birdie by Charles Strouse and Lee Adams

I needed a sound system for our up-and-coming WFM Listening Room House Concerts and suddenly remembered that for the last 5 years I had a great one sitting in storage out in Colorado last used when the Missus and I had a house and recording studio out there.

The problem was, how to get it from Colorado to NYC.  A trip out there was impossible both time-wise and financially.  I’d have to get somebody to go into that unopened-for-the-last-5-years storage room, pack it all up and send it to me.  Not the most fun or rewarding job on the planet.  On top of that, I needed it fast.

I called my old cowboy buddy, Tom Flower, who happens to be not only a genuine cowboy, but also a high school teacher.  I couldn’t ask him to do it.  He’d feel obliged to do it for nothing and I wouldn’t ask my worst enemy (if I had one) to do this job – especially for free.

I thought he might know a responsible kid at school who might want to pick up a few extra bucks.  Trouble was, this is a very expensive Genelec studio system that would need to be packed up just right and handled with ultimate professional care.

So the thought of some kid (see above lyric) who I didn’t even know tackling this job with any authority made me wince every time I thought of it.  The above song has played through my mind several times over the past two weeks.

On top of that, I needed someone who could go into this unopened store-room, weed through all our stuff, find everything including all the right cabling, and care for it like I would.

Probably an impossible task, all things considered.

Tom gave me the number of one JT Gilmore of Westcliffe Colorado.  When we first talked by phone I found JT to be quite the kid.  Trouble was, though our conversation was peppered with “Yes Sirs” and “No Sirs”, a seemingly forgotten mannerism these days, JT was extremely busy and getting ready to leave for college within the week.  Yikes!

But I had no choice.  I was committed to this particular sound system and took a deep breath and said to JT, “If you want the job, you got it.”  He never asked about money and when I took another deep breath and told him I could only pay him $15 per hour, his response was, “Wow, thanks, Mr. Link.”

My worries somewhat alleviated, I then gave him the details of the job, told him that I would, on top of it all, be on a week-long business trip and not be reachable.  He’d have to get this all together and really pull through for me all on his own.

The day came when he entered the storage room for the first time, me on the cell phone talking him through the procedure of finding it all.  In the course of the half hour spent he also came across several large boxes of my precious 35mm slides from many of my past Broadway shows.  I decided with a gulp that he should pack those up also and send them off as well.

Now as well as sending a sound system worth a small fortune across the country, he was also packing and sending a couple of crates of precious memories.

But I had no time and neither did JT.  We were both leaving in 2 days.  I hung up the phone, mumbled a few words of prayer to the unknown god of Fedex and moved on in life.

Yesterday I got home from my business trip having completely forgotten about JT and his adventures only to find 5 huge boxes perfectly packed, taped up far beyond the necessary and beautifully delivered waiting in my hallway.

I dove in wondering what condition I would find things.

As the song says, “Perfect in every way…”

Though I had forgotten to ask him, he had even thought to include the slide projector along with the slides.  This way I might even be able to view them!

All was in perfect condition, perfectly packed, in perfect order.  A job extremely well done.

Was I surprised?  Not after getting to know this fine young man.

Kids!  Faith restored!

For more inspirational music, thoughts and ideas from Peter Link,
please visit Watchfire Music.

Even More Inspiration

• For Kids Only
• Close Encounter With A Mat Knife
• Long Live New Music!
• On Faith

She took a “vacation” from her job in Boston where she is the soloist at the world headquarters of the Christian Science Church.

It’s one of those jobs where people think she shows up on Sunday and sings a couple of services and that’s about it, but, in reality, it’s pretty much a full-time job considering all the preparation, research, rehearsal and administrative work she puts into it.

So the perception in Boston is that Julia is on vacation, but the reality is that she moves from one difficult, totally time consuming job to one that is probably at least twice as intense.  That’s the job of recording an album.

Singing on a high professional level and the blood, sweat and tears that go into that endeavor often have the result of making the final task, the performance itself, look easy and natural.  That’s the idea.  A performer should look and feel like they’re having a good time up there and are living the experience gracefully, flawlessly and easily.

If only people knew.

Now we all have jobs and many of us feel under appreciated.  Most jobs are filled with the minutiae of detail that when done right go under the radar of the average Joe.  Many of us wish at times that somebody else knew just how much work we had really put into the completion of a task.  Honestly, most people don’t care.  They just want it done.

It’s the same with singing, only often more so.  It’s more so because the perception by most people is that the actual act of singing is so easy.  If you’re talented, just open your mouth and sing!  What could be easier than that?

Well, I’m here to tell ya’ today that it just ain’t so.  I know.  I’m a witness.

To perform on the high level that Ms Wade does takes an unbelievable dedication, concentration, commitment and yes, blood, sweat and tears.  I’ve just watched her up close go through a month of preparation and performance that would normally wilt the average Jane.

And for the many of us who have come to know the work of Ms Wade, she is definitely not the average Jane.  Blessed with a powerful instrument to begin with (her voice), she studied and sang classical music for many years, and her career as an opera singer climaxed most fitfully at one of the world’s great opera houses, The Rome Opera.

About that time, sensing deeply that there were another directions to explore, she re-invented herself and moved her talents and instrument production to a much more accessible sound and style in order to reach even a larger audience.  She undertook a transformation that has been tried most unsuccessfully by many of the world’s greatest singers – the daunting task of changing her voice from classical to pop.

Most singers who try this never figure it out.  The classical production and techniques are just too different and ensconced in the performer and so the change over is never fully made.  But Julia is smart as well as talented.  She studied, she listened, she found the right teachers who understood the differences between the two styles and worked with her helping her morph into a new voice.

It took her about ten years.  Was she out of action during that time?  No, in fact she worked constantly as a church soloist, a Broadway voice, a pop enthusiast, and still a classical professional.  In that ten-year period I was privileged to be able to watch her make the transition and even play a role in the transformation.

So is she now a rock n’ roller?  No, that would be a waste of a great instrument – nothing against rock n’ roll.  Julia has become what the world now understands to be a Classical Crossover vocalist.  Think:  Josh Grobin, Sarah Brightman, Andrea Bocelli.

In the past five years as soloist in Boston, she has lead a transformation of music in that church both retaining the classical excellence of the past and opening new vistas of contemporary, often more accessible music for others.  Through her own crossover, she has led a world-wide church transformation that has people more involved in the music of the church than ever and also has the youth pouring back through the doors of the church.

And now she will shift again.  In her new CD, though continuing to inspire through uplifting thought, she will take a more secular approach to its content.  The songs, many of which will still be sacred songs, will also speak of many of the issues in her life that grab her attention – world peace, love on a human scale and the myriad of relationships between people that she witnesses Every Day of her life.

So I’ve had the chance to watch her take this “vacation” time and turn it into a three-week onslaught of concentration and activity focused on the making of an album.  Between her daily vocal rehearsal on the 14 songs that will go on the CD choosing from over 40 initially selected as possibilities, her lyric study and acting dissemination of the song moments, her weekly vocal lessons with her voice teacher preparing the technical approaches to the difficulties each song presents and her preparation sessions with me, her producer and orchestrator, she also manages to run two divisions of Watchfire Music – the Digital Sheet Music and Customer Service.

You may ask, “When might she sleep?”  Without sleep, one cannot sing at such a high level.  She also has to be in perfect health and overall at the top of her game.  So she also sleeps and eats.

We’re at the end of this phase now.  Three songs in the can and eleven to go.  As I write to you, she sleeps, pretty much exhausted only to get up later this morning and greet and organize our staff coming in for the day and then begins to prepare her solo work for her return to Boston this coming weekend.

Here we are at the end of her vacation.  She’ll go back to Boston and everybody will say, “Welcome back, Julia.  We missed you.  Did you have a good vacation?  Did you get some rest?”

She’ll smile and say, “Well, I didn’t get much rest, but I had a great vacation.”

Next week we’ll record the 4^th song on the CD while she prepares her solos for the weekend.  In another month she’ll take another “vacation” for a couple of weeks and we’ll see if we can knock off another 3 or 4 songs.

If all goes well, we hope you’ll be able to give and get Julia Wades new CD, Every Day, for Christmas.

We’ll keep you posted.

For more inspirational music, thoughts and ideas from Peter Link,
please visit Watchfire Music.

Even More Inspiration

• From Inside The Music
• WFM Radio
• Cream Of The Crop – Part 2
• Things To Come – Part 3
• Things To Come – Part 2
• Chieli Minucci World Class Guitarist