Just a few words. After leaving school, I took lessons in London with the Austrian pianist (Dr Rauter, famed accompanist of the Icelandic singer, Engel Lund; co-founder the Anglo-Austrian Music Society), completed a teacher training (extended essay on “Walter de la Mare as Teacher”. 1974); helped start the Bristol Waldorf-Steiner School, UK; emigrated at age 28 on a push-bike (with £ 60) for 7 years to south Germany; began playing piano to accompany eurythmy lessons; played for eurythmy in 2 Eurythmy Trainings – in Munich, & Nuremberg. Toured with the Munich performing-group to the major cities of central Europe & Scandinavia. When I joined the eurythmy training in Nuremberg as a musician, I met my future wife. We returned to the U.K. in 1982; accompanying, concerts, tours, composing, teaching, translating. Moved to the eurythmy school in Stourbridge. Translated & commented on R. Steiner: “Eurythmy as Visible Singing” (1996/8), “Eurythmy as Visible Speech” (2005), and other titles. Contributed to the journal for the Section for Eurythmy, Music, Speech & Drama) pub. in Dornach, Switzerland.
I am part of a duo with Robert Davey (cello), and work daily in adult education in the eurythmy school. Eurythmy is not dancing to speech and music, but a means to reveal it. The research involves accessing the creative energy in the elements themselves – assimilating & rediscovering your relationship to the systems in which we live (alphabet, scale, circle of 5ths, et al.). On this path you arrive at meaning. Artists “know” this. Waking up to it, you realise there is also a tradition of sound-symbolism; art seeks to raise this into something socially nourishing.
Kathleen Raine has shown Blake’s debt to tradition. Bach realised the tradition fairly soon, as we see from his esoteric studies, published by musicians in Germany (Hertha Kluge-Kahn; Helga Thoene). Recent work on the solo violin work present a challenge to the interpreter. Do we not have the means with eurythmy? Both, I think, point to a common source.
A few years ago violinist Paul Robertson met my wife, Maren, and had a hunch she could help him with a project to reveal what is in the solo works. A little later we discovered the current research on the violin works (Helga Thoene), and the artistic project which arose has been taken to several European countries and America; it is still running. I prepared a brochure with articles (for video: follow link on this site).