I thought I’d write a little bit about the latest Julian musical news…

The first thing to say I can proudly announce the release of my cantata ‘Out of the Darkness’ on CD. It’s officially released on November 8th, but there is a special pre-release offer on at the moment! It’s very easy to buy online through our web site www.outofthedarknessproject.org.

We also have three upcoming concerts of the piece in the U.K.:

• Friday, November 20th, St Georges’ Church, Kemptown, Brighton
• Saturday, November 28th, St Mary’s Church, High Street, Totnes
• Wednesday December 16th St James’s Church, Piccadilly, London.

All performances start at 7.30 pm.

Again, buying tickets through our web site is easy peasy: www.outofthedarknessproject.org.

In March 2010, we have been invited to Germany to do three concerts (18th, 19th, 20th) in and around Weimar. The Weimar concert (18th) coincides with a Gerturd Kolmar conference taking place there. Gertrud Kolmar was the remarkable poet who wrote the poem ‘Aus dem Dunkel’ (Out of the Darkness) from which I took the text for my piece. She perished in Auschwitz in 1943. There is an excellent essay about Kolmar on our web site if you’d like to know more about her.

Also in the spring, we have three U.K. concerts planned. These are planned for:

• March 14th – Keswick, Cumbria (as part of the Ways With Words literary festival)
• March 26th – Bath
• April 9th – Oxford

Box office for these three concerts is not yet open but if you want to be kept in the loop let me know in the comments (or via email), or keep an eye on our web site.

We now have a real and wonderful committee on board – we’re calling ourselves Musical Projects – and we include, apart from myself, promoter Gabi Faja of Biaerbeck and Holmes, money man extraordinaire Paul Hussell, record guy John Cronin (Music and Media consulting), and administrator Grace Billings. What a God send they are, too! I feel very blessed! We have very ambitious plans for lots of OOTD performances in the UK and mainland Europe.

My new piece – called ‘John Mann’ – will be premiered in London on September 16th, 2010 at the fabulous Cadogon Hall in London. John Mann will feature Schoolhouse 6 Ensemble (our very own chamber choir made up of top flight young London professional singers – also featured on OOTD), a three piece band featuring – all being well: Adrian Acolatse (Bass – a remarkable player and just won the Mercury Music award with his band ‘Speech Debelle’), Pete Bernard (Guitar – solo performer and band member with Ronnie Size), Martin Ditcham (percussion – played with everyone from Sade to Jagger to Dianna Ross), and a real star solo tenor – to be announced shortly!

Anyway, DOOOO check out our web site www.outofthedarknessproject.org and DOOOO buy a copy of the CD… Remember it’s on special offer until November 8th.

With very best of wishes from dear old Blighty,
Julian

Thanks for checking in to Julian and Deborah’s Eye to Eye website!

It is our sincere pleasure to hear that our work is musically pleasing to you. Through the years we have received wonderful, warm supportive fan letters from places near and far. I was really bad about writing back to our early fans. Jeez — why didn’t I get that together? Yes, I was bad with correspondence, but I did keep all the fan letters we received. They are in a box, along with some very entertaining photographs and memorabilia, including costumery from the early 80s. Yikes. A friend who was a roommate years ago found one of Eye to Eye’s fan letters that had somehow gotten in to a box of her papers. Instead of throwing it out, she framed it for me and gave it back as a recent birthday gift! It’s so easy to thank you now that we email our thoughts and feelings instead of the wonderful but time-consuming snail mail process of finding a pen that works, digging out some stationery and an envelope, musing over a few lines of prose, confirming an address by making a few phone calls to record company secretaries, buying a stamp and walking to the mailbox to post the dang note!

We had a modicum of success back in the 80s and now most of you know about our recent third CD, Clean Slate. We’re a small success story in a big talent pool, and yet a steady stream of support from very real, sincere people keeps trickling in. Your letters and comments concretize our having a living, breathing fan base. Without you, our music would be without its soul; like an alternative sacred trinity; the music, the songwriters and the listeners.

I think about our early fans and what they might be listening to now. If you’re reading this, I’d be thrilled if you’d write and let us know who you love to hear these days. I heard a band in the East Village last week that reminded me of one of my old favorites: Penguin Café Orchestra. I still love the sound of Jesse Colin Young and am still trying to find The Flock’s album somewhere. We saw David Byrne on stage with his new music and completely loved what he is doing both in the studio and on stage. I am a huge fan. New music that catches my ear is equally variable. Beth Rowley, Alessi’s Ark, Cosmo Jarvis — all talented and gifted new artists with their own unique sounds.

Even still, every now and then, when I mention the band Eye to Eye, we get a raised eyebrow and a flash of recognition. “Eye to Eye? I painted the bathroom listening to Nice Girls one summer in Atlanta!”

Here’s the thing: making music is a life lesson. It is a pretty big deal, putting yourself out there. In my experience, just when I think our music is a mere drop in the vast, swirling ocean of sound, someone takes the time to let us know how our music has made a difference in their lives. Those are tender moments for a songwriter.

And I thank you.

Wishing you a heart full of Love and a world full of Peace,

Deborah

P.S. We’re trying to get comments on our journal here so you can chat with us, but in the meantime, please head to our MySpace blog and say hello to us in the comments there!

But the BIG thing happening in my creative life is composition — which is demanding as much attention as I can give it! Specifically, I am writing a cantata called Out Of The Darkness which will be performed in March 2009 in Winchester Cathedral (March 19th) and St John’s, Smith Square (March 25th), London.

It is written for professional chamber choir, soprano soloist, and 2 amplified ‘cellos. The piece is entirely inspired by the text ‘Aus den Dunkel’ (Out Of The Darkness) written by the German Jewish poet Gertrud Kolmar, who perished in Auschwitz in 1943. She was, by all accounts, a most remarkable woman. She witnessed the full horror of Nazi Germany but seemed to never lose sight, in a very real sense, of the ‘freedom of human spirit’. Her experience of an ‘inner freedom’, I can only hope, was intact until the end.

I am fortunate indeed to have a remarkable cast list to perform my piece. Melanie Pappenheim is our soprano soloist (famed for her singing on Kubrick films, Jarman films, Dr Who, and the amazing choir ‘The Shout’). Internationally renowned conductor and composer Howard Moody will conduct a specially assembled professional choir, and Lucy Railton and Sophie Harris will be our ‘cellists.

The text may be dark but the music is not! There is even the clear influence of bossa nova and tango in there! It didn’t seem right to me to respond to Kolmar’s piece with a ‘musical darkness.’

So, what I want to say to you all is COME TO IT — wherever you may be!! The venues are beautiful and you would be the most welcome of guests at either of our premiere launch events.

In addition, we’ll be running an education project to coincide with the London concert. This will take the form of a theatre piece, directed by a professional theatre director who will work with an invited group of young people to explore some of the themes raised in the piece and in the life of Gertrud Kolmar herself.

Specifically, these will relate to issues of ‘freedom’ — what do we call freedom and why? Where does freedom reside? Our aim with the two premiere events is to use our every effort to attract future performance and education project opportunities both here in the UK and abroad.

I have a fabulous concert promoter in charge and we are offering all kinds of ticket deals and easy sponsorship opportunities. We are currently fundraising, and thanks to an Arts Council England grant, have a really good head start.

However, we still need considerable funds to get this thing off the ground. If you’re interested in finding out about our sponsorship schemes, I’d be delighted to talk to you about them in person. There are options to suit all pockets and ALL assistance is HUGELY appreciated! You can get in touch with me direct at julian@wigglylines.co.uk.

Other works on the programme include the amazing Byrd four-part mass — which, like the poem ‘Aus den Dunkel,’ was written in most uncertain times. In fact, it was written and performed in secret as England at that time was changing from Protestant to Catholic about every five minutes!

I have several other composition projects brewing as well and I do hope that the great Ms. Berg and I will once again be bringing quill to paper before too long…

Have a wonderful summer, y’all. (that’s how we speak over here, honest…)
With best wishes,

Julian

P.S. Who of you has been listening to the music of Osvaldo Golijov? A new hero of mine!

Eye to Eye has a long way to travel to be together. Julian is busy teaching and managing artists in and around the Totnes area, and leading workshops in London and Devon. I am working with Dusty, a trio of singers who perform popular songs with a bluegrass/reggae feel.

But we do have ways of staying connected. Some of the work Julian has been involved in through the years revolves around performers and teachers whose work media is a dance form called the Five Rhythms workshops, conceived by the fantastic artist/dancer/producer, Gabrielle Roth.

I took one workshop here in the city recently that got me to stretch my physical boundaries and to experience a lightness of being I haven’t felt in quite a while. The classes focus on energy and rhythms and pure movement. With a hypnotic beat and rhythmic percussive musical expression, the dancer is given an environment to stretch the limits of classical movement and move in to a deeper connection with body and soul.

Julian and I are inspired by many talented and diverse teachers and students and are beginning discussions to create a songwriting workshop, taught together with influences from the Five Rhythms, his piano improv performances and the many students he has coached, my singing/vocal performances and the guitar workshops I have attended. We are looking to offer a three to four day event on songwriting and performing with an emphasis on body awareness perhaps by Spring, ’09 so keep in touch. We would love to see you then.

Other than that, my solo CD, Places Where I Dream, is celebrating its 10 year anniversary and is available on line at CD Baby! Give a listen and tell me what you think.

Julian and I wish you well and want you to know, it is always wonderful to hear from you; someone who takes the time to keep track of us, or as my old friend Richard says, “who gives a rat’s ass”. Thanks for letting us know you’re out there, still! After all these years!

Blessings and grins,
Deborah

It’s my turn to put finger to keyboard and greet you all from South West Devon in England. It was a warm and beautiful autumn here, and my wife Arabella and I have been careful to make sure that we take advantage of it — especially Arabella, a really keen walker. She’s been off most Saturdays walking the coast path — she’s now just about covered the entire Devon coast. (She also went walking in Bhutan in the Spring!). It’s great to introduce Arabella to those of you who don’t know her, as we are coming up to our 30th wedding anniversary! (We married when we were 5.) Now, THAT’S worth celebrating, which is why we’re… Well, that’s a secret to just about all but me. I’ll share that with you all later!

Let me introduce my children. First of all, there’s Gabriel, who is 22 and recently graduated from Central Saint Martins School of Art in London. She’s now working for a casting director, also in London. Every day, I find myself feeling deeply proud that she’s making a life for herself as an independent woman coupled, in equal measure, with the feeling that every day she’s not at home there’s something wrong! I miss her!

Then there’s Soli (Solomon) who’s 17, still at home, and, guess what, totally into music… Although originally a drummer and a keyboard player, his main instrument now is his studio. He creates truly amazing, professional standard pieces — mostly in the hip-hop and rap genre — and our house is often full of young people coming round to record with him. The talent around is extraordinary…

I’m often awed by the articulate, direct, from-the-heart lyrics that pour forth from these young people. They have something to say, and they say it with feeling… Soli’s studying at a college in Plymouth that specialises in the kind of music technology he’s into.

One of the main focuses of my professional life over the past couple of years has been teaching song writing courses, mentoring individuals, and creative managing two young hopefuls: Cosmo Jarvis (18) and Rosie Lowe (17). They are both in the process of moving from “studenthood” to “professionalhood” and doing great.

Mind you, it’s a tough call for any artist starting out these days. Even harder, I say, than when Deborah and I first got our act together in the early 1980s. The good news is that, now, anyone can record cheaply and to a very high standard at home and then share their work on the internet world wide. And that’s also the bad news! The opportunities might be great but the traffic is HEAVY! And, as you know for sure, no one wants to pay for recorded music anymore. They will, it seems, pay for live gigs, however.

Raising one’s head above the parapet is difficult. Both Cosmo and Rosie are extremely aware of this and we have strategies in place for developing their live, on-line and recorded profiles as much as possible during the next year or so. It’s all about “branding.” A new artist really needs to know about marketing — and know what they’ve got to offer and to whom as a starting point these days.

For myself, I’m going to compose and perform in 2008! Chiselling time out of a ludicrously busy work schedule, it’s time to write again! I performed six improvised piano recitals over the past year and rehearsed and gigged with my wonderful two-person theatre group Shaping the Invisible.

Now, I have a new project to do… It will be song-based and will feature text by Gertrud Kolmar, the extraordinary Jewish woman poet who lived most of the war years in Berlin until her final deportation to Auschwitz in 1943. Her writings are truly remarkable for their expressions of true inner freedom in the face of the darkest of circumstances. I’m right at the beginning of “mulling” this one, but I’m highly motivated and excited… I will report to you as the piece and the project takes form…

Also, I am hopeful of coming over to the States later on in 2008 to teach some song writing workshops. Again, I shall report to you as the specifics become clear, but if you would be interested in hosting a song-writing workshop in your area (for up 15 people and between one and four days), this is a good time to let me know. Just leave us a note on this entry and I’ll get in touch with you! Facilitating these events is one of the greatest joys of my professional life…

So, all it leaves me to do now is to wish each and every one of you a warmest, very happy new year and to thank you for your continued interest and support in Eye to Eye. The emails we receive from you from all over the world make it truly all worthwhile!

All best,
Julian

Eye to Eye is happy to have your eyes reading our journal!

It is a transitional time for Eye to Eye. After completing our third CD, (after a 20 year hiatus between the second and third) we were fortunate to spend many wonderful days over the past two years promoting and performing our latest CD, Clean Slate. We have met wonderfully talented people along the way and have enjoyed traveling and reaching out through radio interviews, trans-Atlantic gigs, and the internet.

For the time being, there are no plans for Eye to Eye to gig in either the U.S. or England. We are embarking on separate projects with the full support of each other to do so. We are a constant source of artistic support for each other and we can depend on that no matter where we both are.

So for me, I continue to write, sing, and play my guitar. I am a singer/songwriter who can morph into lead singer role with a fabulous band of musicians both in New York and in London.

I also sing in the trio, Dusty, a roots-tinged group that ties bluegrass tempos with reggae rhythms in three-part harmony. I am writing songs that are fun and challenging to play, and that I hope others will enjoy playing and singing as well. I am working on a curriculum for a singing and harmony workshop that is scheduled to launch in Spring 2008.

Playing solo is a far cry from working with our Eye to Eye band mates and I do miss collaborating with Julian, but the beauty is in the versatility. I am honored to receive varying musical opportunities that come when I stay open and available to such wonders. I intend to keep creating music and supporting others to do the same. So keep us posted!

Much Love,
Deborah

Until quite recently, lurking underneath all my experience of playing the piano was an unfulfilled desire to somehow communicate something that I felt was possible but had never quite managed to achieve.

It wasn’t until I began to study Zen that the pennies began to drop. I realised that what I needed was rather in reverse to what I had suspected… I needed to stop approaching the task of improvising as a musical challenge and a ‘problem to solve’ and open up to the idea of improvisation as a kind of ‘inquiry in time and space,’ with no idea of any piece ‘becoming’ anything. In fact, I realised that I really needed to give up any idea of ‘being a piano player’ in order to become one!

To unpack this a little, what I mean is: as long as my attention was on whether the MUSIC was any good or not, I was lost in a mess of judgement and insecurity. As soon as I approached my playing more as a fascinated listener, and quite unconcerned with its outcome as a ‘successful’ piece of music, the whole game changed. The opportunity in ‘being present’ to what unfolds has become, for me, a true meditation.

This recital series in Totnes is dedicated to the memory of ‘the eight children in the photograph’. I saw this photograph whilst visiting the Jewish Holocaust museum in Sydney, Australia, last October. They were all the victims of ‘medical experiments’.

The recital series in London is dedicated to the memory of Little Hetty and Sal, two children who died in the Holocaust.

I hope to come over to play in the U.S. sometime in the not too distant future. Plus, I will have a CD of improvised piano music ready for release sometime in the coming few months.

Sending you all very best and warmest wishes in this new year,
Julian

Thanks for checking in! This year, Julian and I have been on separate continents, hoping to play together again soon.

The One-Eyed Eye to Eye gig at Mo Pitkins on October 1st was great fun. Matt King, an excellent East Coast keyboard player, joined us and added his own spin on Julian’s fabulous arrangements. Our band members were: John Putnam on guitars, Ivan Bodley on bass and guitar, Matt King on keyboards, Tony Lewis on drums, Sherryl Marshall and Elise Morris on backing vocals and me!

The performance was on was the Jewish night of atonement, Yom Kippur, and New York wasn’t quite as bustling as usual, but we did manage to fill the house and have a rockin’ good time. I guess Brice, the booking agent at Mo’s, thought Deborah Berg McCarthy was a good bet for October 1st, and he ended up being right! Some of our fans from Philadelphia rented a limo and came into town specifically for the show! How excellent is that? I would like to thank Jennifer Gandin Le for keeping you all so well informed of the gig via email blasts and website updates and for setting up our store and selling CDs after the set.

What’s next for Eye to Eye? More gigs stateside and more writing between Jules and Deb. We are also adding a section to our web site describing our history, starting with the Warner Brothers days and the wonderful and talented musicians and producers we have worked with through the years. Since there was no such thing as a website back then, we didn’t get to create one until last year, for our third album. And now we realize that we have left out our beginning works!

We appreciate your support and energy and wish you all a wonderful holiday season.

For our U.S. friends — Don’t forget to vote!

Love,
Deborah

I am a weather lover. I love seasons; they go hand in hand with new projects. Weather changes focus. Traditionally, September is back to school and cooler weather gives us a reason to want to wear shoes and jackets again. A reason to shop! The slow exodus of leaves and color is winter’s cue to step onto the stage. Winter offers an emptier perspective on familiar views. Of course, it’s always great to leave winter weather after a while and visit some of y’all who live in more moderate climates! Spring and its miracles are always sweet and welcome and then summer, with good times and the potential for reconnecting with favorite people and places for a weekend, a week, a month or just a moment.

Hot summer days are beginning their transformation into early autumn now. In Bucks County this morning a thunderstorm dumped buckets of rain down for the first time in a month; a welcome drink for our gardens and fields.

Julian and I have had a rich and productive summer and we wanted to touch on some of the highlights. We did not spend the summer gigging together this year as we did last summer. Performing separately is a strategy we must embrace, since getting together for every Eye to Eye opportunity is both costly and hard on Mother Earth.

And so Julian has been studying and teaching in Totnes and I have been performing and studying in New York and on the west coast at a Listening Party in L.A., a gig on the Oregon coast, and at music camp in the Pacific Northwest.

I will let Julian fill you in more on his re-developed love affair with classical music the next time he writes but simply put and in a nutshell, he was inspired this summer by a fellow pianist who he met while both teaching a songwriting workshop in Devon. She challenged him to dust off the classical pieces he used to work hard on and get the gears in motion big time. Classical performance has been brought up to the surface again this summer and he is challenged and motivated in a fresh, inspired way. Julian will be performing next at the at the Totnes Festival with a songwriting event lead by Stuart Davis and in an improvisational performance with dancer Emma Roberts.

Julian and Arabella are traveling to Australia next month where they will be attending a wedding of good friends, for which Julian will be performing at the Sydney Opera House. Okay, so it’s a small private room in the Opera House where the wedding will be held, but still! He will be under the same roof! I would love to hear him play and hope he records his latest work for us!

Besides the Cornelia Street Cafe “Feel the Music Songwriters Festival”, which was hosted by friend and fellow singer Valerie Ghent, I got to travel to and have fun on the West Coast performing in a living room in California and a glass blowing foundry in Oregon. Brenda and Armando hosted a fabulous Listening Party for us at their beautiful home in Southern California. We sold out on all our CDs and had some ordered for mailing! Good friends from years past drove down to hear the new music. I performed the songs I can play solo with my acoustic guitar — just a taste of some of our Eye to Eye tunes!

My wonderful camp friends from PSGW (Puget Sound Guitar Workshop) arranged the Oregon gig. Five of us, Hilary, Jenn, Gail, Bo and I, met in Salem and drove to a great little beach house in Lincoln City for a few days to rehearse, take walks on the wild beach and have a lotta laughs. Our gig was a blast AND we each got to create a glass float!

PSGW was the second week of August. At the student performance I asked my friend Lance Haslund to play bass and John Rankin, a visiting instructor from New Orleans, to play resonator guitar on our Eye to Eye song, Shoes. We slowed it way down and made it sound a little more “down on the Bayou”.

The classes I took were wonderful and I highly recommend anyone interested to check out www.psgw.org and go next year!

With the Mo Pitkin’s gig coming up on October 1st, I have lots to do and am very glad there is a good reason to get the New York band together again. Please come to Mo Pitkins on October 1st at 7:00pm. We promise we won’t disappoint! Matt King has some pretty big shoes to fill with taking Julian’s place. He comes highly recommended by many fine musicians, so come hear for yourself!

Enjoy the changing season!

Love to all,
Deborah

Anyway, I thought you would like to know that the very first of our Eye to Eye Listening Parties took place last Sunday. It was hosted by Darrel Berg…familiar name. Wow! what coincidence…! No, it really was Deborah’s dad, who lives way out west on Whidbey Island off the coast of Washington State. Deborah and I phoned in and joined in activities for a while, which was great fun. The party lasted for SEVEN hours, and at least 100 people showed up to listen to “Clean Slate” and socialize.

Now, for those of you who don’t know Deborah’s dad, a party that he is hosting is WELL worth attending! Darrel is no spotty youth, but he leaves most of us panting to catch up, so energetic is he. Darrel, who has been a Protestant minister all his adult life — and still going strong (retirement? What retirement?) — has to be one of the most warm hearted, generous, open minded, accepting, interested, and vital men I have yet had the privilege to meet. A passionate humanitarian who speaks with the wisdom of genuine experience — and through a considerable chunk of recent history. If we had to choose one person on the planet to kick the Eye to Eye ball in the air, I reckon Darrel would be the perfect choice. He asked us extremely thoughtful questions about the writing and recording of the songs — watch out average radio DJ! So, a massive ‘thank you’ to you, Darrel, and to Bruce and Susan Berg who supported SO generously.

The listening parties are our idea to create some ground swell, direct experience of our music. These days, marketing a CD can be a complex and extremely expensive affair. When you are Eye to Eye — a little outside the mainstream — you simply have to find innovative ways to reach people who otherwise might not get the opportunity of hearing the music.

I do appreciate your enthusiasm and your efforts in ‘spreading the word’. If you have half a mind to, I do encourage you to plunge in and host a listening party of your own. Who knows, it could be a blast, and Deborah and I will do our best to make it worth your while!

Finally, as this seems to be largely a message of thanks, Deborah and I want to express our HUGE thanks to Jennifer, our awe-inspiring promotions manager, without whom no Eye to Eye ship would be sailing.

Summer in England has really begun. The sheep are braying, the cows are bleating…Wherever you are, I do wish you a wonderful summer and, no kidding, thanks for your support.

Love and hugs,
Julian

P.S. Back in May, we mentioned our producer Rhett Davies’ wedding…well, he just sent us the most handsome picture, and we want to share it with you:

Our fabulous producer, Rhett Davies and his bride, Susan! Congratulations, you two.