Safetosea

I'd resisted posting any more clips from The Reef as, out of context, it is easy to misconstrue what it is all about.

Then I discover Jonny Frank has posted the piece I called The American Boy on his site.

It had been the logical choice for a new addition so I was stoked in a way he'd taken the plunge.

The reason I'd referred to it in this way was that my edit to the opening of the third movement of George Crumb’s Black Angels (God Music) was a reaction to the time the piece was written (during the Vietnam war) and the presence amongst us of an American Boy in the form of the virtuosic Ryan Burch.

I was aware of the circumstances behind the piece and I'd been thinking of the impact of war on the lives of so many young men through the ages. Ryan, at 23, is a soldierly age, but to see his constant, joyful expression of life and possibility throws the waste of war into a very bitter focus.

Born in another time he could have been standing in a padi field in Vietnam.

Here he rejoices in being young, alive, very goofy, and doing what he was so clearly born to do.

As ever working with the brilliant vision Jon was so constantly providing made it an absolute blast to work on, and the music, played on cello and wine glasses, is, well, God Music.

*Please note.. it opens in silence as it transitions from the previous sequence in The Reef.

God Music from 'The Reef' starring Ryan Burch from Jon Frank on Vimeo.