LA PLUMA
In January 2012 I was playing at a concert
got there 2 hours early laid out my rug and tabla and other instruments and started to set up there were only 2 of us in the building at the time after a few minutes a gentleman, a stranger walked in with long beautiful black hair and sat crosslegged across from me, watching me, while I set up without saying a word we made eye contact and eventually said hello I started to play and to tune and he sat quietly, watched, and listened He asked "When are you going to play?" "8 PM", I replied "What are you going to play?" "Music of North and South India" I said to him he continued to sit in silence and listen, after a few minutes, he got up and left the building without ever saying another word looked at the owner of the venue and he shrugged his shoulders had never seen the man before 20 minutes or so went by and the stranger walked back into the building with his hands spread apart and holding something between them that I couldn't see he got closer and closer and I could see that it was a feather "I brought this for you" he said I stood up, and he put the feather between my hands "What kind of feather is this?" "It is a condor feather..........." he replied, "It has great medicine" I told him that I would place the feather in front of my tabla and keep it there for the length of the concert as an acknowledgment of his gift he smiled, we faced each other, bowed and he left............... don't know who he was or why he gave it to me he never came back and I never saw him again....... "Why would he give this feather to me?" a stranger "Why a condor feather with "great medicine?" no idea but things like this happen to me throughout my life they don't make sense at the time but become crystal clear later on... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 10/19/SATURDAY/2013 had concerts of my chamber music at the LATIN AMERICAN CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL for indigenous instruments of Mesoamerica and Mexico and woodwind quintet in San Francisco had spoken to my musical mentor, John Bergamo and told him that I would be visiting on 10/21/MO/2013 when I returned John had retired from CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF THE ARTS in 2004. We have known each other since 1976 when I spoke with him for the first time regarding auditioning for C.I.A. He became my musical mentor after auditioned for him in 1979 and gave me a full scholarship to CIA. John is the person who introduced me to a world of music and instruments I had never experienced playing before as a musician and a percussionist, e.g., the music of Antheil, Bergamo, Cage, Cowell, Varese, Zappa amongst many others. Playing multiple percussion instruments alongside marimba, percussion of India, and various mallet instruments. Over the years we became friends and we did numerous concerts of other peoples compositions and our compositions. Had just returned to the hotel and checked my phone messages. Janet Bergamo, Johns's wife had left a message that John had passed away quite suddenly the night of my concert while I was playing. On Monday I went to see her 11/1/13 John was scheduled to be cremated and was one of 2 invited by his family to participate in the cremation. We had talked about putting things in with him that he loved....... he had jars of hawk feathers he had saved in one of his music studios, so we laid the hawk feathers around him a letter written for him by his daughter a favorite book sage and the condor feather which had been given to me a year previously.......... Piru, CA, where John had lived since 1973 is also near the condor reserve. So the condor feather, with great medicine the gift that was given by a complete stranger was also placed across his chest before he was cremated |