phyllis cole-dai: News & Notes

On this page, you'll find news briefs as well as "C-notes," journal entries that Phyllis has written specifically about her composing and other creative work. Click on a title in the list of entries to read the text. (The higher the title in the list, the more recent it is.)

• "When Times are Hardest, Kindness Counts Most"
• Busiest Year Ever
• White Coat Music Finished
• C-Note: Nix That!
• Phyllis to Compose Music for Medical School Ceremony
• Attorney's Essay Eulogizes CIVIC Founder
• C-Note:  Antarctica Album in the Works
• Help Phyllis Save a Tree!
• Child of All Earth Album Now on Sale
• First Child of All Earth Concert Slated
Phyllis Launches Charity Fundraising Pages
• New Solo Album Soon to Be Released
• Hospital Using Phyllis's Music
• Composition Used in PBS Tribute to Poet
• Phyllis Collaborates with Prize-Winning Poet
• Friends Now on Apple iTunes
• C-Note:  Piano Is World
• Phyllis Launches Website
  Kudos from Senator George McGovern
  First Solo Piano Album Released

People everywhere are feeling the financial squeeze of higher food and fuel prices, if not also the trauma of lost jobs and lost pensions and lost homes. The financial downturn in the U.S. has already started to impact charitable giving across the nation.
     "It's when times are hardest," Phyllis urges, "that kindness counts most. We have to fight the urge to hoard, feed the urge to share. Share wisely, yes, but share we must, or times will get even bleaker, especially for the most vulnerable among us."
     In this spirit Phyllis wanted to bring you up to date on the humanitarian relief efforts that you, through your generous contributions to her work, have been supporting.
     When Phyllis returned to Columbus this past spring to do a concert fundraiser for the Columbus Coalition for the Homeless (CCH), she was distressed, though not surprised, to find that the number of homeless people in that city, as elsewhere in the United States, has grown exponentially. (Did you know that nationally, one in every four homeless persons, and almost one in every two homeless males, is a military veteran? That homeless families with children are the fastest-growing segment of the homeless population, now at 40%? That the average age of a homeless person is a mere seven years old?
     By purchasing The Emptiness of Our Hands, you have contributed financially to the important work of the CCH. You have, at the same time, made a donation to the Homeless Families Foundation; specifically, to its Dowd Center, a wonderful facility which provides homeless children in Columbus an academically-focused after-school program and a full-day summer program.
     Your purchase of a Friends CD has financially supported the work of Doctors Without Borders in the Darfur region of Sudan. That Nobel prize-winning organization is struggling to continue its mission in a country whose president has now been formally charged with genocide and war crimes. In some areas of Darfur it has been forced to suspend its work altogether, but it's hanging on, and won't give up.
     By purchasing a Child of All Earth CD, you have donated to the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC). CIVIC is a small but mighty organization. Most recently it has been conducting the first-ever training program for American soldiers shipping out to Iraq and Afghanistan on how to compensate civilians for deaths, injuries and loss of homes. It has also successfully pressed NATO to create a common fund for Afghan war victims and subsequently convinced the U.S. Congress to give $2 million to the fund.
     Last year Phyllis created a personal CIVIC fundraising page to help raise donations beyond her CD proceeds. Every donation made to CIVIC on Phyllis's fundraising page is secure and tax-deductible. "The $1000 goal that I set was very ambitious," she acknowledges, "and at $160 raised, we've still got a long way to go, but every dollar we collect helps. I still hope we can eventually make the goal!"
     Finally, although none of Phyllis's projects currently support Heifer International (HI), she has been so impressed by the organization over the years that she created a personal fundraising page for it as well. She invites friends of her work to contribute. Once again, every donation made is secure and tax-deductible.
     "I'm especially grateful to Heifer right now for what it's doing in China," she says, "where my husband's father, brothers and extended family live." HI is helping people in China's Sichuan and Chonging Provinces recover from the devastating May 12, 2008, earthquake that killed at least 69,000 and left thousands more homeless. "Jihong's family wasn't harmed, fortunately," Phyllis reports, "but the devastation in those two provinces is truly unimaginable." HI has a long history in China and is committed to helping families there rebuild their homes and livelihoods through gifts of livestock and agricultural training.
     "With all my heart I want to thank everyone who has bought some of my work in the past," Phyllis says. "You have been generous not only to me but, more importantly, to people in the United States and around the world who are in dire straits. Your kindness is rippling out out endlessly, touching the lives of strangers in ways none of us will ever know."  Back to headlines....

Phyllis is enjoying a relaxing family summer after her busiest year ever performing concerts, leading retreats and speaking about homelessness. "I actually scheduled more events than I should have," she says, noting that most of her public appearances occur September through May, "but it's hard to say no to people. Finally I had to start doing that."
     New for Phyllis this year was doing performance tours. She completed two mini-tours in Ohio (a total of 17 days), primarily to perform her "Child of All Earth" multimedia concert for peace in church, university and retreat settings. She found the work very demanding. "Part of the difficulty was being away from my family so long," she explains. "And part of it was the nature of the concert itself. I have such a profound belief in the need for human beings to intentionally cultivate, nurture and act upon their aspirations for peace. Every time I perform the `Child of All Earth' concert, I have to go deep inside myself, connect as strongly as possible with that core belief, and try to express it musically as best I can. To do that so often in such a short period of time while on tour was hard. It took a lot out of me. But I was also very moved and inspired by the audience response. The music and photographic montages seemed to speak to many people, and often they took time after the concert to tell me about their own concerns, their own hopes, their own struggles to create peace in their own lives and in the world beyond. I appreciated that interaction very much. I want to thank everyone who helped organize and host my tours, and everyone who came out to share in the concert experience."
     The last peace concert Phyllis performed in Ohio was held in a small United Methodist church in a mid-sized rural community. "By that point, I'd performed nearly ten concerts, and I was in a reflective mood. Before I started my usual program, I asked the audience if they would indulge me for a few minutes so that I could share some of my reflections. They kindly agreed.
     "I told them that one thing I had begun to sense, very strongly, while on tour is that we human beings are afraid of pursuing peace, of working for peace, of maintaining and extending peace. Though we often pay lip-service to peace, particularly in our religious communities, we're not really practiced at peacemaking. We don't know how to think about it, how to do it. We don't know how to labor for peace, how to sacrifice for peace.
     "Peace is a great unknown. And many of us would rather cling to the known, no matter how painful or tragic it might be for ourselves or others, than risk the unknown. Yet faith, I believe, is the process of risking the unknown, again and again, on behalf of love.
     "At that last concert I also confessed how sometimes it's a little frustrating when you show up to perform and only a few dozen people are there to hear you. It's frustrating not only for me as a performer but also for the organizers, and sometimes even for the audience. There can be all kinds of reasons for a small crowd: lack of interest, bad weather, busy schedules, and so on. But it's also tempting to suspect, when giving a peace concert, that some people haven't turned out because they're `pro-war,' or `not for peace.' I urged the people present not to give in to that temptation to divide the world into `we' who seek peace and `they' who don't. In so dividing the world, we just contribute further to the sort of polarizing dynamic we're trying to transform.
     "When I sit on the piano bench, I play not only for the audience but (in my heart) for the entire world. And I invited the people at that last concert, as they sat on their chairs, to witness my performance on behalf of the entire world.
     "By the time we were done, that room felt full of souls, let me tell you!"
     Phyllis has created music videos from her "Child of All Earth" concert, combining recordings of her music with the photographic montages that she created to accompany the music. To watch, please go to the Text & Video Room.  Back to headlines....

Last September Phyllis was commissioned to compose a piece of solo piano music for the White Coat Ceremony at the Sanford School of Medicine of the University of South Dakota (see article below). This ceremony is an annual rite of passage in which the school initiates new medical students into their first year of studies and welcomes them as colleagues dedicated to patient care. Central to the ceremony is the cloaking of each student in a white lab coat, the symbolic garb of the medical profession for more than 100 years.
     Phyllis has now completed that piece of music. Entitled "Starting from Here," it was inspired by a book of poetry by the same title that was written by Dr. Jerome Freeman, a member of the medical school faculty. "The piece reflects on the four years of intense learning and growth that new medical students face," Phyllis explains, "every day filled with the challenges and joys of becoming a capable and caring physician. Every day is yet another day devoted to `starting from here'."
     If you would like to listen to an informal recording of "Starting from Here," please visit the Music Room.  Back to headlines....

Alas, the best-laid plans of mice and women don't always work out! More proof, in case you need it:
     Last August Phyllis announced plans for a collection of original solo piano pieces inspired by Antarctica. (Weren't those penguins cute? See below to jog your memory.)
     But after completing her initial research, having read up on her subject and studied hundreds of photographs, Phyllis sat down to compose, and couldn't. "The work felt forced," she muses now. "I guess I'm the kind of composer that needs to compose from the heart. If I have to compose primarily from the brain, from what I've researched instead of what I've experienced directly, the process isn't very satisfying, and neither is the result."
     Having given up on this "less than satisfying" project, Phyllis is hardly despondent. She has already made good progress on a couple of new ones. "There's never a shortage of things to do," she laughs. "But I did learn my lesson. I'm not talking about these new projects until I'm certain they're going to work out!"
     Stay tuned for more.  Back to headlines....

Phyllis has just been commissioned to compose a piece of solo piano music for the White Coat Ceremony at the Sanford School of Medicine of the University of South Dakota (Vermillion, SD). The event will take place in August, 2008.
     A relatively new rite of passage in medical schools across the country, the White Coat Ceremony welcomes first-year medical students into their clinical studies and challenges them to take seriously the responsibility of patient care. Its high point is the cloaking of the students in short white coats, symbolizing their student status. This holds the promise of the day when they will don the long white coats traditionally worn by physicians and medical school faculty members.
     "I'm thrilled at being asked to do this," Phyllis says. "Music and health, music and healing, can be very much related if we'll allow them to be. Here's a great opportunity to celebrate that connection as well as to inspire these students who are devoting their lives to the art of caring." Back to headlines....

When Lee Tilson read about Phyllis's support of CIVIC (Campaign for Innocent Victims of Violence), the Michigan attorney immediately sent her a message. "Wow," he said simply, and shared with her an essay, "The Best There Ever Was," which he'd written upon the death of CIVIC founder Marla Ruzicka. A young American who started CIVIC to assist civilians harmed by war, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq, Ruzicka was killed by a car bomb in Iraq in 2005.
     We sincerely thank Mr. Tilson for allowing us to print this essay in its entirety:


     I didn’t know Marla Ruzicka. Nevertheless I am compelled to read what I can find about her, and to write to understand. Each glowing tribute leaves something important unsaid.  Last night, while watching the Robert Redford and Glenn Close movie, The Natural, another insight became clear.
     The stories about Marla describe how easily and strongly she connected with everyone: Afghans and Iraqis, conservatives and liberals, children and adults, injured civilians and soldiers, journalists and politicians. The tributes come from those she helped, everyone she encountered, and some like myself who read about her. She has earned the praise of childhood friends and senior statesmen, photographers and ambassadors, decorated veterans and pacifists, lawyers and retirees.
     Speeches portray Marla as having the determination of an Olympic athlete, the wisdom of an experienced businessman, the impish playfulness of a teenage babysitter, the instincts of a seasoned politician, a cheerleader’s good looks, and the empathy of Mother Theresa. These talents were focused on persuading America to keep faith with its fundamental values by accepting responsibility for children and innocent civilians (non-combatants) injured in war.
     Journalist Steve Cooper claims Marla breathed life back into a horribly injured child he had judged to be among the “living dead.” The Iraqi Ambassador to the UN thanked Marla’s family for her sacrifice. Soldiers appreciated Marla’s having taught them to see beauty in Baghdad and helping them do their jobs. Reporter Peter Bergen reminded us that no man can have a greater love than to lay down his life for his fellow man. Afghan American Masuda Sultan counted thousands of Afghans that Marla helped. Kevin Kellems, former spokesperson for Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, praised Marla as a unifier and a gift to her age. An eloquent post by Lance Etchison mentions how much Marla enjoyed discussing fashion with him. UPI reporter Shaun Waterman wanted Marla to teach his son to rollerblade. On one of the CIVIC videos, Marla blows on a laughing child's tummy to make an unintelligible noise. Marla’s magic touched the soul of everyone she met.
     Consider the lessons we try to teach our children: be yourself, follow your heart, do the right thing. Marla practiced them. In Plato's dialogues, Socrates teaches the sophists lessons about virtue. Marla knew them. Immanuel Kant instructs us to treat everyone as an end in herself and not as a means, and to act on universal maxims. Marla lived them.
     Marla’s accomplishments are enormous. She saved lives. She renewed hope in thousands of people living in devastated communities. She persuaded the most powerful military machine, the most powerful democracy in the history of the world, to admit that it had done something wrong that needed correction. It had injured innocent people. The victims deserved compensation. She was featured on CNN and Nightline at age 26. She was feted in major newspapers and magazines. She died at 28. How can we appreciate what she achieved in her short life? What can be accomplished by age 28?
     Most of our successes by age 28 are rather ordinary. Other than actors, rock stars and athletes, few are celebrated for accomplishments by age 28. To whom can we compare Marla?
     At age 26, Martin Luther King, Jr., received his Ph.D., and had begun working on the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Albert Einstein had just begun writing. At age 27, Isaac Newton was appointed chair of mathematics at Trinity. Their major successes would come in later decades of their lives.
     While 28, Gandhi and his family suffered one attack in South Africa, Abraham Lincoln was admitted to the practice of law in Illinois, and George Washington served as an aide to British General Braddock. At 29, John Kennedy was elected to Congress. Mother Theresa took her final vows as a nun at 27, went to Calcutta at age 37, and founded her order at age 40.
     By 28, Marla achieved more: she had persuaded the most powerful empire in history to recognize and take responsibility for mistakes, grievous mistakes.
     Must we really look as far back as Joan of Arc and Alexander the Great to find anyone with comparable impact? (Unlike Joan and Alexander, Marla had no weapons, no army.)
     At the end of The Natural, Glenn Close consoles Robert Redford about his past choices with her belief that we get two lives: "one to learn with, and one to live with." Robert Redford says that he wants to be known as "the best there ever was."
     Marla Ruzicka didn't need a life for learning, she already knew. She knew who she was. She knew how to love. She knew how to connect with anyone and everyone. She knew how to do the right thing. She knew how to speak truth so that power would listen.
     Perhaps Marla is speaking to us, asking that we use her life as the one with which to learn. Might she be asking us to use the rest of our lives as she did: loving children, caring for the injured, admitting mistakes, wearing the clothes we want and keeping the friends we want, rollerblading where we want, following our hearts and doing the right thing?
     We can study how Marla chose to live, the lives she renewed, the injured she healed, the hearts she touched, the friends she inspired, or what she accomplished. By any measure and in comparison to any standard, it can be said:

     "That was Marla Ruzicka. She was the best there ever was.”

Back to headlines . . . .

Photograph by Chris Hondros

Phyllis has decided to go to the end of the earth to create her next album--musically speaking, that is.
     "I have no desire to actually go to Antarctica," she laughs. "I'm not fond of cold and wind. That's why I'm living in tropical South Dakota!"
     All kidding aside, Phyllis's decision to focus her next collection of compositions on Antarctica was inspired, in large part, by her own husband's numerous trips to the continent. Jihong Cole-Dai, a research scientist in environmental chemistry, has spent months camped in Antarctic snow fields collecting old ice for analysis in his South Dakota laboratory.
     "For our family, Antarctica has represented all kinds of things.  Separation, adventure, awe of nature, the opportunity to learn, danger and risk, physical hardship, homecoming, reunion, the struggle to express what is best known only by experience . . . all sorts of things. The stories and photographs that Jihong has brought home over the years have intrigued me. And now, of course, with Antarctica in the spotlight due to global warming, the general public is also starting to have more of an interest in the `bottom of the world'."
     Phyllis's work on the new collection, as yet unnamed, is just getting underway, but she has no doubt that the subject matter will influence her musical style. "Every composition, every collection, is affected by what it's about. Every new subject, every new piece, stretches me, takes me where I didn't know I wanted to go."
     If the music in this new collection turns out to her satisfaction, Phyllis would like to create another multimedia concert, using photographic montages, to share it. "You might not think there's much variety to Antarctic photographs. You know--how much ice and snow do you really want to look at? But once you start digging through the images, as I've been doing, it's amazing what's there, just waiting to be seen."
     One thing that Phyllis hasn't decided yet is what humanitarian (or environmental) organization she will support with the new album. "I'm asking for ideas on that," she says. "If anybody has one, please drop me a line. I'm open to suggestions!"   Back to headlines . . . .

Photograph by Zegrahm Expeditions.

Phyllis invites all visitors to her website to sign up for her mailing list, if they're not already on it. Also, she strongly encourages old friends who have been receiving news of her work via the U.S. Postal Service to join her e-mail list.
     "Help me save a tree," she asks. "Switch from snail mail to e-mail!"
     About a third of the people on Phyllis's mailing list still receive her news the old-fashioned way. "Sometimes it can't be helped," Phyllis admits. "Some people don't have access to a computer. Others simply enjoy getting something nice in their old mailbox once in a while. But, given that I have to promote my work somehow, I'd like to be as environmentally responsible as possible. So, I'm asking for help! Rest assured that your e-mail address won't be shared with any third parties."
     To join Phyllis's e-mail list, just click on the button at the top of the page. Important: If you have a spam filter or other safeguard on your computer, please change its settings to allow messages sent from Phyllis's e-mail address (phyllis@phylliscoledai.com).   Back to headlines . . . .

Phyllis will present her first Child of All Earth concert at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, October 12, in the Fishback Studio Theatre of the Performing Arts Center on the campus of South Dakota State University, Brookings.
     This concert for peace, which Phyllis describes as making a humanitarian rather than a political statement, will be a multimedia event. She will perform her original solo piano compositions as photographic montages are being projected onto a large screen.
     "This will be my first-ever multimedia concert, and I'm excited," Phyllis says. "I created the montages after I'd composed the music, using photographs downloaded from the internet. I really think that the music and montages reinforce each other very well, deploring the violence of war and celebrating humanity's desire for peace."
     Sponsored by the SDSU chapter of Amnesty International, this concert will run approximately one and a half hours. Admission will be free for students. For all others admission will be $15 plus a can of food for the Brookings Area Food Pantry. Tickets will be available at the door only.
     If you or your organization would be interested in hosting a Child of All Earth multimedia concert for peace, either see Booking for more information or contact Phyllis.   Back to headlines . . . .

Child of All Earth, Phyllis’s latest solo piano album, is now on sale to the general public. Phyllis composed the music on this album out of profound concern for all people, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, who are being traumatized by war.
     Among the fourteen original compositions in this new collection are "Gone," which explores the absence and loss experienced by combatants, their families and their societies, during war and long after . . . "What If," which asks what might happen today if, instead of regularly resorting to violence or the forceful exercise of power to resolve international problems, we were to imagine and implement more creative and just alternatives . . . "Yes," which celebrates those times in which we choose to embody a spirit of affirmation rather than of negation; of compassion rather than hatred or indifference . . . "Here & There," which refutes the popular notion that human lives here are more significant and precious than human lives there . . . and "Home Again," which anticipates the homecoming of survivors of war, as well as the "coming home" of us all, more fully each day, to ourselves and one another.
     Ten percent of the net sales proceeds from Child of All Earth will be donated to the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC). A nonpartisan humanitarian organization, CIVIC was founded by American Marla Ruzicka to assist civilians harmed by war, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq. Marla was killed by a car bomb in Iraq in 2005, but her vision lives on. For more information visit www.civicworldwide.org.
     In addition to donating some of her CD income to CIVIC, Phyllis has decided to host a personal fundraising page for the organization. "This isn't about politics," she says. "It's about people. Some of us have trouble imagining what it would be like trying to live, work, raise children, be a good neighbor, survive in the middle of a war zone. Many of us, though, don't have to imagine it. All too many of us, civilians and soldiers alike, are right in the thick of it."
     Phyllis is inviting personal friends and friends of her work to help raise at least $1000 for CIVIC's work on her fundraising page. If you would like to make your own tax-deductible donation, click here.
     More about this album is found in "New Solo Album Soon to Be Released," dated July 17, 2007.   Back to headlines . . . .

Phyllis has now launched personal fundraising pages for two humanitarian organizations whose mission she strongly supports. The first is the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, or CIVIC, which advocates for civilians caught in the crossfire of war. The second is Heifer International, which seeks to end world hunger by providing impoverished families in the U.S. and abroad with livestock and agricultural training.
          "A big part of what I want to do as an artist," says Phyllis, "is help raise awareness about, and funds for, human beings who are suffering. These pages will help me do just that." While she wishes that every organization directly supported by her work could host such pages, she recognizes that the trend is still new among non-profit groups. "Who knows, though," she says, "maybe I'll soon be adding a Doctors Without Borders page!"
     Phyllis's humanitarian fundraising pages are listed among her Links. Visitors may make secure tax-deductible donations directly to the cause. On her CIVIC page Phyllis has challenged "friends of her work" to help raise at least $1000 for civilian victims of war. (In addition, she'll be donating 10% of her net sales from Child of All Earth.) To visit her CIVIC page click here.
     Phyllis's Heifer International page is organized as a gift registry. Donors there may choose from among dozens of livestock animals and other agricultural goods valued at different amounts. To visit her Heifer page, click here.
     "There's so much suffering in the world, it's hard to know where to share our resources," says Phyllis. "Believe me, I understand that. I'm not meaning to pressure anybody. I'm just issuing an invitation. If you want to help, here's a way to help. We can work together to make a difference, one life at a time."   Back to headlines . . . .

Child of All Earth, Phyllis’s next solo piano album, will be released in September. It will include fourteen new compositions, providing more than an hour of contemplative music.
     Preparing the album has been a work of deep conviction. “One night in 2006,” Phyllis recalls, “I attended a public screening of a documentary about the suffering of Iraqi civilians during the Iraq War. I left that theater changed. Changed by one scene in particular: a gravely wounded little boy lying silent and unmoving amidst the chaos of an overburdened hospital, his mother wailing over him. To me, in that instant, that boy was my son. Not like my son—my son. His mother’s cries were my own. Helpless, I wanted to run out of the theater and explode."
     Phyllis explains that this collection of music emerged from that night’s experience. "It’s not so much a political statement as a humanitarian cry. I present it less as a citizen of this country than as a citizen of the world—a human being who alongside all other human beings belongs to this earth. I’m nobody special; just one among billions. But my longing for peace is likely felt in some measure by everyone, no matter how deeply it might be buried or thickly scarred over. I dare hope that this longing might intensify within us all, and that it might find increasing expression wherever conflict lies, wherever violence threatens, in tough, tireless, transformative acts of peacemaking."
     Ten percent of the net proceeds from the sale of Child of All Earth will be donated to the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC). A nonpartisan humanitarian organization, CIVIC was founded by American Marla Ruzicka to assist civilians harmed by war, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq. Marla was killed by a car bomb in Iraq in 2005, but her vision lives on. For more information visit www.civicworldwide.org.
     More details about the release of Child of All Earth will soon be announced.   Back to headlines . . . .

The Pastoral Care Team of a large tertiary care medical center in the Upper Midwest has been so moved by the power and beauty of Phyllis's music that it has selected three of her pieces as a musical meditation for health-care providers to listen to on their way home after a busy day. Their hope is that her music ("Disappearing Sea," "Letter to a Young Poet" and "Flexible Flyer") will help the staff members transition from the "busyness" of their workday into both the challenges and blessings of their lives at home.
     According to the Rev. Bill Cooper, one of the hospital chaplains responsible for the creation of the audiotape, the introduction includes these words:
     "Our hope is that, as you listen to this music, you will be able to think through your day and gently leave it behind. As the music continues and you near home, breathe in peace and anticipate the playful re-creation that can await you there.
     "We invite you to listen to the music of pianist Phyllis Cole-Dai as she takes you on a journey through the storms of life, with crashing waves and gale force winds, to the times in life when the wind begins to subside and the clouds part, to reveal the sunlight streaming through. When the storms in life have passed, we are able to venture out in our rubber boots and slickers to splash through puddles and explore the newly rain-washed world."
     Phyllis is no stranger to this particular hospital. In 2006 she was the first-ever musical performer in its "Soothing Sounds for the Soul" series, which once each month provides a quality concert in the hospital lobby for the benefit of patients, their visitors and staff. She performed again in April, 2007.
     "It's one of the most wonderful venues I've ever played," Phyllis says. "The music weaves together with the sounds of hospital life. There is no auditory boundary between the world of the well and the world of the suffering. The music is for everyone who happens to hear. And the need for someone to hear it may be very great indeed. I never know whom the music is touching, or where in the hospital that might be happening."
     Cooper concurs, recalling how during one of Phyllis's performances he saw a patient being rolled on a gurney toward the operating room. Hearing the music, the patient asked the attendant to stop. The patient lay listening closely until the attendant insisted that they had to continue on their way.
     "Stories like that remind me of the healing power of music," Phyllis says. "In music is found every tone, every vibration, that the human being knows. Body, mind, and spirit can all be powerfully affected by a single piece of music, especially when we're tuned in."  Back to headlines . . . .

"And So," a piece that Phyllis composed in honor of the life and work of the late poet David Citino, was included in "Remembering David Citino," a documentary that aired for the first time on WOSU-TV (Columbus, Ohio) in October, 2006. The thirty-minute program has sinced aired several times.
     Citino, author of a dozen books, died of complications from multiple sclerosis in October, 2005. He was poet laureate and professor of English at The Ohio State University, where Phyllis became acquainted with him while working on a graduate degree. Remembered by friends as "a man who put the happiness of others above all else," he balanced devotion to his writing and teaching with devotion to his family.
      Phyllis composed "And So" upon learning of David's sudden death in middle age. The message informing her of his passing included lines from his poem "And So," providing the title for the piece. The composition is, she says, a fond musical remembrance of a man who did serious work without taking himself too seriously. He was, in her words, "a great mentor and example of an artist deeply engaged with the world."
     Phyllis extends her continuing best wishes to David's wife, Mary, and the entire Citino family.   Back to headlines . . . .

"Inspiration for my music comes from everywhere," says Phyllis, "including my reading and my friends. So it's hardly a surprise that `Old Love' came from where it did."
     "Old Love" is a composition that will be included on Phyllis's next CD, Child of All Earth, due out in the fall. Its inspiration was a poem with the same title that was composed by her friend, the prize-winning poet Mary O'Connor.
     "I asked Mary to let me read some of her latest work," Phyllis recalls. "When I read `Old Love,' I started feeling music rise up. I'm excited to have been able to collaborate with Mary on this. I hope that someday she'll be able to read her poem while I'm playing the piece live."
     Mary O'Connor teaches English at South Dakota State University. Her poems and short stories have appeared in a variety of journals, including Metre, New Irish Writing, Columbia and Midwest Poetry Review. Some of her poems have been read on National Public Radio. She has also won numerous prizes for both poetry and short fiction.
     "It's an absolute honor that Mary agreed to share her work with me in this way," Phyllis says. "I will always have an especially soft spot in my heart for this piece."   Back to headlines . . . .

Friends, Phyllis's first solo piano album, became available today for digital download on Apple iTunes. This is only the first of forty digital distribution companies worldwide through which her work will soon be available for purchase, either as singles or as a full CD.   Back to headlines . . . .

The piano is a world.
     A world of so many parts: thousands of pieces of wood, plastic, felt, buckskin, paper, steel, iron, copper, all of them intricately joined.
      A world of so much power: on average, 230 strings inside its cabinet, each with around 165 pounds of tension, a combined pull of around 18 tons.
      A world defying description: after all, what kind of instrument is it exactly? Percussion? String? Keyboard? All of these, yet more? It all depends on your point of view.
      A piano is a world. So many parts, so much power waiting to be unleashed, yet in the end a mystery. Sitting there in your living room, or on the stage, it poses questions, issues invitations. "Won't you sit down?" "What would you like to play?" The thing is alive, before you even finger a key or perch on the bench.
      Sometimes,  though, the piano sits not in a comfortable home or fancy concert hall, but out in the elements, scarred and broken amidst the rubble of war, disaster, poverty, loss. Its parts are fragmented, laid bare, its power robbed, the whole thing threatening collapse. The questions it now poses are not so simple. They seem not only unanswerable but, at times, unaskable; its invitation to play, to make music, here, amidst the rubble, a sad mockery. We see the lonely piano, and we can do nothing but stand silent, bear witness to it. The thing is what it is.
      So first, the silence. We must respect it. Endure it. Learn from the agony of it. But then, somehow, there must again come music. To paraphrase Victor Hugo, only music can express that which can neither remain silent nor be expressed in words.
      Even amidst the rubble, or especially amidst the rubble, the music must again be composed, improvised, played, heard. Amidst the rack and ruin of the Gulf Coast or the Asian coastlines struck by the tsunamis; amidst the destruction of Iraqi and American lives; amidst the fear and hatred in Lebanon and Israel; amidst the carnage in Darfur; amidst all the loss in all the world, which, like its joy, can't really be counted or named, the piano must play. Somehow, together, we must repair it, start putting its guts back together, believing, restoring the shared power of the keys, the hammers, the strings. It stands before us now, one unspeakable question, a question ever deepening, a question demanding of us not so much an answer as profound acknowledgment, engagement, response. It demands from us our presence. Fingers on keys. Ears attuned.
      Piano. Is. World.   Back to headlines . . . .

© Photographer:  Sergey Koshevarov | Agency: Dreamstime.com

Due to increasing requests from her customers,  Phyllis launched a website,  "Solo Piano & More,"  early this month to make her recordings and writings more readily available to the public.   She sends her heartfelt thanks to Host Baby,  a terrific web hosting service for independent musicians,  for helping her limp through the design process!  Back to headlines . . . .

"Many thanks for sharing your Friends CD," read his brief note. "I listened to your beautiful music today as I was working on my mail, and I am looking forward to sharing it with Eleanor. . . . Thank you for your continued care for our world and her people."
      Phyllis met George McGovern, former South Dakota senator, presidential candidate, and U.N. ambassador for world hunger, at a 2005 fundraiser for Heifer International (shown here). Encouragement from this longtime peacemaker and advocate for the world's poor and powerless was an inspiration to her.
      Postscript, January 27, 2007: At the time Senator McGovern penned his kind message, his wife Eleanor was seriously ill. Sadly, she passed away this week. We extend our deepest sympathies to the senator and his family. Back to headlines . . . .