A Beautiful Parable -
Interview with Mr. Fred Karlin

Interviewed and reported by the entertainment team
of the Los Angeles Center, California, USA
(originally in English)

Fred Karlin is a composer who has won both Oscar and Emmy Awards, along with many other honors for his music. He has written innumerable works, including scores for the films "West World" and "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman." He is the composer of the fantastic musical dramatic epic"The Peace Seeker" performed at this concert.

I: Why did you entitle the piece "The Peace Seeker"?

Fred Karlin: Well, because we're all peace seekers. Some of us are more consciously doing that and are more aware of it than others, but we all really want that. And those who don't realize they want peace, want happiness. She relates the two together as one: bliss, happiness, peace; it's the inner peace that we are talking about. I think that we all believe in our hearts that if we found inner peace that there would be world peace. So, it has really the possibility of quite a major impact. I took that line from Her, mentioning that for all peace seekers, there's the wisdom of this Sage, realizing that we can look within us to find the Way, and I related the rest of Her poems to that.

... The piece has a lot to do with compassion. Several of the characters in it who sing these folk/rock songs suffer greatly; they suffer so much from everybody else's suffering around them that they hardly know what to do. And so one poem, which is now a song, entitled "Cannot Do A Thing With My Heart," starts off with that character portrayed in the poem wanting to give her heart away because she just can't do anything with it. She says, "What can I do for the world? What can I do for my people? Always full of troubles, always full of sorrows." Her heart is breaking from that, this character.

So, we all asked that. Right now, there is just this moment the horrendous natural disaster down in Central America, and in Middle America, in the Midwest. And it's always something. So, how do we deal with all this? How do we get over it? What do we do with our compassion? It may be an unanswered question: "What do we do with this?" Well, this Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association, interestingly enough, they're a group that goes into these disaster areas to help, with hands-on help, not just funding, which they do as well. But also, they just dig in and help, just as Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalyn went down to Central America the other day to help by way of example. The piece helps to underscore in a way, too, that we can either stand around and suffer, or we can look for a tranquillity and peace and meaning in the world inside us. The songs are folk/rock songs that everybody will enjoy; also, music sometimes leaves you with something that's not just abstract. I hope to leave them with that feeling.

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