The Mothers, Founders and the One

From 2009 Ski UP Best Of

So its been a long hard Michigan winter...but it has been great for introspection! This last January I experienced some uncanny events that all linked together a kind of life philosophy for me about music and community.

In early January, Andrew and I were sitting at the bar at the best brewery in the country, Founders, when a Mothers of Invention song came on. We both started to nod our heads and have a conversation about The Mothers when the guy next to us (a twenty-something guy I never would have assumed knew anything about The Mothers, let alone think we had anything in common with) started to tell us a story about what he was doing the first time he ever heard The Mothers song "More Trouble Everyday" that was playing. I asked him if he knew "Live at the Filmore East" and he said that was his first Mothers album.

The next song "Concentration Moon" came on; we all sang along.

When Andrew and I were walking home, we talked about how crazy it was that we met some random guy at Founders that knew a lot about The Mothers and about Zappa. It makes sense to meet someone like that at Founders, but it is so rare that people our age are educated about The Mothers and Zappa. Then, we realized that there are so few places in the country period where you can drink fantastic beer, listen to The Mothers (in public) and actually run into someone who sings along.

A similar experience about how we are all connected happened a week later at the Week for Prayer and Christian Unity service that I played and sang for at St. Andrews. Rev Robert Schiesler from St. Mark's told a story in his sermon about helping a young homeless guy who came to his office one day while he was working on him sermon to ask for help. Schiesler explained that his initial response was one of annoyance (this was an interruption to his regular sermon writing routine), but realized that he was hungry and decided to take the young guy across the street to McDonald's for lunch.

The two ended up having a lively and unexpected conversation about life and faith. When they parted their ways Schiesler offered to buy the guy a dinner for the road. (The young guy was hitchhiking to make it to some friends in Chicago who could help him.) The young man explained that he had already stowed half of his hamburger for dinner that night and that was all he needed to get by. Bewildered, Schiesler dropped the young man off by the side of the road and then went back to the church to try to finish his sermon. Schiesler said all he could do was just sit there and cry.

Schiesler ended his story by explaining how we are all one, despite who we think we might connect with, or who is like us or not, we generally have more in common with one another than we think. He also explained that while the institution of the church can be good for setting structure and boundaries, the church is not alive. It is really only the people that matter, they are the ones that are alive and help us to remember that we are all one.

Compost, CSA, Raw Milk, and a Vineyard

From 2008-2009 Blog Photos

We had four huge successes this year for our health and for the well being of everyone in the world.

First, I built a compost pile in the backyard! I got angry one day at how much vegetable waste I was putting yet again in the garbage.

So, I walked over to the local ACE Hardware and bought chicken wire. I came home, not really knowing what I was doing as a first time compost pile designer, and made a circular enclosure with the wire. Voila, we have the beginnings of good dirt and a light garbage can.

The other two best things we did for us and the earth this year was to purchase a Community Supported Agriculture share from Goundswell Farm (pictured above, that is us playing for the farm potluck) and a 1/20th of a cow share for raw milk from Lubber's farm. To anyone who has never done a food share these two things don't mean much. But, for us it is just the beginning of understanding more about where our food comes from, who our neighbors are, and how much better food tastes and sustains us that is grown locally.

This year we also planted a vineyard in our backyard! Seval Blanc, a hybrid white wine grape variety that was developed to grow in northern climates. It was a good test of our marriage putting the vines and the trellis in this year!

From 2008-2009 Blog Photos

Madison Milonga with the Band

From 2008-2009 Blog Photos

The first weekend in October we traveled with an entourage of friends to Madison, WI to play and sing for the Madison Tango Society's monthly milonga. Me, Andy, and Avik played with Gabriela Contreras and Daniel Castro who traded off singing with us. Sung Yi was our official roadie.

The milonga had a great energy and was well attended! Madison has been one of the strongest supporters of our tango group, and we always enjoy playing for their enthusiastic milongas.

Afterwards, we hung out with the tango bums. I got to try my first "car bomb" at the Irish Pub at the coercion of Avik and Gabriela who also (not for the first time) had car bombs.

From 2008-2009 Blog Photos

From 2008-2009 Blog Photos

On the drive home, Andy and I were super excited to pick up some local beer (New Glarus Rocks!) and seven different local raw milk cheeses, including Pleasant Ridge Reserve!

Isle Royale CD Release Concert

From 2008-2009 Blog Photos

We took a quick journey back to Isle Royale in late August. We stayed with our friends Pat and Liz who hosted us on Mott Island. We were a bit spoiled, eating fabulous food and tasty beverages brought over on the boat, but we figured we needed the rest after the long journey to Kansas City and back just the weekend before.

We spent our week on Isle Royale practicing and composing a little bit, and then gave a concert on Friday August 22. As usual, the concert was well attended and it was a beautiful warm night.

The only difficulty of the whole trip was the bumpy, sea-sick ride home on the Ranger III. We rode 6-9 foot waves all the way to Houghton (about a 7 hour boat ride...) THEN, we drove 9 hours home to make it back for our Sunday morning church gig. Just another 16 hour travel day...and I used to think that I wanted to be a full time touring musician...

Below is my attempt to catch one of the ferocious Lake Superior waves from the side of the boat.

From 2008-2009 Blog Photos

Ann Arbor Community Milongas

From 2008-2009 Blog Photos

In July and August we played for community milongas in Ann Arbor. Both were outdoors in a beautiful setting on campus. We had a lot of fun jamming with a larger group, with Marco on guitar and Gabriela who sang with us. Making music outside is where its at!

Performance at the National Flute Convention

In August we performed with Tess and Scott for the National Flute Convention in Kansas City, MO!

Our program was taken from our Latin Dance Project and included all original pieces and arrangements including a new piece by Scott called Tango Fantasy and stuff from our Maufo Vega CD.

It was a hell of a drive! We rented a van and drove down 12 hours on Wednesday and back 12 hours on Sunday!! Thankfully we stayed with our friends Stephanie and Eric who live out in Lawrence, KS. They cooked us fabulous food and took care of us with lots of tasty beverages while we rehearsed during the day and made trips back and forth to downtown KC.

Our performance was well received. I would say about 150 people attended and many of the friends from the West Michigan Flute Orchestra (who also performed on Saturday of the convention) where there to support us.

Northern Michigan Concerts

The last weekend in July we played two concerts in northern Michigan on three different great lakes!

Our first concert was at a coffee shop and book store called Falling Rock Cafe in Munising, MI on the Lake Superior shoreline. We were pleasantly surprised with the well attended audience and the enthusiastic and informed response! We featured our new works from Waterway, and many of the folks were engaged with the music and had a lot to say to us afterwards about how the music affected them (every musician's dream right?)

Check out the video of us playing Gauntlet of Death:



We played a concert the next night with our friends Scott Harding and Tess Miller at St. Anne's Church on Mackinac Island. We featured Waterway in the first half of the concert and then works from our Latin Dance Project in preparation for our August performance at the National Flute Convention.

Check out the photo below. Now there is something you don't see everyday. Our Mackinac Island Roadie...on a bike.

From 2008-2009 Blog Photos

She's Finally Here-Waterway

From 2008-2009 Blog Photos

After writing the first drafts in 2003, then touring in 2004-2006, and finally recording in 2007, we were able to self produce our own music on a new CD called Waterway.

It has been an incredible process of developing this music, most of which is about Lake Superior and all of which is about important waterways. We have worn many hats along the way: composers, editors, practicers (hey I think that is a new word), performers, and listeners. Andy and I have learned so much from putting ourselves in the position of having to believe in our own musical ideas, a scary process, but worth it.

You can read all about our new CD on a lovely little website I put together: WaterwayCD.com

Composing on the Appalachain Trail

From 2008-2009 Blog Photos

Andrew and I took our much needed nature time in June to clear our minds and get to work writing some music!

We spent a week hiking the 70 miles of the Appalachian trail that snake up and down through Smokey Mountain National Park. Our time in the smokies provided some much needed strenuous exercise and open space for brain flow. It was also a very social time as we spent every night eating and sleeping with different people in the community hiker shelters.

After the smokies we drove north and spent two days tasting wine in the Monticello wine region of Virgina before hiking into a rustic cabin in Shenandoah National Park where we stayed for a week.

We cooked a ton of good food, drank delicious wine (Barboursville Vineyards! got to check them out), hiked another 70 miles of day hikes, and slept in about 85 degree moist heat :(

We wrote music and practiced in the mornings. Andy ended up drafting a whole piece for his bell choir at Bethlehem Lutheran Church called Liberation, a three movement work inspired by the book of Job. I drafted a piece for two flutes, guitar, and percussion based on Ravel's piano work Gaspard de la nuit. Even with the heat, we didn't want to come home.

CD Recording at CMU

From 2008-2009 Blog Photos

Our friend Scott Harding wrote a successful grant to pay for a CD of our Latin Dance music to be recorded and released on the White Pine label at Central Michigan University!

We recorded in mid-May in a fabulous hall at Central Michigan University. We all learned how the recording process really brings out the polish in the music and makes subsequent performances seem a lot easier. We will play this music again on Mackinac Island and at the National Flute Convention in August!

Our sound engineer, Scott Burgess, was a hoot to work with and really made the whole process go by smoothly.

Albuquerque Anniversary Tango Fest

From 2008-2009 Blog Photos

We had a fabulous spring break in New Mexico playing and teaching for the 10th Anniversary Tango Festival for the Tango Club of Albuquerque. Avik Basu joined me and Andy for the two festival milongas, making for a little trio band reunion. Yelena and Avik taught most of the classes on Friday and Saturday, while Andy and I gave two musicality based workshops for dancers, one on dancing to the off beat in tango and one on dancing to different beat structures in vals.

Luckily the weather was awesome, even for the backpacking trip that we took down in the Gila Wilderness after the festival was over. The only jam we had was during our hiking on one of the north facing slopes at the end of our hike. It was literally covered in ice...and after walking ten miles and meeting this steep slope, we really had to keep from crashing. I think our total fall count on the ice was at least ten times between all of us.

Thanks to William Gruner for the sweet shot of us playing for the Friday milonga, and for the ABQ tango club's support of live music!

Down With the OPP

Over Christmas break Andrew and I went skiing in northern Ontario with our violinist friend Debbie. The trip was supposed to be a time for us to relax, get some exercise and have a chance to write some music!


We went to a great little provincial park called Silent Lake for a few days. They snowmobiled us into a yurt that by the end of our stay we called home. We spent our days skiing (where it snowed about 6 inches a day!!) and spent the evenings in our hot, 95 degree yurt making food and generating ideas for two new pieces.

Andrew began a draft of music for Holy Week, a ten minute Maundy Thursday piece for flute, guitar, and piano. I studied the score to "Ondine" the first movement of Maurice Ravel's solo piano masterpiece Gaspard de la nuit. I wanted to write a piece for flute and guitar based on structure and harmonic elements in "Ondine". Andrew and I had spent that fall listening to some awesome interpretations of Gaspard de la nuit : Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Angela Hewitt, and Raph Votapek.

After our Yurt stay we drove further north in Ontario to a town named Temagami and went to a place called Smoothwater, a eco-resort and recreation area owned byCaryn Colman and Francis Boyes.


We skied to two different rustic cabins out in the wilderness and covered around 20 kilometers in deep snow (again snowing no less than 6 inches a day), slushy lakes, with old growth red and white pine, spruce, cedar, and maple guiding shaping our path.



On the first night we were awakened by the sound of two snowmobiles at 3:15am! We were all worried instantly, especially since there were no snowmobiles allowed in the wilderness area. We heard loud male voices and swearing as the two machines tried to make it across the slushy lake snow packed lake where our cabin sat.

About thirty minutes later, we hear the snowmobiles approach the cabin again and then a knock at the door. Debbie and I stayed in our sleeping bags and Andrew nervously unzipped his sleeping bag.

After the knock we heard a man say, "this is the OPP, please open the door"

I have never been so thankful to hear someone say "please". Although, it took me a minute to figure out that OPP meant Ontario Provincial Police.

It turned out that the police were looking for a woman who was "lost out in the bush" and they wanted to know if they could bring her back to our cabin if they found her in the area. Soon after we heard the sound of a helicopter and it flew around our area for about 45 minutes.

We heard when we returned to the lodge that she was found about two lakes over on another person's property. While sking an expert run she lost track of time and when she tried to find her way back had got turned around. Luckily that night she found a fisherman's hut that she propped herself up against to wait out the cold.

The next night we thought of her in our cozy little cabin as we worked on our music and ate curry flavored popcorn that we made on the wood stove.



Wood Stove Popped Curry Popcorn

1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup popcorn
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon curry powder

1. put the oil in a camp pot with one kernel of popcorn in it and place on the stove
2. when the kernel pops the oil is ready
3. put the rest of the kernels in the oil and cover pot with a lid
4. using a pan grabber, move the pan on the surface of the stove in a counter-clockwise circle (this keeps the heat distributed evenly and ensures the kernels from burning)
5. Once there is more than three seconds between pops take the pan off the heat and let sit for 1 minutes until the kernels have stopped popping.
6. sprinkle with the salt and curry powder and toss to coat

YUMMY!

Water Water Everywhere

And many drops to drink...













The daily comparison for maximum water usage in the Dassler Cabin on Isle Royale versus our home in Grand Rapids:

Drinking and Cooking
Home: 2 gallons
Dassler Cabin: 2 gallons


Washing Dishes
Home: 5 gallons (filled wash tub to wash, faucet running to rinse)
Dassler Cabin: 1 gallon (wash tub, rinse tub)

Bathing
Home: 30 gallons (two 10 min showers)
Dassler Cabin: 3 gallons (2.5 gallon solar bag, .5 gallon sponge bath for Andy)

Toilet Use
Home: 20 gallons (2 gallon tank flushed 5 times a day for 2 people)
Dassler Cabin: 0

Laundry
Home: 40 gallons (Maytag top loader)
Dassler Cabin: 10 gallons (2, 5 gallon buckets, one for rinsing, one for washing)

General Cleaning
Home: 1 gallon (washing hands, rinsing the sponge after doing dishes, brushing teeth etc.)
Dassler Cabin: 0

MiscelaneousHome: 1 gallon (watering the plants outside with the hose, car washing etc.)
Dassler Cabin: 0


Daily Total:
Home: 99 gallons per day
Dassler Cabin: 16 gallons per day

Life is different without a faucet and a running tap.

Concert 3 On Isle Royale

A Program of Original Music Inspired by Lake Superior















High Tide, Andrew Bergeron
Walkabout Sparrow, Andrew Bergeron and Carmen Maret
Alpha's Last Dance, Carmen Maret (premier)
Waves and Waterfalls from Lake Superior Suite, Andrew Bergeron
Gauntlet of Death, Carmen Maret (premier)
Fog Break, Andrew Bergeron (premier)
Nineteen Knots, Carmen Maret (premier)
Fall, Winter, Spring, and Summer from Lake Superior Suite, Carmen Maret and Andrew Bergeron

Wildlife Sightings on Isle Royale

western painted turtle (at hidden lake)
garter snake (all around)
bats (lots every night, especially around the bench, one flew in the house with me and we had to shew him out)
snowshoe hare
red squirrel
red fox (Scoville point resident)
river otters (Tobin Harbor visitors)
moose (6, all along Tobin Harbor)
loons galore (they nest in the harbor)
horned grebe
double crested cormorant
great blue heron (on Dick and Mary's Island)
wood duck
lesser scaup
goldeneye
mergansers
bald eagles (2, one adult perched in Tobin, one yearling on passage island)
merlin (passage island)
spotted sandpiper (seen from the canoe, on Tobin Harbor shore)
herring gulls
black capped chickadee (by Dassler)
red-breasted nuthatch (by Dassler)
winter wren
cedar waxwings (everywhere by Dassler, look up)
shrike (Rock Harbor spotting)
black and white warbler (by Dassler)
yellow-rumped warbler (by Dassler)
white-throated sparrow (can be heard everywhere along lake superior it seems)
song sparrow (all over)

Anniversary on Passage Island

Today is me and Andrew's 4th year anniversary. We practiced till 3:00pm, then Pat Valencia, a musician and former park service employee friend took us out to passage island, a spooky but really wild place about 3 1/2 miles off the northeast shore of Isle Royale. Pat calls it "the real wilderness of Isle Royale."

Korena, another ranger friend on Isle Royale and botany expert told me she was jealous we got to go out there. She said the diversity it has for such a small island is amazing, something like 700 different species of plants.

We saw wild sundews for the first time, a carnivorous plant with sticky pads about the size of my index fingernail. We also saw lots of Canada yew and ash, "moose candy" that has almost vanished from the Isle Royale mainland.

We also saw a young bald eagle perched on a tree in the harbor on the south side of the Island.

Our last full day is tomorrow. We have internalized such a peaceful, relaxed and receptive way of being that it is hard to imagine our mental and physical states before arriving and of course our response when we return home.










Canada Yew














Sundew, carnivorous plant

Discovering Birds

When I first arrived at the cabin, walking to the outhouse (about the length of a small city block) was a drudge that seemed to take too long. But, over the last weeks it has turned out to be one of my favorite activities.

I have learned to watch birds. I never go to the outhouse now without binoculars and my camera. Today I got a great photo of a cedar waxwing in the top dead branches of an ash growing along the shore.

I also watch for changes: water, boats, skyline, wind speed and direction, animals (including people).

I think the birds have warmed up to me over time. I notice they kind of loom around now, where it seems in the beginning they always quickly flew away. Maybe I walk and look slower now too.

Last Few Projects

We finished our composition projects today. Andrew wrote a final hand copy of his piece "Fog Break". He swore a lot today, surely a sign of the intense process of copying music with a permanent pen. He said he used the leftover brownie that Dick gave us to keep him going. Andy would take a small bite of it after successfully writing each line of music.

I finished a poem and piece of music about the wolves based on a story in Rolf Peterson's book "The Wolves of Isle Royale" that tells a story of the Alpha Female in the East Pack that saved the wolf population on Isle Royale from extinction.

Concert 2 on Isle Royale

Title: "Bach on the Water Part II"

Even more people came this time! 80 or more. So rewarding to have an attentive and packed audience to play for.

Prelude in A minor, J.S. Bach
Fall: Grape Stomp, from Lake Superior Suite, by Andrew Bergeron

Prelude in E minor, J.S. Bach
Walkabout Sparrow, Andrew Bergeron and Carmen Maret

Prelude in G major, J.S. Bach
High Tide, Andrew Bergeron

El Decameron Negro (The Black Ship), Leo Brouwer

Prelude in D minor, J.S. Bach
Footprints in the Snow from Preludes, Claude Debussy

Prelude in B minor, J.S. Bach
Silueta Portena, tango

Prelude in F# major, J.S. Bach
Waves and Waterfalls from Lake Superior Suite, by Andrew Bergeron

Wilderness Composing

We worked hard again today. I am getting a neck ache from writing so much music by hand. It is a good thing we take a lot of breaks out in our wilderness backyard.

Andrew was like a mad scientist today scheming up a flute and guitar piece about our previous fog experience. He is writing it in 11/8 and wants to do a 3+3+3+2 division of the beats. He was out at the inspirational bench for about an hour thumping the side of it with his hand and then came in with a gleam in his eye.

I finished a draft of my solo piccolo piece called "Nineteen Knots" and started a piece about wolves called "Alpha's Last Dance."

The birds distracted and excited us today. I kept grabbing for the binoculars. Cedar waxwings, yellow-rumped warblers and black-throated warblers were all outside the dining table window where Andrew and I strew all of our papers, pencils and erasures.

After dinner Andrew came running in for the binoculars, "a cormorant is fishing just off the bench" he said quickly. Sure enough we saw him catch a fish too. (Cormorants, we later found out from talking to folks in Tobin Harbor, were actually a problem for a while because they were draining the fisheries in the small harbor areas around the island).

We walked the small loop around Scoville Point and I saw a shrike on a big spruce near the split. I heard it and then quickly spotted him in the binoculars, big body and hooked beak.

Dick and Mary Scheibe, our new caretakers for the end of our stay came over to the cabin, Mary calling a loud "whoo-hooo" before she was close to the cabin. Mary has been coming to the island since he was three. Mary and Dick are the official folks who drive the artists around, make sure they have everything they need, and show them a good time.

Other than Dick and Mary, we had no other human contact all day.

Rumbles of thunder over the lake tonight. Maybe we will receive a little cooling blessing tonight. It has been in the upper 80s. Bad for moose, who don't feel feel even the slightest bit cold until 25 degrees BELOW zero, and start to over heat about 56 degrees ABOVE zero!