Monday, March 12, 2012
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
My Father's Commencement Speech
YSU Commencement June 20, 1998
John R. Cole
President Cochran, Faculty, Trustees, Honored Guests, Class of 1998.
It has been over 20 years since I was sitting out there awaiting the end of the commencement so that I could finally get my hands on that piece of paper that said I had a Masters Degree, and that I was done with the classes, and the papers, and the exams, and the thesis, and the orals, and all the... (expletive deleted) that I had go through to get the degree.
The actual term Commencement seems to me quite a misnomer, since at such ceremonies nothing ever seems to commence.
Time seems to stand still or at least move at a speed 2 or 3 or 4 times slower than normal; nothing seems to happen for the longest time, and yet people keep talking to you.
I have not attended many commencements, but each seemed an almost endless ordeal. My entire commencement from YSU for my Masters degree I have almost completely blocked from my memory.
All that I remember is that it was in the summer, I sat somewhere over there (to the left), it was HOT, and there was no air conditioning. I remember absolutely nothing of the ceremony!
I did Not even attend my undergraduate graduation. I had finished my degree work in December, and the actual ceremony did not take place until Spring break. By that time I had already started work on my Master program, and I had signed up for a YSU sponsored trip to New York during Spring Break.
My mother insisted on seeing me graduate; I insisted on going to New York, so I made elaborate plans to have a friend of mine impersonate me at the commencement, and using my ID pick up my diploma after the ceremony and give it to my mother. I of course went off to New York City.
In New York we realized that the graduation was happening while we were shopping at Macy's in the book department. But of course, back in Youngstown, everything went wrong. There was a huge snow storm, my parents couldn't get here from Columbiana, my friend could not get here from Niles; in fact I don't know if anyone got to that commencement. ?
While I was on that spring break trip to New York, when I should have been here, my future wife and I attended performances at the Metropolitan and New York City Operas never dreaming that in 15 years I would be working there.
When I was asked to speak at today's commencement, I was working on the City Opera's production of Benjamin Britten's operetta Paul Bunyan. (A piece that I have wanted to direct for about 20 years) Some of you may have seen the national telecast on PBS this last April. This operetta was written by Britten and the poet W.H. Auden during the second World War while both men were living in New York City. They had hoped that after its initial performance at Columbia University, the show would then move to Broadway and the two men would become rich and famous. I don't know what they were thinking, or what kind of medication they were on, but what they wrote was anything but what could be considered a commercial hit.
What they wrote was not a "Disney" type cartoon folk hero stating patriotic America Ideals; but instead they created a piece that was really a quite deep psychological and political work about mankind's relationship to God and Nature, and the True Nature of Mankind.
And if that weren't enough, the title character Paul Bunyan never appears on stage; we only hear his voice booming from the speakers high above the stage, for in actuality the character of Paul Bunyan is really the personification of God. The opening Prologue is one of the most beautiful, and most unusual musical number in all opera. It is also probably the hardest scene in all musical theater to present dramatically on a stage.
The curtain rises on a scene of a forest; all the trees are portrayed by the members of the chorus. The old trees are singing that they are content with their slow life and how they love just standing still.
The young trees, the children, on the other hand want something more. They are tired of their lives of immobility, they want to do more than just stay in one place, they want to change and move on. The Old Trees can't understand why the children think this way,
Why can't the young trees just be satisfied with living out their lives like their parents did. The young trees want to become ships to sail the seas, they want to be roofs over houses, they want to have corners, they want to be something ornamental, they want to be chairs .
They want to change. They do not want the life of their parents had, they do not want a life of standing still.
As you can guess this scene is really not about trees!
And if this weren't weird enough, 3 singing coloratura geese then fly in and tell the forest that a Man will be born at the next blue moon who will come and take them all away. When asked what is a Man? the geese reply that "a Man is a form of Life, who Lives in order to Dream, and Dreams in order to Live."
The geese continue and tell the trees that whether they want it or not they will all be changed. And all this will happen at the next Blue Moon . The trees think of course that this will never happen, but at that instant the moon does turn blue, the "Man" Paul Bunyan is born, and they all change.
Realizing that their lives are being altered forever, the trees sing that:
Tomorrow normally is only yesterday again, ButÉ
Once in a while the odd thing happens,
Once in a while the dream comes true,
And the whole pattern of life is altered,
Once in a while the moon turns blue.
The lumberjacks arrive, and begin cutting down the trees. The young trees get their wishes, they will become ships and houses, and roofs; they will have corners and everything as they knew it will suddenly change. The forest is cleared away and the trees soon become houses, the forest becomes a town and the town eventually changes into a city.
For the trees do not die when they are cut down, they are only changed into something else and they continue to live as something COMPLETELY NEW. I know this is not environmentally sound and not what supporters of the rain forest want to hear, but Paul Bunyan is an allegory, so bear with me please.
But not just the trees change, when the forest is cut down the Lumberjacks will have to change too. You can't be a Lumberjack if there are no more trees to cut down! The Lumberjacks will change into farmers, or teachers. And the cycle goes on and on.
Like the forest you, the Class of 1998, have reached a point in your life were all is going to change. You are about to leave this institution and start a new life, but please don't think that you are done with your learning, you are only just starting. You all must always keep growing and learning because you never know when, out of the blue, everything may just suddenly change.
Like that forest my life has had several drastic changes of direction. Several times the moon has turned blue for me. With very little warning I went from teaching in an independent school, to working at New York City Opera. Luckily I was prepared for the change. Some of that preparation was gained here. But not all from the required classes that I took. While working on my music degrees I did not limit myself to just the University, I spent most of my evenings at the Playhouse where I learned everything about the theatre. I acted, sang, danced, stage managed, played rehearsal piano, and even learned how to light a production.
I was a brass major for my undergraduate degree, but I remember the great fun and experience I gained by accompanying several voice majors at their lessons. and being the rehearsal accompanist for the opera production of Puccini's Suor Angelica.
The accompanying at the voice lessons taught me how songs should be constructed, and how a piece music can work dramatically, and all the rehearsals for the opera production taught me how an entire opera is really constructed and put together.
While at Dana I also went over to the theatre department and composed my first musical scores for productions of Lorca's Blood Wedding, and Beckett's Waiting for Godot. While composing the music for Blood Wedding, I was taking a full time load at the music school, and doing a show at the Playhouse, I remember the head of the Drama Department, who directed the production, describing me as "A caged bird in flight." I was constantly doing multiple projects at the same time. But all these interests paid off in the end.
All these curricular and extra curricular activities in some way prepared me for the direction my life was going to take. I was preparing for a career as a music teacher, but I knew that I was interested in so much more.
So I "kept branching out", forgive the forest metaphor, and I was constantly spreading my leaves and looking to learn and try new things. Like the young trees in Paul Bunyan, I knew I needed to not be standing still, I had to keep learning, and changing, and growing.
After college my wife Kristine and I could never understand how people could live out their lives working at the same job and never changing.
To us life was meant to be not only a "Banquet" as Auntie Mame said, but also a continuous, and wondrous learning experience.
Whether it was trying to learn Russian, or becoming computer literate, improving your piano technique, or trying to bonsai a tree, we both were for ever trying to grow and learn.
The best thing that happened to me here at YSU was meeting my wife. I can remember her coming to Dana's music library, where I was working. The first time I saw her at the card catalogue I thought that this looked like a terrifically interesting person that I would love to get to know better.
Fortunately for me, she looked at me and was thinking the same thing. There was this instant chemistry between us. A Romeo and Juliet moment.
I married her several years later, we had two children, who are here with me today, and we were not only husband and wife, but we were each others best friends.
We both knew the moment we saw each other that something clicked; and that something lasted and continued for over 27 years
I work in one of the most exciting cities in the world, and Lincoln Center is arguably the cultural capital of the world. And for me I think I have one of the best jobs in the world.
To work daily in a professional company with the brilliance of such composers as Mozart, Puccini, Wagner, Beethoven, Bizet, Kurt Weil, Benjamin Britten, and Richard Strauss is constantly a learning experience.
Those composers are no longer alive but their works live on in constantly new and redefined productions. Like the forest in Paul Bunyan these operas are forever being renewed and rethought by modern directors and designers.
?
What I want to say to you today is keep going and keep growing!
Keep learning, and keep changing! Don't stay in one place emotionally.
Keep expanding yourself! Branch out! Today is not the completion of you educational studies, but today is really the beginning of your educational life.
If YSU has done its job, it has taught you how to learn, that is what it did for me. And I hope that as you leave this campus, you will continue to grow and learn, and work at what really makes you happy.
If not in the job where you make your living, then in the things you do, or learn, or study in your spare time. I also hope that each of you will find that person who is meant for you, and that you both will have many many wonderful years together.
Nothing lasts forever, my wife died suddenly just over a year ago, but as the old theatre cliche says, "The show must go on;" we all must keep growing and learning and changing if we want to keep living. because:
Once in a while that odd thing will happen,
The whole pattern of your life will suddenly be altered
Once in a while the moon will turn blue.
You will never know when the moon is going to do that, but when it does I pray that you will be ready for it, and that you will be willing to accept it.
In Kurt Vonnegut's newest book Timequake he has a wonderful little quote that says,
"In real life, as in Grand Opera, arias only make hopeless situations worse."
I hope that today my commencement "aria" was not too long, and I hope it did bring a little enjoyment, and some thought to your commencement experience, which I trust is not the hopeless situation of my commencements of the past. I sincerely hope that you will remember this day as the true commencement point of your life and career.
And I pray that in your life you all will "Live in order to dream, and dream in order to live." And that once in your lifetime, and maybe more that once, the Moon will turn Blue for you.
-John Raymond Cole
John R. Cole
President Cochran, Faculty, Trustees, Honored Guests, Class of 1998.
It has been over 20 years since I was sitting out there awaiting the end of the commencement so that I could finally get my hands on that piece of paper that said I had a Masters Degree, and that I was done with the classes, and the papers, and the exams, and the thesis, and the orals, and all the... (expletive deleted) that I had go through to get the degree.
The actual term Commencement seems to me quite a misnomer, since at such ceremonies nothing ever seems to commence.
Time seems to stand still or at least move at a speed 2 or 3 or 4 times slower than normal; nothing seems to happen for the longest time, and yet people keep talking to you.
I have not attended many commencements, but each seemed an almost endless ordeal. My entire commencement from YSU for my Masters degree I have almost completely blocked from my memory.
All that I remember is that it was in the summer, I sat somewhere over there (to the left), it was HOT, and there was no air conditioning. I remember absolutely nothing of the ceremony!
I did Not even attend my undergraduate graduation. I had finished my degree work in December, and the actual ceremony did not take place until Spring break. By that time I had already started work on my Master program, and I had signed up for a YSU sponsored trip to New York during Spring Break.
My mother insisted on seeing me graduate; I insisted on going to New York, so I made elaborate plans to have a friend of mine impersonate me at the commencement, and using my ID pick up my diploma after the ceremony and give it to my mother. I of course went off to New York City.
In New York we realized that the graduation was happening while we were shopping at Macy's in the book department. But of course, back in Youngstown, everything went wrong. There was a huge snow storm, my parents couldn't get here from Columbiana, my friend could not get here from Niles; in fact I don't know if anyone got to that commencement. ?
While I was on that spring break trip to New York, when I should have been here, my future wife and I attended performances at the Metropolitan and New York City Operas never dreaming that in 15 years I would be working there.
When I was asked to speak at today's commencement, I was working on the City Opera's production of Benjamin Britten's operetta Paul Bunyan. (A piece that I have wanted to direct for about 20 years) Some of you may have seen the national telecast on PBS this last April. This operetta was written by Britten and the poet W.H. Auden during the second World War while both men were living in New York City. They had hoped that after its initial performance at Columbia University, the show would then move to Broadway and the two men would become rich and famous. I don't know what they were thinking, or what kind of medication they were on, but what they wrote was anything but what could be considered a commercial hit.
What they wrote was not a "Disney" type cartoon folk hero stating patriotic America Ideals; but instead they created a piece that was really a quite deep psychological and political work about mankind's relationship to God and Nature, and the True Nature of Mankind.
And if that weren't enough, the title character Paul Bunyan never appears on stage; we only hear his voice booming from the speakers high above the stage, for in actuality the character of Paul Bunyan is really the personification of God. The opening Prologue is one of the most beautiful, and most unusual musical number in all opera. It is also probably the hardest scene in all musical theater to present dramatically on a stage.
The curtain rises on a scene of a forest; all the trees are portrayed by the members of the chorus. The old trees are singing that they are content with their slow life and how they love just standing still.
The young trees, the children, on the other hand want something more. They are tired of their lives of immobility, they want to do more than just stay in one place, they want to change and move on. The Old Trees can't understand why the children think this way,
Why can't the young trees just be satisfied with living out their lives like their parents did. The young trees want to become ships to sail the seas, they want to be roofs over houses, they want to have corners, they want to be something ornamental, they want to be chairs .
They want to change. They do not want the life of their parents had, they do not want a life of standing still.
As you can guess this scene is really not about trees!
And if this weren't weird enough, 3 singing coloratura geese then fly in and tell the forest that a Man will be born at the next blue moon who will come and take them all away. When asked what is a Man? the geese reply that "a Man is a form of Life, who Lives in order to Dream, and Dreams in order to Live."
The geese continue and tell the trees that whether they want it or not they will all be changed. And all this will happen at the next Blue Moon . The trees think of course that this will never happen, but at that instant the moon does turn blue, the "Man" Paul Bunyan is born, and they all change.
Realizing that their lives are being altered forever, the trees sing that:
Tomorrow normally is only yesterday again, ButÉ
Once in a while the odd thing happens,
Once in a while the dream comes true,
And the whole pattern of life is altered,
Once in a while the moon turns blue.
The lumberjacks arrive, and begin cutting down the trees. The young trees get their wishes, they will become ships and houses, and roofs; they will have corners and everything as they knew it will suddenly change. The forest is cleared away and the trees soon become houses, the forest becomes a town and the town eventually changes into a city.
For the trees do not die when they are cut down, they are only changed into something else and they continue to live as something COMPLETELY NEW. I know this is not environmentally sound and not what supporters of the rain forest want to hear, but Paul Bunyan is an allegory, so bear with me please.
But not just the trees change, when the forest is cut down the Lumberjacks will have to change too. You can't be a Lumberjack if there are no more trees to cut down! The Lumberjacks will change into farmers, or teachers. And the cycle goes on and on.
Like the forest you, the Class of 1998, have reached a point in your life were all is going to change. You are about to leave this institution and start a new life, but please don't think that you are done with your learning, you are only just starting. You all must always keep growing and learning because you never know when, out of the blue, everything may just suddenly change.
Like that forest my life has had several drastic changes of direction. Several times the moon has turned blue for me. With very little warning I went from teaching in an independent school, to working at New York City Opera. Luckily I was prepared for the change. Some of that preparation was gained here. But not all from the required classes that I took. While working on my music degrees I did not limit myself to just the University, I spent most of my evenings at the Playhouse where I learned everything about the theatre. I acted, sang, danced, stage managed, played rehearsal piano, and even learned how to light a production.
I was a brass major for my undergraduate degree, but I remember the great fun and experience I gained by accompanying several voice majors at their lessons. and being the rehearsal accompanist for the opera production of Puccini's Suor Angelica.
The accompanying at the voice lessons taught me how songs should be constructed, and how a piece music can work dramatically, and all the rehearsals for the opera production taught me how an entire opera is really constructed and put together.
While at Dana I also went over to the theatre department and composed my first musical scores for productions of Lorca's Blood Wedding, and Beckett's Waiting for Godot. While composing the music for Blood Wedding, I was taking a full time load at the music school, and doing a show at the Playhouse, I remember the head of the Drama Department, who directed the production, describing me as "A caged bird in flight." I was constantly doing multiple projects at the same time. But all these interests paid off in the end.
All these curricular and extra curricular activities in some way prepared me for the direction my life was going to take. I was preparing for a career as a music teacher, but I knew that I was interested in so much more.
So I "kept branching out", forgive the forest metaphor, and I was constantly spreading my leaves and looking to learn and try new things. Like the young trees in Paul Bunyan, I knew I needed to not be standing still, I had to keep learning, and changing, and growing.
After college my wife Kristine and I could never understand how people could live out their lives working at the same job and never changing.
To us life was meant to be not only a "Banquet" as Auntie Mame said, but also a continuous, and wondrous learning experience.
Whether it was trying to learn Russian, or becoming computer literate, improving your piano technique, or trying to bonsai a tree, we both were for ever trying to grow and learn.
The best thing that happened to me here at YSU was meeting my wife. I can remember her coming to Dana's music library, where I was working. The first time I saw her at the card catalogue I thought that this looked like a terrifically interesting person that I would love to get to know better.
Fortunately for me, she looked at me and was thinking the same thing. There was this instant chemistry between us. A Romeo and Juliet moment.
I married her several years later, we had two children, who are here with me today, and we were not only husband and wife, but we were each others best friends.
We both knew the moment we saw each other that something clicked; and that something lasted and continued for over 27 years
I work in one of the most exciting cities in the world, and Lincoln Center is arguably the cultural capital of the world. And for me I think I have one of the best jobs in the world.
To work daily in a professional company with the brilliance of such composers as Mozart, Puccini, Wagner, Beethoven, Bizet, Kurt Weil, Benjamin Britten, and Richard Strauss is constantly a learning experience.
Those composers are no longer alive but their works live on in constantly new and redefined productions. Like the forest in Paul Bunyan these operas are forever being renewed and rethought by modern directors and designers.
?
What I want to say to you today is keep going and keep growing!
Keep learning, and keep changing! Don't stay in one place emotionally.
Keep expanding yourself! Branch out! Today is not the completion of you educational studies, but today is really the beginning of your educational life.
If YSU has done its job, it has taught you how to learn, that is what it did for me. And I hope that as you leave this campus, you will continue to grow and learn, and work at what really makes you happy.
If not in the job where you make your living, then in the things you do, or learn, or study in your spare time. I also hope that each of you will find that person who is meant for you, and that you both will have many many wonderful years together.
Nothing lasts forever, my wife died suddenly just over a year ago, but as the old theatre cliche says, "The show must go on;" we all must keep growing and learning and changing if we want to keep living. because:
Once in a while that odd thing will happen,
The whole pattern of your life will suddenly be altered
Once in a while the moon will turn blue.
You will never know when the moon is going to do that, but when it does I pray that you will be ready for it, and that you will be willing to accept it.
In Kurt Vonnegut's newest book Timequake he has a wonderful little quote that says,
"In real life, as in Grand Opera, arias only make hopeless situations worse."
I hope that today my commencement "aria" was not too long, and I hope it did bring a little enjoyment, and some thought to your commencement experience, which I trust is not the hopeless situation of my commencements of the past. I sincerely hope that you will remember this day as the true commencement point of your life and career.
And I pray that in your life you all will "Live in order to dream, and dream in order to live." And that once in your lifetime, and maybe more that once, the Moon will turn Blue for you.
-John Raymond Cole
Monday, February 20, 2012
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
BUZZ Logo Project
My BUZZ Logo Project made over 20 years,
as sketch,
DeluxePaint file,
Imagewriter Heat Transfer Printout,
created in Construx between 2009 & 2010
based on the logos from
"BUZZ"
an MTV media-trend show
the sixth glyph would be a tattoo if I ever got one.
You could even say it glows.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Friday, September 30, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
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