When I search for the roots why I became a musician it was because of the complex beauty of nature, the symmetries, sounds, colors of animals, landscapes, the sea...and music remains a path for me to connect and “unite” with this inspiration.[1]
Like many, I am deeply troubled by the way how this planet is treated by us, how we destroy our greatest source of inspiration and knowledge, our world. How to respond as an artist - in a way that is not an infinite lament, but worthwhile for those of future generations who have to work hard to protect and safe the planet and all its inhabitants? I realized, the answer is beauty.
[1] With complex beauty I am referring to the phenomenon of its dialectical nature (beauty/ugly) in connecting knowledge and faith. Beauty and ugly can be inspired and provoked by rational insights and discoveries, for example in nature and science, as well as by emotions and imagination of the fictional. Beauty can be rationally described as natural order and their necessary irrationalities (like in fractals) and simultaneously experienced as a pure emotion or unworldly, the transcendental. Both sides are important for the discussion as Umberto Eco analyzed: beauty is detachment, absence of passion. Ugliness, by contrast, is passion. Cited from: Umberto Eco/ Alastair McEwen (transl.), “On the Shoulders of Giants,” (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2019), 49.
After a period of twenty years, from 2000-2020, where I focused on religiously inspired music, conducted artistic research and curated musical gatherings within churches - read here more under BLUE CHURCH, I have decided to center in this decade on works that point to the beauty in nature, and this inspiration will be solely in the center of all of my work. I believe this is a constructive response which maintains also a spiritual connection of my artistic engagement but in new ways and with new means. Beauty is the natural product of both scientific inquiries and spiritual practices which becomes immediately apparent in my first composition cycle inspired by butterflies which I started in 2021.
For me, art is nourished by both faith in the unseen, linking to the transcendent, the numinous, the sacred, the unknown - and knowledge, innovation, creation through artistic research, practice and compassionate craftsmanship. Beauty can be inspired and provoked by rational insights and discoveries (for example in nature and science) as well as by emotions and imagination of the fictional. Beauty can be rationally described (for example artistic structures by mathematical analysis) and simply experienced as a pure emotion or unworldly, transcendental. Therefore, Beauty unites knowledge and faith: the answer is beauty is the answer
"Ta i bita", an arrangement of the first letters of the words of my "artistic mission statement" is translated by google as "the beta" from Greek to English. The letter Beta is second in the Greek alphabet and originated from the Phoenician letter beth, meaning "house". In Modern Greek the letter is instead transliterated as v (víta), the Latin word for "life".
Apart from this, β also symbolizes the speed parameter in relativity and also a beta ray or a beta particle which means a high-energy, high-speed electron in physics. Additionally, the term Beta refers in climbing jargon to indicate the most challenging point in mountaineering!
Ta i bita, the Beta, a “house of life”, stands therefore for a source of energy and inspiration at the most difficult point of a journey. But with beauty at the center I have learned that naturally hope, kindness, humbleness and love come along, qualities, that transcend any temporal challenges.
B for beauty - The mirror image of the lowercase β creates the image of a butterfly
- beauty is the answer!