This is the story of 2 men, living half a world apart, wanting to
write a great show. I'm the American half, and my German co-conspirator is
just as eager to write something that Means something. To us anyway. To tell
the truth, I can't remember just when we met up, but it was online. We haven't
met in person, and in fact, that's one of our goals. When we make our fortunes
from our music :), we're both going to buy a band-signed Beatles 8x10, and
meet for a week in Disneyworld. That's the plan. We're going to try our best
to make it happen. I write the words, my friend does the music. And he's awfully good
at it too. I've seldom heard tunes as good, and that's why I'm pleased to
work with him. We'd started out by doing some individual songs which I'm
ashamed to admit I haven't pushed as hard as I could have. (I'm going to
start that again this week, that's a promise.) Then we started on a project
I'd been thinking about for a while called Grimm, a rock opera based on some
of the lesser known Grimm fairy tales, which show the more human side of
what goes on in a tale. We have the first act on CD, and the second act is
coming. But then we got sidetracked. Galileo is a Very important project to us. My grandfather was an
inventor who took my grandmother around the country trying to sell his inventions,
not many of which panned out. So I have a certain attachment to one of the
greatest discoverers and inventors of our planet. The trouble with writing
something huge of this nature is that there is too much to choose from! Galileo
lived such a long and fruitful and exciting life that the main question is
- what do we cut out?? That's difficult. But day by day I'm trying to get
closer to the answer. And between the two of us, I think we're going to have
a damn good rock opera on our hands. I love the songs I've heard so far, and
my German half seems to like the words I come up with. So... Plug into this site regularly. The great work is coming. Songs will
be posted, lyrics and bit of libretto switched around and changed. We'd appreciate
your input. This German-American alliance thanks you!
email:
ohmart@galilei-rockopera.de
Web:
http://www.rtpnet.org/~jacobs/ohmart.html
One day I wrote in a newsgroup: 'Creative musician looks for creative writer!' - And the next day I got the answer: 'Creative writer looks for creative musician!' - And the letter was from Syracuse (Sorry Ben - never heard of this place before). This was 1995, I think.
I read a lot about Galilei and his times, which fascinated me greatly. And I visited Tuscany very often: Florence. The museum of science (where some of his original inventions are) and his house in Arcetri (where he was arrested during his last three years). This area is a really nice place, I'd love to live there. All of Italy is worth visiting.