1. Where did you grow up and was music a part of your life?

I was born in Americus, a small town in southwest Georgia, where my father had relocated from Miami at the request of his employer. When I was still a toddler, the family spent a year and a half in Hamlet, North Carolina, and later we passed another year in West Lafayette, Indiana, where my dad completed a graduate degree at Purdue University (1967). But for the most part I grew up in south Florida. In fact, my family had been pioneers in both Miami and Key West.

My mother says she sang to me before I was born, and since she was a talented amateur vocalist and pianist, I grew up listening to her perform both "serious" European music and the works of popular American composers.

2. Who were your earliest influences?

The music my mother sang and played and the music our family listened to on the radio and LP recordings was extraordinarily diverse. Mom enjoyed not only Bach, Beethoven, and Chopin, but also Richard Addinsell, Jerome Kern, and Richard Rodgers. My father brought home recordings of Sousa marches, Herb Alpert, and Johnny Cash. Our record collection included everything from Beethoven's Fifth to Bix Beiderbecke. On local classical radio I heard Glen Gould's stunning interpretations of the Bach partitas, and at school, we sang Haydn, Humperdinck, and folksongs from around the world.

3. What instruments do you play?

I studied piano and clarinet, and performed with high school concert and marching bands, and later with college and university ensembles. This continued through my early twenties, until I developed problems with my right-hand keyboard technique whose diagnosis eluded one of the best neurologists in south Florida. At that point, I decided to switch to musicology and moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I was a Variell Scholar at Harvard.

Eventually my abiding interest in composition became my primary musical focus, and I let my computer do most of my playing for me.
Although I miss being able to perform advanced music literature, my discovery of MIDI has been a liberating experience both as a composer and performer. It has enabled me to work far more efficiently and to achieve something approaching technical perfection. However, there's nothing quite like performing live music with others, and that I dearly miss.

4. Tell us about your organisation and the rationale behind it. How did it come about?

The Delian Society was actually an idea I conceived some time ago whose rapid growth has been made possible by the Internet. Through my contacts over the years with musicians I've met in person or through e-mail correspondence, it became increasingly clear to me that there was a great deal of interest in new tonal music. However, I knew of no existing international organisation intended expressly for composers, performers, and others working to bring about a tonal music renaissance. Many composers writing tonal art music were essentially mavericks who refused to embrace the atonal polyrhythmic orthodoxy long promoted by modernist academicians and institutions. Often they had been neglected or ridiculed by critics and colleagues in spite of the fact that they were producing work of great beauty and substance.

With the foundation of the Delian Society in January of this year, tonal music composers and their supporters now have at their disposal not only a collegial forum but also a vehicle for bringing about constructive cultural change. The Society does not oppose atonality or indeterminacy, but is focussed rather on revitalising all forms and styles of tonal music, both traditional and emergent. Our members are extremely diverse, representing a broad spectrum of viewpoints on just about any topic, and each speaks his/her own mind. What we share in common, however, is the conviction that the great tonal traditions of the world have by no means been exhausted as a creative resource. I believe personally that modernism's attempt to break with the past was based on an intellectually flawed, fundamentally indefensible ideology. Indeed, one barely has to scratch a little beneath the surface to discover the presence of the past in the most modern of the great modern composers, artists, architects, and authors. Those interested in joining us can learn more by visiting our Yahoo home
page:

http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/delian/

5. Can you expand on your fascinating idea THE HYMN FOR THE STANDING BUDDHAS OF BAMIYAN?

This project was begun before the formation of the Delian Society, and although several of the Society's members have since contributed to it, the "Standing Buddhas" remains an independent undertaking hosted by my publishing web site, New Music Classics.

The tragic story of the Taliban's demolition of the world's two largest statues of the standing Buddha in Afghanistan's Bamiyan Province on March 8, 2001, was widely reported in the media. I had lived in an Islamic country from 1982 to 1983 as a teacher at the American School in Tangier, Morocco, and the Muslims I got to know were generally warm, friendly people who never would have condoned blowing up priceless antiquities. In fact, the ancient Roman ruins at Volubilis, located in Morocco's interior, are a magnet for tourists in that country, and Moroccan schoolchildren often visit the site on fieldtrips, where they're taught about the Pagan deities shown in beautifully preserved mosaic floors. The children would never dream of worshipping these gods, but they realise the importance of the site for their nation's history and economy.

Unfortunately, that was not the case in Afghanistan, and we are all now incalculably poorer for the loss of those great Buddhist sculptures. I couldn't undo the damage that was done, but I could try to give the world something to remember and reflect the beauty that had been. Since I have graduate degrees in both music and landscape architecture, it's easy to understand why I came to envision a sculpture composed not of stone but of sounds generated by computers across the planet. The concept is simple: each time someone with a computer finds his/her way to the main "Standing Buddhas" web page, s/he will hear my wordless "Hymn for the Standing Buddhas of Bamiyan" as an embedded MIDI file, and may then choose to listen to any of a growing number of variations on that simple pentatonic theme. As long as the music plays, the sound sculpture "manifests" at that particular time and place in the world for anyone who's listening. If numerous computers happen to be playing the "Standing Buddhas" music at the same time, each temporarily becomes an integral part of an art form that might, for example, manifest simultaneously in New York, London, Capetown, Beijing, Sydney, and Caracas. This vast sound sculpture could even take on an extraterrestrial dimension if astronauts circling the Earth decided to tune in wirelessly! I like to think of this collaborative work as a mobile, each of whose constantly changing component parts produces a distinctive, ever-expanding repertoire of musical experiences.

This is truly a work of art without frontiers, and since new variations in every conceivable style are continuously being added, the "Standing Buddhas" is not limited with respect to time either. All the composers involved with the project have agreed that their musical contribution is a gift to humanity, and the sheet music for the hymn tune and most of the variations is available for live performances as well, either free of charge or for the cost of mailing alone. By now the sculpture has been heard on every habitable continent on the planet in dozens of different countries. Those who would like to listen or contribute their own variations are invited to visit the main "Standing Buddhas" web page:

http://www.newmusicclassics.com/sound_sculpture.html

6. Have you done anything else equally spectacular?

Well, my intention, of course, was never to create something spectacular, but it's nice to hear that "The Standing Buddhas" is appreciated. I simply set things in motion, try to make others aware of the project, and invite their participation as listeners or composers. There are two similar projects that have been launched recently without any fanfare. I've really been appalled by the terrible loss of life in Iraq and the unspeakable destruction and theft that occurred at the Iraq Museum and other historic Mesopotamian and Babylonian sites since April of 2003. So I'm now inviting composers to produce music for "The Lyre of Ishtar" project, to be based on a short harmonic progression intended to generate a limitless series of variations:

http://www.newmusicclassics.com/ishtar_project.html

I created this short progression as part of a longer unfinished work while I was living in Morocco, and composers are invited to use it as they will in context of the project. Some may wish to allude to Asian musical traditions, but that isn't a requirement. I believe all those who participate will probably share with me certain feelings of loss and even indignation, so the music is likely to take on a dark, somber character. But I can't, of course, predict precisely where this will go.

Because of the escalating levels of violence in the world, I also composed a short, easy-to-sing melody, "The Colors of Peace," which may be downloaded and performed a cappella or arranged by composers interested in writing alternate versions for the project. "The Colors of Peace" has been launched under the aegis of the Delian Society, and Artists Without Frontiers composer Jean Chatillon has been the first to contribute music based on the melody:

http://newmusicclassics.com/colors.html

There are no deadlines for any of these projects, since the work of creative renewal is ongoing.

7. Are you working on anything at the moment?

I'm devoting much time to growing the Delian Society and spreading the word about its activities. We want our membership to embrace every nation on every continent where tonal music of some kind has been practised, and to be fully reflective of the cultural and creative diversity of the planet. Each Delian is a free agent who acts and speaks for herself/himself. So each is engaged in independent creative work, although plans are being laid for collaborative projects. For my part, I've just composed a tonal score that will be used in a DVD featuring poetry by another Delian Society member. By year's end, I also hope to complete a baroque-style harpsichord concerto. Other Delians are exploring traditional idioms as well as emerging tonal structures and styles.

8. What do you do in your spare time?

I smile because it doesn't seem like I have any spare time! But I do enjoy reading good literature, especially before bedtime. Right now it's Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy and Pierre Chatillon's La mort rousse. As time permits, I also do a little gardening, although in Florida's summer heat and humidity, it's much more pleasant simply to stay indoors and watch the grass grow in air-conditioned comfort!

One of my greatest pleasures has been listening to the music of other Delian composers, some of whom are affiliated with Artists Without Frontiers-including Michael Mauldin and Jean Chatillon. The names of the Delians and links to examples of their music are available on our Delian Society Roster page:

http://www.newmusicclassics.com/delian_society_roster.html