No Mere Servant

Musicians have historically acted in a servant capacity for the church, the court, the military or on behalf of the tribe.  Then, Beethoven signaled a flipping of roles--the audience was there to worship compositional and performance virtuosity and genius.  To me, music (like all the arts, medicine, and virtually everything) exist to serve humanity through inspiration, emotion, and sometimes the intellect.  Art reflects and aspires for the Divine--humanity’s raison d’etre is not to make Art. Instead, Art is part of our raison d’etre. If we are to restore Art to its noble role as faithful servant and facilitator of our best selves, we must think about what our best selves might look like and then use Art to move us, convince us, cajole us in that direction.  Rather than a “mere” servant, Art once again becomes an expression of our inner spark of Divinity not our ego. ​