Bali: “The Greenest School on Earth”

The largest bamboo buildings IN THE WORLD are the most striking characteristic of The Green School campus in Ubud. This K-12 “school in the jungle” (current student population 333) meets 70% of its energy demand on site (from solar collectors and a hydro-electric Vortex),

grows most of its own food, exclusively employs composting toilets and banana leaf food service plates, and attracts a talented international staff of 30 lead teachers and administrators.

The founding visionary of The Green School is a dyslexic jewelry maker from Canada named John Hardy. 

The Green School is now six years old and celebrated its first graduating class this past June. The curriculum emphasizes sustainability, independent and creative thinking, and cooperative, practical learning. Its calendar and structure are based on North American models, and it has begun a small boarding unit (across a covered bridge, made of bamboo, naturally). Tuition is about $10K, and the school aspires to draw 20% of its student body from “local” Balinese and Indonesian families. Its primary language of instruction is English, but Bahasa Indonesia is also taught and widely spoken on campus. Because foreigners cannot own land on Bali, the school operates with a long-term lease from an ancient and prominent local family.

Becoming “the greenest school on earth”  was certainly an honor and a hard-earned achievement. Nevertheless, it must be said that Bali is an ideal location for green living. A temperate tropical climate, abundant supplies of water and renewable building materials, insects that are readily amenable to biological control, and great volcanic soil give The Green School advantages that few other schools can match. Having said that, though, their model is inspiring, and their commitment to purpose is compelling.

The “green school” or “eco-schools” movement is an international enterprise. At CFS the "Building Friends" campaign includes a laudable emphasis on sustainability. The Afghan Sister School relationship is a beacon of love and devotion in a world of strife. Perhaps CFS might wish to broaden and strengthen these initiatives by forging other partnerships with like-minded school communities. The Green School, Ubud, might be one place to start.


Another potential partner is the Dyatmika School in Denpasar, where the architecture may not be so stunning but where the curriculum, staff, and school climate may be even better developed, sturdier, and more sustainable.

Bali: The Son of the King, and I

The great Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, The King and I (1951-56), was based on the true story of Anna Leonowens, a British teacher who in the early 1860s served as governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam. It is one of my favorite musicals, so imagine my surprise when, towards the end of our stay in Bali, I had the chance to become the saxophone teacher of the youngest son of the King of Ubud, Bali—and then heard the music of Ariel’s Way playing in a setting that is truly palatial!

Chokorda Ngura Sulyadnya (“Chok Wa” for short) is a warm and hospitable person with a remarkable passion for the arts. Though the royal family of Ubud no longer has political power, it continues to perform important ceremonial functions.

Furthermore, Chok Wa (who serves as head of security and emergency management in Ubud) has demonstrated, for years, an unwavering commitment to preserving Ubud’s cultural traditions (especially music, dance, and stone carving). He himself dismisses his own talents as an artist, but he clearly has a deep grounding in all the cultural traditions he seeks to promote. I watched him coach young gangsa players, heard him sing parts to other musicians, and saw the shapes that his imagination designed in the architecture of his residence.

Six years ago Chok Wa began work on a performing arts center that would showcase the culture of Ubud. He now sponsors five different gamelan groups (including a women’s group and several children’s group—whose names all include the royal initials “CW”). The facility he’s constructing can present Balinese music and dance in a sumptuous setting, featuring rice-terrace views, a lushly landscaped courtyard, and (eventually) accommodation for artists-in-residence in a peaceful but awe-inspiring setting.

Our Balinese teacher and driver, Ida Bagus Oka, found me a saxophone to play and took me out several times to hear (and to sit in with) local Ubud groups. I was impressed with the talent of the musicians I heard, and news of my presence in Ubud apparently came to Chok Wa’s attention. He asked Ida to bring me by so that I might help him learn more about the saxophone.

Walking into Chok Wa’s “palace in progress” was truly breathtaking. A sixty-foot high, intricately carved, truncated pyramid stands above the main gate, beautifully lit for evening. A half dozen waterfalls drop thirty feet or more into pools and streams that course through the golf-green courtyard. A young people’s gamelan, about 40 strong (under the supervision of four or five adult teachers), were working on a gong kebyar piece that was both challenging and powerful. Other gamelan students rehearsed in another pavilion. Sitting barefoot on the marble floor of the main pavilion, and sighting down a staircase trimmed with a pair of stone dragons, I tried to take it all in.

After the students had gone, Chok Wa, Ida and I (plus an attendant or two) admired the ALL WOOD saxophone that Chok Wa owned. I played it briefly to confirm that it did in fact play. He asked me then to play “my” horn, which I did. Then Chok Wa called for his own Conn-Selmer “Prelude” alto. He wanted me to teach him about it. He was a serious, focused student throughout a lesson that lasted nearly an hour. Chok Wa videotaped me, as I myself had done several days before when my suling (Balinese bamboo flute) teacher showed me about circular breathing and how to finger the pelog scale. Chok Wa was interested in the mouthpiece and reed, the embouchure, and the chromatic fingering. By the end of our hour together, he was able to play two octaves of a C major scale—much more progress than beginners typically make.

Before leaving, Chok Wa took me into his living quarters—which were truly fit for a king. Sitting together, we jammed on a steel drum and some similarly tuned propane canisters, and ended in a perfect moment of harmony. I saw his orchid collection and even the bathroom, which included mirrors trimmed with hand-painted flames. Ida could not believe that we had been permitted such an intimate glimpse into royal life. His children’s rooms were down a hallway that we did not enter.

The next night, our last in Bali, Chok Wa invited Jan, Elizabeth (our midwife friend who had come to visit) and me to dinner; however, we already had an invitation to eat with Ida and his family. But we did drop by the Prince’s place once more. Jan and Elizabeth had to see it for themselves, and I wanted to give Chok Wa a gift.

This time, he asked me to stand in the doorway to his apartment and play the wooden saxophone for the gamelan players who had stayed to hear. I did not have any time to warm up, and the horn was not as responsive as I would have liked, but still it was a beautiful moment. “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” seemed like a good choice. This certainly wasn’t Kansas!

I presented Chok Wa with my Ariel’s Way CD/DVD set, and he promptly put it on his sound system. Hearing the songs resounding in this superb courtyard setting on this magical island was almost as amazing as seeing the show for the first time. A dream I had dared to dream really had come true!

After presenting me with his gift—his own suling—Chok Wa escorted the three of us out, across the dazzling aquarium beneath the doorway to his compound. Did I see Elizabeth deliberately slip so that the handsome prince could support her? Generous and kind to the end, Chok Wa invited us to come back next time, when his palatial arts center was finished, and be his guests, for some “musical collaborations.” How can I refuse?

Bali: Visiting the “Temple of Business”

Bali is a land of temples. Every family compound has one, facing Mount Agung (in the northeast corner of the compound, if you live in the Ubud area). Every Balinese village also has at least three temples, dedicated to Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. (The local cemetery, where corpses are laid to rest until they can be cremated, is located near the latter temple.) Every Balinese school has its own temple too, as well as a beautiful statue of Saraswati (the patron goddess of learning and the arts). Special calendars in every shop and home show the overlap between the many festivals prescribed on the traditional lunar calendar and the days when those celebrations fall on the solar calendar that the modern world agrees to use.

Because divine forces interact with every aspect of Balinese life, it is no surprise that economic enterprises come under the scrutiny of the gods (and of the priests, whose prayers and rites maintain right relations between heaven and earth). Pemuteran, a town on the northwest coast of Bali, is a center of world-class snorkeling and scuba driving today. It is also home to a Temple of Business, Pura Melanting, which dates back to the fifteenth century (a full century before the first contact between the Balinese and the Dutch, who eventually colonized the island, by force of arms, in the Western style of doing business).

Our Balinese teacher and guide, Ida Bagus Oka, thought it would be very appropriate for us to pay a visit to this Temple of Trade (or Business). Jan had told him of her HUG Your Baby work, and I had told him about Ariel’s Way. Our view is that these “businesses” are more vocations, or spiritual pursuits, than money-making enterprises. And our American midwife friend, Elizabeth Walters, felt the same way about her work as a healer and her daughter Erin’s work as an artist and entrepreneur in New Orleans.

Too many steps to climb at Melanting meant that Jan had to pass on this temple visit, but Elizabeth and I set off with Ida, wearing our hastily purchased (but, thanks to Ida, properly worn) “Balinese costumes.” We met the administrator of the temple near the entrance, signed the guest book and gave a small monetary gift towards temple upkeep. We then purchased incense and offerings to take to the priest. Quite a bit of climbing was required, and several handsomely carved portals were passed through on the way up. Thanks to Elizabeth for serving as event photographer!

Inside the highest courtyard Elizabeth and I followed Ida in praying to the sun god, the local god, and all gods. We were purified by the priest with holy water, and then offered our gifts (and business cards) as the priest chanted in Sanskrit. Then (while the priest casually smoked a cigarette) we earnestly and silently prayed that the work we love might be a vehicle for divine energy and will. Ida, a retired school teacher and a member of the Brahmin caste, was a very patient guide and interpreter on this occasion (and on many others during our stay in Bali).

Like centuries of Balinese farmers and traders before us, we came down, literally from the clouds, refreshed with holy water and purified in our intentions to do good with our work in the world. Everything in Bali holds the promise of divine participation, and Elizabeth, Jan and I were grateful for this special chance to harmonize the business interests we love with the spiritual powers that animate every aspect of Balinese culture.

Australia: Australian HUG Lullaby

The Australian lullaby that Jan and I just created features the continent’s unique animals. Early in our stay, a visit to the Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary in Tasmania was both touching and educational for us. This facility cares for injured animals, and we toured it with an exceptionally well informed naturalist.

He went into remarkable detail about the habits and abilities of Australian marsupials—even explaining how a mother kangaroo (a “Jill”) can express, from different teats inside her pouch, different kinds of milk to meet the varying nutritional needs of the different-aged “Joeys” she may be carrying. How cool is that! 

At Bonorong we saw wombats and Tassie devils, and also got up close and personal with maybe 100 kangaroos, in a very large enclosure, after a sea of school-aged children left on their bus. “Kangaroo Care” never seemed so real to Jan!

Jan’s idea for the lyrics of this lullaby is to link Australian animal behavior to some of the sleep issues that she helped Australian nurses and parents solve.

Musically, I tried to bring together several traditions that are fundamental strands in Australian popular music. First is the Aboriginal tradition. Didgeridoos, bull roarers (elliptical discs that are twirled to make unearthly sounds), and clapsticks—as well as chant, of course—are the dominant elements of Aboriginal music.

A second major musical strand in Australia is the Anglo-Scottish ballad tradition—the same one that settlers translated to Appalachia. In Australia the “convict heritage” is in the spotlight these days (after years of being disclaimed). Vandemonium Lags is a stage show and recording of convict-inspired music, much of which is written in the ballad tradition. 

I created a melody for this lullaby that draws on the ballad tradition—although part of it also echoes the American blues idiom, which is the third major strand in Australian pop music.

It's fun for Jan and me to work together creating these lullabies. Such creative work helps preserve our memories of particular things we especially appreciate about the cultures we visit. Working together on songs also helps us pass the time—sort of like gin rummy, but with more cards to play! Jan is doing something new for her, and I’m enjoying teaching her a musical thing or two.  Hopefully, the "HUGs Around the World" lullaby project can present HUG Your Baby ideas in a unique format that others might find entertaining, fun, and informative.

Australia: Tracks from a Soggy Dog

It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be to find a saxophone in Australia. Jonathan and Kaira Ba (www.kairabamusic.com) asked me to add tenor sax tracks to several of the new songs they’re recording. I was pleased to help and said I’d find a way to do it. However, making good on this commitment required more effort than I’d anticipated. Schools and conservatories turned me down, and friends of friends came up empty-handed, searching for saxes—in all the wrong places, apparently!

After pursuing a number of dead-ends, I finally was able to rent a reconditioned Super Action 80 from the good folks at Ozwinds in Melbourne. I’m traveling with my mouthpieces and reeds and was delighted to blow into a newly overhauled Selmer. It wasn’t the same as playing my old Mark VI, but it was closer than I thought I'd get to the sound I’m used to.

So what a treat it was, the next day, to ride a Melbourne City train to the end of the Belgrave line and meet Steve Vertigan, of SoggyDog Recording. Steve is an accomplished musician (classical clarinet and pop piano) who has also been a school music teacher and administrator and a sound engineer at a broadcast television station. His very successful recording and production business has evolved, over the years, as a natural outgrowth of Steve’s interests, abilities, and wide-ranging professional contacts. (I got to stick a pin in New York, as my birthplace, and joined hundreds of others, from all continents except Antarctica, on Steve’s world map of Soggy Dog musicians!)

Soggy Dog is beautifully located in the hills outside Melbourne. I told Steve that it reminded me of the late Les Paul’s house in Mahwah, New Jersey, where I used to go to rehearse in the late ‘60s with Gene and Russ Paul, and Doug Schmolze. (That band, The Dynamic Answers, is beyond the reach of even Google’s long arms!)

It was great to work with Steve. He has two good rooms, excellent mics, and is very quick with the Cubase program he prefers to DP and ProTools. (He’s sponsored by Yamaha, just like the Ozwinds people.) What’s more Steve has a keen ear for pitch, rhythm and musical form. Recording these Kaira Ba tracks with him was a great way to spend a soggy spring morning!

Before lunch we had two good tenor parts for each of the three new songs that feature horns. Zack Rider’s trumpet part was already down, and it was fun to follow his able lead. I know Quran Karriem will sound great on tbone too!

  

Steve said he loved Kaira Ba’s music—even the rough tracks we worked with—and was excited to be involved with the project. Steve and I called Jonathan on Skype to say, “Mission accomplished!” and then took a few photos, including some with Charlie, his Labradoodle—the eponymous “Soggy Dog.” (When you have a blog, and no editor, you get to use words like eponymous!)

I can’t wait to hear the final mix of the new Kaira Ba songs—and hopefully to connect Steve with Tony Bowman in order to collaborate on the Australian HUG Your Baby lullaby that Jan and I have written and Tony is poised to record.

Cheers, mate!