October 8, 2015
Dear All,
Several months passed like a wink and here we go into another Fall or should I say Autumn of 2015.
There is no perfect moment to start a family, build a home, produce an album or finish the Newsletter... I am trying to finish this Newsletter for the last few weeks and finally today is the day. I will try to remember at least 5% including a performance with the Dubuque Symphony Orchestra and visit to the Emergency Room in Croatia.
I am searching for boredom but can't find it. Here are few Events I would like to share with you.
- Dubuque Symphony Orchestra
- Danny Schechter Memorial
- Branding You Seminar in Pula, Croatia
- Dr. Daniel Kolak Essay: A Good Morning with Nenad Bach
- Mia the Dancer, a new film produced by Brenda Brkusic
- Radio interview with the legendary Goran Pelaic Strelkov for Radio Split
- Documentary Everything Is Forever gets another great review at Croatia Week
- The Band's acceptance speech at the 1994 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony
- If you are looking to other ways of supporting your passion, ask me about it.
- Started working on a New Album, with the working title Northern Star
1. Dubuque
My favorite city in America, since I first visited Dubuque, Iowa in April of 2012. Dear friend and my agent Cynthia Nelms Byrne organized this performance with the Dubuque Symphony Orchestra. See videos done by Digital Dubuque. Conductor was William Intriligator. Just look at the photo and see intensity and passion of this great man. Orchestral arrangements for these three songs done by Olja Desic in record time. Place: Botanical Gardens of Dubuque, in front of 1500 - 2000 people. The rain stopped just few hours before the performance. On June 28th 2015 at 6 PM.
https://youtu.be/ZaNVB7EbUSk - Dubuque Symphony Orchestra I Will Follow You
https://youtu.be/PZltKd-WQu8 - Dubuque Symphony Orchestra Everything Is Forever
https://youtu.be/MhTFpt-P1hY - Dubuque Symphony Orchestra I Feel Dubuque
2. Danny Boy
My dearest friend Danny Schechter died on March 19th 2015. His Memorial was held on June 27th 2015 at 1:30 PM at the Judson Memorial Church. I played Everything is Forever on a piano. Danny was one of my best friends and one of the most important independent journalists in the world. I miss him dearly.
In an essence to make it to Dubuque on time I had to catch a plane after the memorial, but the traffic was horrible and I missed the plane. Few dramatic hours and I ended up taking the last plane from Newark, New Jersey to Chicago where two young man (Filip Zadro and his brother) gave me a ride to Dubuque - arriving at 3 am. Rehearsal with Symphony Orchestra at 10 am.
Concert in Dubuque went beyond my expectations. Had a breakfast with David Byler, Cindy and Bob Byrne and went on a plane to Chicago, New York. Next day to Zagreb via Amsterdam. Thank you all of you who supported a crowd funding campaign for me to be able to perform in Dubuque for the 3rd time in little over a year time.
3. Branding You Seminar
Held a seminar for 18 people in Pula. Matica Hrvatska, with a great bunch of talented and entrepreneurial folks. The seminar lasted the whole day, the 21st of July 2015. Ending with our presence in the Live TV Show - Shushur. Played the piano. All of the participants stayed in touch with each other, helping each other. New friendships and old renewals. Yes I ended up in the Emergency Room with the heat and exhaustion. That day it was 100 -105 Fahrenheit (over 40 Celsius). Yes, dramatic and fun at the same time. In the second part Sasa Cvetojevic and Stjepan Hauser (2cellos) joined us.
https://www.facebook.com/Branding.Hrvatske/posts/1158189187528191:0
Evo jedne fotografije s tek održanog, iznimno uspješnog stručnog seminara NENAD BACH: "Branding Hrvatske u svijetu - Branding YOU!" u Puli, u organizaciji Udruge "Slavni u Istri". Na osnovi dostavljenih životopisa selektirano je 18 ponajboljih kandidata iz svih krajeva Hrvatske koji su imali sreće pohađati ovaj seminar. To su bili: MARKO KELEMEN iz Zagreba, IT specialist, poduzetnik i vlasnik nekoliko firmi; MIRNA BRKANOVIĆ iz Munchena, filmska režiserka; SONJA TUDOR iz Zagreba, kulturni turizam, direktorica turističke agencije; DANIEL MIKULACO sa Raba, živi i radi u Puli, Sveučilišni profesor i predsjednik Matice hrvatske - ogranak Pula; PATRIZIA MILANI iz Pule, dugogodišnja uspješna direktorica privatne građevinske firme, predsjednica Lions kluba za Pulu te vlasnica branda ženskih torbica; IRENA VUKMANOV ŠIMOKOV iz Rovinja, predsjednica prve hrvatske Fair Trade udruge za promicanje pravedne trgovine; BORIS BELAMARIĆ iz Šibenika, vlasnik tvornice mobilnih telefona, EU fondovi, poduzetništvo u sportu; ASTRID KULJANIĆ iz Rijeke, živi u New Yorku, područje glazbeno-scenska industrija; GERMANO FIORANTI iz Vodnjana, zubotehničar i vlasnik ambulante zubne tehnike te voditelj umjetničke galerije, zdravstveni turizam; IVICA BADURINA s Paga živi u Bakru, skladatelj, autor nekih od najpoznatjihih hrvatskih klapskih hitova svih vremena: "Vilo moja", "Croatio iz duše te ljubim", "Nedamo te pismo naša", "Da te mogu pismom zvati"; LJILJANA SOVIĆ BRKIČIĆ iz Zavidovića živi u Zagrebu, farmaceutika i menadžment u zdravstvu, ZRINKA VLAŠIĆ iz Višnjevca kraj Osijeka, vlasnica Air Panonia tvrtke za poduku pilota, predavačica na ekonomskoj i stručnoj školi u Osijeku; VLADIMIR MIHAJLOVIĆ iz Osijeka, suvlasnik i glavni urednik časopisa „Poduzetnik“; BRUNO KRAJCAR iz Pule, predsjednik Hrvatske glazbene unije za Istru, radijski voditelj i urednik te glazbenik/skladatelj; ANA BEDRINA iz Pule dugogodišnja predsjednica Hrvatske matice iseljenika za Istru; ROBERT SCHENK Pule, vlasnik nekoliko poduzeća, izgradio globalnog market-leadera iz područja sanduka i kutija za glazbene instrumente. Pokretač eko-naselja kraj Topuskog + poseban gost iznenađenja SAŠA CVETOJEVIĆ (osnivač Zagrebačkog inkubatora poduzetništva i član hrvatske mreže poslovnih anđela-ulagača) koji nam se pridružio poslijepodne, a za ručkom je s nama bio i STJEPAN HAUSER.
4. Brilliant philosopher Dr. Daniel Kolak's essay.
A GOOD MORNING WITH NENAD BACH
I’ve known some great musicians and have had the good fortune to play with a few legendary ones—from Charlie Byrd and Dizzie Gillespie to Frank Zappa and Jordan Rudess—among whom I find Nenad Bach closest to my soul. Anyone who might think it’s only because we’re both Croatian-Americans would miss the nature of the connection in which time and space, cul-ture and backgrounds don’t matter. Nenad Bach the man and the music are universal—the direct expression of a talent and genius as much a part of every particular individual and place in which the World Spirit takes root. Nenad has that rare ability of being an artist of a particular place in which one discovers the universal in the individual, the ideal in the real. Of this I was reminded yet again just the other day, after yet another magical and long overdue “hang.”
Nenad’s nickname for me is “Tanker,” which I also have taken to calling him—a term he came up years ago (neither of us remembers any more how or where we first met) to describe folks like us who tend to be doing so many “heavy” things all the time, so loaded up with creative emersions in the world that we tend to pass each other like tankers in the night. So lately we’ve been missing each other. He called me as he happened to be passing by my house along the Palisades in New York, having taken his Tesla car for service in Jersey! Quite the perfect context for a summit between a musician and a philosopher, no? Like little kids sharing a new toy, we scurried up the mountain with him flooring it (I was worried we’d take off and leave our kids orphans) in his $90,000 Tesla that uses no gas, is completely green, all the while explaining breathlessly the engineering, design, efficiency, the way we rave about musical instruments! A joyride up the mountain in a Tesla – that is Nenad Bach!
Then, the moment we were back at the house he makes fast for my music room, no invitation needed, gets up on the stage (ignoring the drinks I’d brought by the sofa), sits at the piano and starts playing all my favorite hits of his, then trying out his new one which had me in tears and stitches. Now this too is just so Nenad Bach! I don’t know how many professional or famous rockers you’ve had drop by your house, but typically trying to get them to play at all is not so easy, and to get them to play their standards is like pulling teeth! Not with Nenad. Never mind that he’d recently played a major concert and was getting ready for his next Really Big Show in Dubuque (with a full orchestra backing up his band!). (Question: what do Zagreb, Dubrovnik, Chicago, and Dubuque have in common? Answer: Nenad Bach!) Moreover, each song—and this is just really almost too easy to miss—he played with the same intense innocence, an almost Heisenbergian uncertainty, the notes and words emerging out of some hidden quantum entanglement for the first time, waiting for the chords to lift them higher, seeking to match each sound with the bon mot. The notes, the words, the expressions, all present themselves as if out of nowhere to exist. This to me is one of the most amazing qualities of any artist in any medium, to retain that kind of mystical connection with your own creation (think of how often we are the most careless with our immediate family members, our children who are after all our creations most intimate). Nothing smug, cavalier, jaded about Nenad Bach. He is always fresh, beautiful, moving. Unlike some musicians I know who have lost this sort of childlike intimacy with themselves and their art, Nenad remains ever connected, plugged in, a totality in tonality! Each note, each phrase, you feel it because he too feels it afresh, awash in unabashed innocence. I felt during this impromptu private concert as if the whole world were there in my own music room listening, the significance of a tour for the tens of thousands! Timeless, undiffused with any sense of past or future, an esthetic cosmos in which “everything is forever” yet “nothing feels the same,” in itself an ode expressed in the unique key signature sound of Nenad Bach.
Many more things deserve to be said about his music, about who and what he is and has accomplished as a man, an artist, a musician. Much has already been said by others and needs no repetition from me. But what I feel moved to add now, for the record, are just a few more thoughts, not as a friend, not as fan, not as a musician—but as a philosopher.
The great 19th century German idealist Arthur Schopenhauer, a neo-Kantian and a great lover of Bach—that’s right, Bach!—described the innermost reality of Being as numinous and unreachable by the human intellect; Schopenhauer likened reality as it exists in itself as being an impenetrable fortress . . . to which he claimed there exists a secret passageway, a tunnel for our consciousness. And that tunnel, this great German genius shows, is none other than music.
When we experience music, whether the sorrow of the soul or the uplifting of the spirit, we are experiencing directly the very heart of being, reaching and ascending beyond ourselves. This to me is what great musicians like Nenad Bach achieve not just for themselves but for all of us; no mere entertainment, this, the creation of spiritual passages reaching into yet through ourselves beyond the limits of our own intellectual and emotional limits into each other to universal truths of the sublime that connect us all. How Nenad Bach achieves this in notes, rhythms, and words is itself I think a signature expression of the Croatian Spirit, freedom trying to realize itself anon whether in moonbeams across the rooftops of Zagreb, the sun drenching itself into the stones of Dubrovnik, or the crepuscular waves along the shores of the majestic Mississippi in Dubuque! In that unique accent of Nenad’s voice I hear the ancient lore of the Adriatic refreshed in the spirit of freedom that is America, part John Lennon and part Arlo Guthrie, the plainsong of ordinary folk fearlessly expressed with crystal clarity. Nenad Bach, a powerful rocker against the illusory idolatries of isolation, bigotry, violence, advances the liberation esthetic of humanity, sings hymns to which all nations, all peoples, should aspire . . . to go higher!
From morning into the afternoon we played, we talked, we teased each other and we laughed. A joyous lunch of Croatian smorgasbord—wine, beer, cheese, salami, olives, making pigs of our-selves! We dreamed and schemed the way we always do when we are together, exactly as I im-agine we both played as little boys, hanging out with our best friends.
I hope these pictures show a bit of the extraordinary in the ordinary that can be found between old friends after a joyride up the mountain in a Tesla, but maybe, just maybe, among old and new friends all across the globe . . . a Good Morning with Nenad Bach!
Dr. Daniel Kolak
Director, Liberal Studies
Professor, Department of Philosophy
William Paterson University of New Jersey (WPUNJ)
Affiliate, Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science (RuCCS)
Member, International Institute of Philosophy, Paris
Editorial Board, Synthese: International Journal of Epistemology, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science
5. Mia, a dancer's journey
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/mia-a-dancer-s-journey--2#/
I highly recommend this project about Mia Slavenska. Produced by Maria Ramas and Brenda Brkusic. See the IndieGOGo video and help as much as you can. Some perks are my CDs and Victor Zimet | Stephanie Silber movie Everything is Forever. Mia Slavenska is a Croatian and a World cultural heritage. Be part of it, honoring the legendary dancer.
6. Radio interview with the legendary Goran Pelaic Strelkov for Radio Split, while in Split and at the celebration of 300 Years of Sinjska Alka + The 20th Celebration of the Victory in the Homeland War - Operation Storm, Knin 2015
http://www.nenadbach.com/Radio_TV_Interviews/Pelaic_Split_Aug_2015_nenad_bach_nedjeljni_akvarel.mp3
7. Documentary Everything Is Forever gets another great review
‘Everything is Forever’ – A Cinematic Journey Through War & Peace, & Rock N’ Roll
“He is like a Croatian John Lennon that has this pop mastery going on and also lyrics that are meaningful to humanity,” is how Michael Landy, owner of Siam Records, describes musician Nenad Bach in the engrossing, gripping and heartfelt documentary ‘Everything Is Forever’…
Everything Is Forever, directed by Vic Zimet and co-produced by Stephanie Silber, is a fascinating cinematic journey through war and peace, and rock and roll profiling the charismatic Croatian musician.
Bach left a thriving musical career in Croatia in 1984 to go to America where he became a worldwide ambassador of peace, spreading his message of goodwill by meeting and performing for heads of state and appearing with fellow musicians such as Bono, Pavarotti, and Garth Hudson of The Band.
The film, which has won special jury awards at the WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival and Starigrad Paklenica International Film Festival, also follows the tireless Bach to Croatia and traces how he successfully got the first Croatian ‘klapa’ group an international contract. This ‘human’ documentary is from the heart and is definitely worth watching if you are a music fan or not.
Check out film trailer, and more info about it on the film’s website www.everythingisforever.com
Source: http://www.croatiaweek.com/everything-is-forever-a-cinematic-journey-through-war-peace-rock-n-roll/
8. Just few weeks ago I discovered this video on YouTube. Watch Rick Danko's face when Garth mentions my name. I was and am honored. Set at the same table with The Band, next tables with Elton John, Eric Clapton, Paul and Linda McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Bono, Chuck Berry and so on... after a whole night partying at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City, Rick and Garth went with me to Irvington NY where I lived with my family. Rick went with me to wait for my son Ivo and his school bus. What a class act (The whole group The Band)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5paBkgBr6-Y&feature=youtu.be&t=3m30s - Members of The Band Accept Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Award at 1994 Inductions
9. If you are looking for a business opportunity, please contact me and I will send you details.
The sky above Charlotte, North Carolina
10. Just started working on a new album Northern Star. It will be a new sound for me and my band. Very exciting time and process of creation. If you are interested in the process and want to preorder the vinyl, download or CD, send us an email.
This was the longest Newsletter, but it is only a small portion of what happened. Stay warm and dry.
Ja cu glasati za MOST i Bozu Petrova: http://most-nl.com/zelite-li-pomoci/
Love you ALL, World Peace in One Hour, Nenad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtIknVqedvc - Video I Will Follow You Hi-rez
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeaG9h2bFUs - Video Everything Is Forever Hi-rez
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaijaZnVNHU - Video Digital Revolution Hi-rez
https://youtu.be/85Mz7DpSSO0 - Video Daughter's Eyes Hi-Rez
The Nenad Bach Band is:
Nenad Bach: lead vocal, piano, acoustic guitar
Joe DeSanctis: keyboards, backing vocal, melodica
Richard Lindsey: bass, backing vocal
Michael O’Keefe: drums, backing vocal
Al Orlo: guitar
My Tesla parked in front of the Croatian Embassy in Washington, D.C.