WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.600 align:middle line:90%


00:00:00.600 --> 00:00:03.180 align:middle line:90%
And sometimes, I get a call.

00:00:03.180 --> 00:00:11.600 align:middle line:84%
And I got a call from
Kentucky, from the conductor

00:00:11.600 --> 00:00:13.460 align:middle line:90%
of the Philharmonic.

00:00:13.460 --> 00:00:15.530 align:middle line:84%
And he says, we
would like for you

00:00:15.530 --> 00:00:19.310 align:middle line:84%
to think about writing a poem
on the last symphony of Gustav

00:00:19.310 --> 00:00:21.980 align:middle line:84%
Mahler, "Symphony
Number 9" in D--

00:00:21.980 --> 00:00:24.658 align:middle line:90%
D major.

00:00:24.658 --> 00:00:25.880 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:00:25.880 --> 00:00:28.610 align:middle line:90%


00:00:28.610 --> 00:00:29.490 align:middle line:90%
For sure.

00:00:29.490 --> 00:00:31.280 align:middle line:90%
Yeah.

00:00:31.280 --> 00:00:33.140 align:middle line:90%
I can do that.

00:00:33.140 --> 00:00:35.270 align:middle line:90%
I can do that.

00:00:35.270 --> 00:00:36.620 align:middle line:90%
Definitely.

00:00:36.620 --> 00:00:37.310 align:middle line:90%
I'm on it.

00:00:37.310 --> 00:00:39.440 align:middle line:90%
Man.

00:00:39.440 --> 00:00:43.100 align:middle line:84%
So of course, I had to
listen to the symphony.

00:00:43.100 --> 00:00:46.220 align:middle line:84%
So I turned it on and I
listened to that symphony.

00:00:46.220 --> 00:00:48.770 align:middle line:90%
And it's incredible.

00:00:48.770 --> 00:00:51.320 align:middle line:84%
You'll go into-- you'll
go into galaxies.

00:00:51.320 --> 00:00:53.510 align:middle line:90%
It's such a forceful music.

00:00:53.510 --> 00:00:56.240 align:middle line:84%
You can feel the waves
of space come at you.

00:00:56.240 --> 00:01:02.060 align:middle line:84%
You can feel yourself
flying through that music

00:01:02.060 --> 00:01:06.110 align:middle line:84%
and that music enveloping
you and taking you somewhere,

00:01:06.110 --> 00:01:08.150 align:middle line:90%
an incredible place.

00:01:08.150 --> 00:01:14.780 align:middle line:84%
So I was really, really taken by
Gustav Mahler's last symphony,

00:01:14.780 --> 00:01:18.230 align:middle line:90%
"Number 9" in D major.

00:01:18.230 --> 00:01:22.830 align:middle line:84%
"Mahler-- Son Borne
of the Street Song.

00:01:22.830 --> 00:01:29.040 align:middle line:84%
In the darkness, in the exile
there is a sigh, a number nine.

00:01:29.040 --> 00:01:31.830 align:middle line:84%
There is a son borne
of the street song.

00:01:31.830 --> 00:01:35.160 align:middle line:90%
The injured timpani red drum.

00:01:35.160 --> 00:01:40.170 align:middle line:84%
And there is a town,
Jihlava, a makeshift theater

00:01:40.170 --> 00:01:42.960 align:middle line:90%
and rough cut street dancers.

00:01:42.960 --> 00:01:45.870 align:middle line:84%
There is a sky
that welcomes him.

00:01:45.870 --> 00:01:49.530 align:middle line:84%
His furious strings
tasking the universe,

00:01:49.530 --> 00:01:51.840 align:middle line:90%
his weaving of all things.

00:01:51.840 --> 00:01:57.270 align:middle line:84%
The piccolo and the flute,
oboes of furies, tiny streams

00:01:57.270 --> 00:01:59.340 align:middle line:90%
of burning slow breath.

00:01:59.340 --> 00:02:03.720 align:middle line:84%
We wait in silence
and face up, we

00:02:03.720 --> 00:02:07.380 align:middle line:84%
notice the heavens,
the turbulence,

00:02:07.380 --> 00:02:11.820 align:middle line:84%
and wild, sharp strokes
and pieces of banned color

00:02:11.820 --> 00:02:13.620 align:middle line:90%
and banned voices.

00:02:13.620 --> 00:02:16.800 align:middle line:84%
Their outcast
Jewish hymn takes us

00:02:16.800 --> 00:02:22.020 align:middle line:84%
to the endless seas, unknown
choruses, unknown winds

00:02:22.020 --> 00:02:24.060 align:middle line:90%
and collapsing worlds.

00:02:24.060 --> 00:02:25.290 align:middle line:90%
We enter.

00:02:25.290 --> 00:02:26.490 align:middle line:90%
We follow.

00:02:26.490 --> 00:02:29.040 align:middle line:90%
We halt. We are halted.

00:02:29.040 --> 00:02:31.410 align:middle line:90%
Vanishing harmonies.

00:02:31.410 --> 00:02:35.190 align:middle line:84%
You walk through
quadrants of space, music.

00:02:35.190 --> 00:02:36.360 align:middle line:90%
What is it?

00:02:36.360 --> 00:02:39.750 align:middle line:90%
One note encompasses everything.

00:02:39.750 --> 00:02:42.180 align:middle line:90%
One oboe returns.

00:02:42.180 --> 00:02:43.080 align:middle line:90%
Why?

00:02:43.080 --> 00:02:45.450 align:middle line:90%
Your life, beginning.

00:02:45.450 --> 00:02:47.400 align:middle line:90%
Your life almost ending.

00:02:47.400 --> 00:02:49.770 align:middle line:90%
Then ending.

00:02:49.770 --> 00:02:52.140 align:middle line:84%
What do you hear
in this vastness?

00:02:52.140 --> 00:02:54.390 align:middle line:90%
This movement before you?

00:02:54.390 --> 00:02:59.040 align:middle line:84%
Unknown forces whirl
violins and the dead.

00:02:59.040 --> 00:03:02.040 align:middle line:84%
The director's
arms and hands sway

00:03:02.040 --> 00:03:06.930 align:middle line:84%
shaking point dissolve,
only still we stand now.

00:03:06.930 --> 00:03:11.430 align:middle line:90%
We only left alone now.

00:03:11.430 --> 00:03:15.330 align:middle line:84%
Only Gustav Mahler
lives on by this bed.

00:03:15.330 --> 00:03:19.530 align:middle line:84%
This night, this
day, this last cycle

00:03:19.530 --> 00:03:23.010 align:middle line:84%
falls into ever
returning descent

00:03:23.010 --> 00:03:25.650 align:middle line:90%
of sound, a voice, a voice.

00:03:25.650 --> 00:03:28.070 align:middle line:90%
Do you hear it?

00:03:28.070 --> 00:03:30.450 align:middle line:90%
Hear it."

00:03:30.450 --> 00:03:33.330 align:middle line:84%
And then I sent it
to the symphony.

00:03:33.330 --> 00:03:34.755 align:middle line:90%
[APPLAUSE]

00:03:34.755 --> 00:03:41.420 align:middle line:90%


00:03:41.420 --> 00:03:42.820 align:middle line:90%
And then they played it.

00:03:42.820 --> 00:03:43.820 align:middle line:90%
And then they played it.

00:03:43.820 --> 00:03:46.070 align:middle line:90%
And it was part of the symphony.

00:03:46.070 --> 00:03:50.120 align:middle line:84%
The words and the
music and Gustav Mahler

00:03:50.120 --> 00:03:55.400 align:middle line:84%
and his great most
incredible composition

00:03:55.400 --> 00:03:58.970 align:middle line:84%
of that last-- very last
symphony he wrote, No.

00:03:58.970 --> 00:04:02.900 align:middle line:90%
9 in D major.

00:04:02.900 --> 00:04:05.720 align:middle line:90%
I had to learn fast.

00:04:05.720 --> 00:04:10.250 align:middle line:84%
That's what's cool about getting
requests and getting inspired.

00:04:10.250 --> 00:04:11.510 align:middle line:90%
You got to go to it.

00:04:11.510 --> 00:04:13.370 align:middle line:84%
You go, I never
wrote about that.

00:04:13.370 --> 00:04:16.310 align:middle line:84%
Well, just take a
step and dive in.

00:04:16.310 --> 00:04:20.209 align:middle line:84%
Just go in there and
then we can we do it.

00:04:20.209 --> 00:04:26.750 align:middle line:84%
And that is so true of
everything in our lives.

00:04:26.750 --> 00:04:28.940 align:middle line:90%
And how things get us going?

00:04:28.940 --> 00:04:30.273 align:middle line:90%
We start going, come on.

00:04:30.273 --> 00:04:31.190 align:middle line:90%
How could you do that?

00:04:31.190 --> 00:04:32.750 align:middle line:90%
How could this be happening?

00:04:32.750 --> 00:04:36.050 align:middle line:84%
And that's when
it's time to write.

00:04:36.050 --> 00:04:38.390 align:middle line:90%
That's when it's time to write.

00:04:38.390 --> 00:04:41.120 align:middle line:84%
Qué está pasando,
what's going on?

00:04:41.120 --> 00:04:42.410 align:middle line:90%
This is incredible.

00:04:42.410 --> 00:04:43.880 align:middle line:90%
This shouldn't be happening.

00:04:43.880 --> 00:04:46.250 align:middle line:84%
All those people--
all those people

00:04:46.250 --> 00:04:48.980 align:middle line:84%
shot and killed, young
ones at the university.

00:04:48.980 --> 00:04:50.120 align:middle line:90%
How can this be?

00:04:50.120 --> 00:04:52.820 align:middle line:84%
And you know that's
how we're feeling.

00:04:52.820 --> 00:05:01.150 align:middle line:84%
And that's when the
time comes to write.

00:05:01.150 --> 00:05:03.550 align:middle line:84%
That's when the
time comes to write.

00:05:03.550 --> 00:05:06.155 align:middle line:84%
That's when you take
care of business.

00:05:06.155 --> 00:05:08.530 align:middle line:84%
That's right when-- that's
when we take care of business.

00:05:08.530 --> 00:05:09.760 align:middle line:90%
That's what everybody here--

00:05:09.760 --> 00:05:12.430 align:middle line:84%
that's when we take
care of business.

00:05:12.430 --> 00:05:14.620 align:middle line:84%
Because we want to
take care of business,

00:05:14.620 --> 00:05:16.570 align:middle line:90%
we're going to take care of it.

00:05:16.570 --> 00:05:17.080 align:middle line:90%
OK.

00:05:17.080 --> 00:05:18.220 align:middle line:84%
We're not going to
let it be like--

00:05:18.220 --> 00:05:19.762 align:middle line:84%
we're going to take
care of business.

00:05:19.762 --> 00:05:27.340 align:middle line:90%


00:05:27.340 --> 00:05:29.515 align:middle line:90%
And the five families will know.

00:05:29.515 --> 00:05:32.200 align:middle line:90%


00:05:32.200 --> 00:05:34.570 align:middle line:84%
But we're going to
take care of business.

00:05:34.570 --> 00:05:35.650 align:middle line:90%
So that's it.

00:05:35.650 --> 00:05:37.210 align:middle line:90%
That's how to do it.

00:05:37.210 --> 00:05:39.640 align:middle line:84%
And we all have a
different way of doing it.

00:05:39.640 --> 00:05:42.040 align:middle line:90%
That's fine.

00:05:42.040 --> 00:05:43.810 align:middle line:90%
And so the poems are like that.

00:05:43.810 --> 00:05:51.380 align:middle line:84%
And this-- and this collection,
that's how the poems are.

00:05:51.380 --> 00:05:53.420 align:middle line:90%
It's just the way it is.

00:05:53.420 --> 00:05:54.700 align:middle line:90%
Yeah.

00:05:54.700 --> 00:05:58.550 align:middle line:84%
And we have to wash
that trauma away.

00:05:58.550 --> 00:06:04.420 align:middle line:84%
We have to wash it away
and do it with our voices,

00:06:04.420 --> 00:06:06.460 align:middle line:90%
with our heart.

00:06:06.460 --> 00:06:12.550 align:middle line:84%
We can do it with our heart
and our voices and our hand.

00:06:12.550 --> 00:06:20.500 align:middle line:84%
And we're just scribbling it
and then using our voices.

00:06:20.500 --> 00:06:21.000 align:middle line:90%