Events

David at the Lake Superior wedding of cousin
Erich Wolff and Yunny Kim
September 10, 2005

Happy 2010 to everyone!

Marybeth and I are grateful to be settled in a new home on our small acreage near Welch. More on this below.

A review of some recent (and not so recent) events may be in order:

I was pleased to join several good friends on April 12, 2008, at the Music Therapy Association of Minnesota (MTAM) 2008 Spring Conference, "Sentimental Journey: Music Therapy at the End of Life." I spoke on Everything Relates to Everything: Multicultural Experiences in Hospice Music Therapy, a presentation that highlighted my work with several former hospice patients of quite diverse backgrounds. I shared this presentation last November 16 at the 2007 conference of The American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) in Louisville, Kentucky. I've added just a bit to it since then. You may view a PDF version of the Power Point slides here.

November of 2007 was a very eventful and life-changing month.

In addition to presenting at the AMTA conference, I was also very pleased to take part in a statewide teleconference sponsored by Hospice Minnesota on November 8, entitled Current Topics in Multicultural Care. I spoke on the Role of Music Therapy with Multicultural Patients.

You may also visit Hospice Minnesota for more information on "Living With Hospice", a touching documentary DVD that features stories of patients and families as well as interviews with caregivers. My music therapy work with a patient is included and I provided the instrumental guitar soundtrack for the film.

And continued thanks to my friend, Michele Areyzaga, renowned Chicago-area soprano, for singing my arrangement of Malotte's The Lord's Prayer for high voice and guitar accompaniment as an encore at her recent recitals. Keep your eyes and ears peeled - her star continues to rise!

Another wonderful musician (who emailed me out of the blue earlier this year and said he had written a song about my grandfather – really?! Whoa!) is Jonathan Rundman. Visit his blog, listen to the song with the reference to Gerhard, “Robert Traver Blues” and support his great music. Thank you Jonathan!

Some sad and not-so-recent news related to that eventful and life-changing month I mentioned, November 2007. On the evening of November 16, a matter of hours after I spoke at the AMTA conference, I received word that my wife Marybeth and I are lost our home and possessions to a fire. While sifting through the rubble about a week later, I found, to my amazement, some badly charred but still legible fragments of my grandfather's hand-written music. All the rest however was destroyed. This web site will continue to digitally preserve at least some memories.

But as I wrote at the top of this page, much happier and more recent news is that we have a new home for which we are most grateful. I also recently began sifting more fully through Gerhard's music and have been amazed at what survived.

I wish you bright blessings!

David