Happy New Year, my friends! And what an unusual year it's been for us all... but don't you also feel kind of grateful to have lived through it? Isn't it kind of amazing to experience a difficulty that the whole world has experienced? A lot of the time we can feel quite alone in our struggles... but this one was shared by all of us! The fears, the disappointments, the isolation... and hopefully, some sense of love and connection and an understanding that we are more than our circumstances, that within difficult times, our love still reaches each other and knows each other's hearts.
I've spent the year divided between a small London flat and a wooden cabin by the sea. The cabin is at the bottom of my mum's garden, where I grew up, and she normally lets it out, but this year most of the bookings have been cancelled. It's picturesque, beautifully isolated and lacks internet. Making teaching work and companionship a little difficult - but I feel so lucky to have been able to be here. In fact, I'm here right now as I write this - I was able to leave London and self-isolate here, where I'm focusing on meditation and finishing my long-awaited album (well, those who have known be for sometime know that it's long-awaited!).
For me 2020 begun with two weeks of meditation retreat in the Lake District at the Manjushri Kadampa Meditation Centre (I always try to start the year with some more immersive meditation retreat as it really helps to set me up for the year), and then saw me doing a bunch of gigs in January and February - a gig at the O2 Academy Islington, and setting up my own concert series: beautiful music and poetry in sacred spaces. I was lucky enough to reconnect with a wonderful musician and violinist, Dave Shaw, who joined me in improvisation for two concerts and visited in the summer. I wrote and recorded a simple song back in the Spring, and Dave added a violin part in the Summer... that reminds me that I need to finish it off and share it with you. Note to self. Remind me if you haven't heard it in a month or so! It's called "Oh My Love" - but it's not the John Lennon song.
I've been working on various aspects of life, internal and external... learning to fully embrace the freedom of routine (if that sounds like an oxymoron to you then you're like me... but I've found it to be absolutely true); learning to let go and accept what is; learning to make plans (it's embarrassing to even say that, but, I've always been the "go with the flow" kind of guy and now that I'm on the wrong side of my twenties then I'm having to consciously develop this aspect); also working on my singing, in particular learning from the master - Frank Sinatra - and developing my breath control and phrasing. If you listen to my more recent singing on my Instagram and compare it then you may notice what I mean.
For me in so many ways I feel like a total beginner at so many important things in my life... but maybe that's a good place to be. As a musician, my deep wish is to make my living from my own music. I love teaching and directing and so forth, but I know that within the short time I have in this life most of my time and energy should be spent creating and sharing beautiful music with the world. I'm no businessman, fortunately I guess, and the path of a musician is not clearly defined as in some other careers, but I'm working out what we can do, and have just set up a Patron page on my website where you can directly support the creation of my music in return for lots of different benefits, like a monthly private online concert and other things. This gives you the opportunity to engage more deeply with what I have to share - to get access to things that I don't share freely to everyone on Instagram and so forth - whilst knowing that you are directly supporting a musician that you value. It's based on the model of Patronage that existed at the time of the great composers like Beethoven, Chopin and so forth - people who valued the music of these composers would support them, and receive benefits for their support. I like it because it cuts out the middle man of a record label or whatever - it gives us an opportunity to directly share, and for you to be much closer to the creative process. You can sign up by clicking on the "Patrons" tab on my website menu - or just follow this link: https://henrytozer.com/patrons
So, here's wishing you so much joy, so much love, so much peace in this year ahead. We cannot control many of the circumstances of our world and our life, but we can always choose to see things through the lens of wisdom and compassion, and maintain our inner refuge amidst the changing winds of life.
With love,
Henry