An Interview with Daniel Kobialka

Daniel Kobialka has been at the forefront of contemporary classical music for the best part of the last half century. An internationally acclaimed violinist, composer and lecturer he has recorded a number of best selling albums and appeared on the New York Times Best Recordings List with his stunning work 'Autumn Beyond'. He has also been the Principal 2nd violinist for the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and has held professorships at the San Francisco State University, the Catholic University of America, the California State Universities of San Francisco and Hayward and at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. His reputation, his work and his life is one that is well documented.

Daniel is however much more than just a significant and world-renowned musical presence. He is a man with a heart and a mission to help transform the lives of others through the expression and cultivation of love in the world via the conduit of his music. This very personal and relentless passion is what drives him and profoundly colours the musical expression of his life. In conversation you cannot help but be struck by the overwhelming yearning that seems to be present in his voice to see the lives of others being bettered in some way. To see the world transformed. It seems as if he would, given the opportunity, re-make the world as an ethereal and resonant melody that cannot help but eternally loop back on itself in an effort to re-experience the beauty of life's musical phrases over and over again. This is a man dedicated to the greatest goal that there is on this earthly plane: using the gifts that one is given to help mediate in the tragedies of life that others find themselves in.

Daniel has in recent years taken a great interest in the growing field of music that often falls under the label 'new age'. It is in fact a musical form that is often belittled by serious musical aficionados due to its often misunderstood associations with the more 'ungrounded' elements of a community that is itself largely marginalised by mainstream society. This musical genre has for some time now been enthusiastically grasped by a growing number of people working in the field of complementary and alternative therapies. Writing and recording music for this particular audience is just one of the strings to Daniel's multi-faceted bow. He is also very much involved in conducting his own research into the healing effects of music and experimenting with various compositional approaches to facilitate its use within a therapeutic context. You can access a sample of one of Daniel's experimental pieces around the theory of entrainment that combines in the form of a medley Bach's 'Air on a G String' with Procul Harem's 'Whiter Shade of Pale' by clicking the link here.

It is an honour and a pleasure to have had the opportunity to interview Daniel and to talk to him about his thoughts and feelings on the place of music within the broad spectrum of healing methods. It is also a significant interview for Humanity Healing, as Daniel is not only a friend of the Humanity Healing team, but our own Ambassador for the House of Creation. As such his musical works are finding their way into more and more diverse projects, the most important of which to date is his rendition of 'The Pachelbel Canon' for the groundbreaking 'Ripple Effect' video which I covered previously in this blog. If you are not familiar with this work, then I suggest that you click on the link and enjoy this wonderful visual and auditory experience! I am sure that we can look forward to more of Daniel's work being integrated into Humanity Healing projects over the coming months and years. I am also personally very excited by some of the other projects that Daniel talks about in the interview, such as the Humanity Healing label that is being planned to encourage those that also want to make a difference in the world but perhaps do not have access to the mainstream.

You can access the interview with Daniel by clicking on the link here or by clicking on the title of this blog post at the top of the page; 'An Interview with Daniel Kobialka'. If you would like to discover more about Daniel and his music then you could also visit his personal website at:

www.danielkobialka.com

More links to Daniel's pages and blogs are given in the sidebar of this blog under 'HH Ambassador's Blogs & Websites', but also keep an eye on the Humanity Healing Network website where, as time goes by, more of Daniel's work for Humanity Healing will be featured.

Many blessings and much metta,

Steve