For years my guitar-playing friend Randy Wright pressed me to write music for his instrument. He sent me recordings, took me to concerts, played his guitar for me.

Since the late '70's, Randy has been one of my best friends and the person with whom I have worked most closely on my many projects. He's a graphic artist by trade and you've seen his work: Randy designed my website and the covers of all my CDs and most of my books. He is extraordinarily good at what he does, visually conveying the character of the music and stories I want to share.

What's more, he commissioned me to compose two works to mark two major events in his life. I wrote my Mt. Airy Wedding Suite for oboe, violin and cello to be played at his wedding to Michele, which took place in Cincinnati's lovely Mt. Airy Forest. And I wrote my Lullabye for Kara for cello and piano to commemorate the birth of his daughter, Kara.

Randy is a glider enthusiast, owns his own glider, belongs to the Dayton-area glider club founded by Orville Wright. He's taken me flying in his glider, twice. He's also a sometime painter, a serious cook, vegetarian, wine enthusiast, art collector and, like me, an ardent Liberal. In his younger years, he bicycled and camped his way through the mountains of New England for weeks on end. He is fascinated by ancient Mayan civilizations, the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright and the history of the guitar. Randy is one of the most interesting people I know.

Despite his exuberant enthusiasms, Randy is soft-spoken and, surprisingly, a little melancholy. The music he loves most is sad, intimate, introspective. We want friends to like the gifts we present them. In 2011, when I finally wrote a guitar suite as a gift for Randy, I tried to give the music those qualities.

I titled the guitar suite For An Old Friend. I want you to hear the first movement played with great feeling and sensitivity by the Seattle-based guitar virtuoso Hilary Field.

To hear the first movement of For An Old Friend, click on the link above.

To see a PDF of the score, click on the link above.

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
August 31, 2014

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Merry Christmas! —

It’s a rare Christmas present that you can give specifically to one person and then share it with hundreds of others. Such is the case with two gifts I am sending your way this Christmas morning.

The first is a gift I received from one of y'all, i.e., one of you good folks who kindly permit me to catapult these weekly emails into your in-box. Gary Wakenhut, whom I have never met, is a healer, musician and videographer. He is also an ardent protector and appreciator of the beautiful Pigeon River that flows through the north central part of the southern peninsula of Michigan, where he lives.

Utilizing, as the film score, the second movement of my “Voyage of the Spirit” (Trio #1 for clarinet, cello and piano), Gary assembled a lovely piece of video art entitled, “Life of the Forest: The Pigeon River.”

Gary really listened to the music. You can tell by the way he ‘cross-fades’ his gorgeous images precisely when one long phrase of music ends and another begins.

With my blessing and thanks, he has mounted it on YouTube for anyone to see and hear. It’s so beautiful. Click this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CICbdPOsIN8

The second gift is a piece I composed for my guitarist friend Randy Wright after he had good-naturedly pressed me to do so for many years.

I’ve been hanging out with Randy since the late '70’s. We’ve worked on many projects. He's a graphic artist by trade; most of you have seen his work: Randy designed my website and the covers of most of my CDs and books. He is extraordinarily good at what he does: he has a talent for visually conveying the character of my music and stories.

He also does behind-the-scenes chores for me such as creating the links in these weekly mpFrees. Without Randy’s help, I could not share my work with you in this way.

Randy has many enthusiasms, yet he is soft-spoken and melancholy; he loves best all music that is sad, quiet, intimate and introspective. (Unlike the undersigned, he isn’t drawn to Sibelius.)

We want our friends to like the gifts we present them. In 2011, when I finally wrote a guitar suite as a gift for Randy, I tried to give the music those wistful, 'anti-Sibeliian' qualities he cherishes. And I gave the suite a very 'un-Sibelian' title: "For An Old Friend at Christmas.”

Randy loved the piece but hesitated to record it for me. Instead, he facilitated my connection with the superb, Seattle-based guitar virtuoso Hilary Field, ‘introducing’ us via emails. Hilary's recording of the suite prompted me to write another guitar piece specifically for her. It’s entitled “Reluctant Farewell.” Appropriately, it’s the final track on her latest CD, “Premieres." I’ll share that piece with you another time.

( Note: Listening to the mp3 below, you might think the piece ends at 1:37 because HIlary has made the most of the pause I indicated at that point in the score. Hang in there! There’s more to come! This reminds me of the good times I had in community theatre. In rehearsal, my co-star paused. I whispered, “Did you forget your line?” “No!” she snapped. "I’m ACTING!” Doh! )

To hear the second movement played with great feeling and sensitivity by Hilary Field, click on the link above.

To see a PDF of the score, click on the link above.

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
December 25, 2016

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For the past three months, Emma Quillin has taught second graders at Taft Elementary School, her first job after college. While earning her degree in Education at the University of Cincinnati she found her passion: teaching young, inner-city school children.

A tall young woman with long dark hair and serious eyes, she briefly spoke to our congregation during last Sunday’s service.

“My students ask me what they must do to be admitted into the Juvenile Detention Center, a block from our school. They want to go there because many of them have siblings and neighbors who have been incarcerated there and they have heard that the inmates get three square meals a day.”

Hunger is a constant problem for most of the 300 students of Taft Elementary, despite the school’s provision of breakfast and lunch and “a healthy take-home snack” for every student, every school day. Emma brings baloney sandwiches to distribute to her students as well.

The very location of Taft Elementary School is replete with ironies. The boyhood home of President William Howard Taft is two hundred yards west of the school. Christ Hospital is across the street from the Taft home. The Detention Center is two hundred yards south of the school. The university is a half mile north of the school, as is our church, Mt. Auburn Presbyterian. A half mile south lies Milton Street, where we live.

Emma asked us for help. She suggested several things, including a visit to her classroom. She said that the only answer her students have to the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” is: “A teacher.” Why? Because teaching is the only job they have ever observed anyone doing, the only job they know anything about. She asked us to come to her classroom to tell her students about our life's work, broadening their sense of what is possible.

At the coffee hour after the service, I told Emma that I would do that and more. I would visit several classrooms and present an assembly for each grade level featuring music, storytelling, history and what it is to be a composer and a writer.

I have a knack for communicating with kids and I’ll do my best.

But what about their hunger? What can I do about that?

The question is, again, heavy with irony. The school is so near the home of "Big Bill" Taft, our most well-fed (fattest) president and the only president who went on to serve, after his presidency, as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. What about seeing that these children are well-fed? What about justice for them?

The irony is personal as well. I’m the cook at our house. On Thanksgiving day we feasted on Roast Turkey, Dressing, Mashed Potatoes, Oyster Dressing (a Sowash family tradition), Broccoli-cherry tomato salad, Cranberries simmered in maple syrup and Amaretto, and one of my celebrated cheesecakes: a Frangelico, orange rind, milk chocolate cheese filling in a butter-bound crust of cuisinart-ed gingersnaps and cocoa powder, served with red raspberries on top.

What did the kids enrolled at Taft Elementary, all of whom live within a mile of my house, eat on Thanksgiving Day?

What’s to be done? Someone rich and powerful could help; first, they must be made aware of the situation; second, they must be asked to help; third, they must act.

What if I could command the attention of our current president and his cabinet, just long enough to tell them about the second graders who want to know what they have to do be admitted into the Detention Center so as to garner three meals a day? What if I could ask them to do something?

Our current president and his cabinet are all billionaires or millionaires, very well paid and well-pensioned. They could easily do something to help. But how could I reach them? They wouldn’t let me into their offices; they wouldn’t let me attend a cabinet meeting; they wouldn’t let me speak with them on the phone.

I could write them a letter. I’d almost certainly get back a nice, neat, boilerplate letter prepared by an aide and adorned with the digital-age equivalent of a rubber stamp signature. If I told them I was donating money to the school’s food fund and asked them to do the same, they might praise my generosity. If I asked them why this situation exists in the first place and suggest policy changes, they would most likely say it was a complex issue.

(The Brazilian Catholic Archbishop Dom Helder Camara wrote, “When I fed the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked why there are so many poor, they called me a communist.”)

When I got home from church, I wrote to Representative Steve Chabot and Senator Rob Portman, sharing with them what Emma had told us. I urged them to vote to raise the minimum wage and not to take away health insurance and health care from the poor, not to gut Medicare and the CHIP program, not to cut benefits for the needy in order to offset tax cuts for the rich. Maybe if enough voters do the same?

The close proximity to the school of President Taft’s boyhood home has the potential to inspire the students to bring gifts of public service to the world, if they knew what a little boy who once lived in their neighborhood had become when he grew up.

Meanwhile, they are already inspired by the close proximity of the Detention Center to dream of finding some way of being admitted, thus being guaranteed three meals a day.

I’m a composer; I view things a bit differently. Here’s a little analogy that occurred to me…..

Hunger is intimate, unique to the person experiencing it, felt in the stomach; it cannot be shared.

Guitar music is intimate, too. Its vibrations are felt in the stomach as the guitarist presses her instrument against herself as she plays, most often performing for an audience of one: herself. Unlike hunger, guitar music can be shared.

I titled my only guitar suite "For an Old Friend at Christmas." I invite you to hear the final movement played with great sensitivity and compassion by the Seattle-based guitar virtuoso Hilary Field.

To hear her rendition, click on the link above.

To see a PDF of the score, click on the link above.

🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶

... You’ve seen [my guitar-playing friend Randy Wright's] work; he's a graphic artist by trade and designed the covers of most of my books and CDs. For free. (Sound familiar?) He is extraordinarily good at what he does, visually conveying the character of the stories and music I want to share.

The cover of my new book, The Blue Rock, is the most recent instance of his work on my behalf. If you’re a recipient of one of the 450 copies I’ve sent out so far, look at the cover and notice how the letters of the words seem to move, left to right, from invisibility to clarity. The letters emerge mysteriously, like the Blue Rock itself, with no known provenance...