Interviews
An interview with Cara Tower
Bahia Zahnan
Beirut, Ahmad Barbir St. Zahnan Build. First Floor, Lebanon
03-041-292
How long have you been composing and performing music?
My mother heard music inside of herself the day I was born, so, I'd say…all my life.
Do you think music is a universal language?
I think the universal language is the language of the heart. Every human being, anywhere in the world, is capable of speaking and responding to this language.
What inspires your music?
The extraordinary existence we share. Although I've explored many styles of music; folk, rock, blues, Baroque, Renaissance, Romantic, Classical, Middle Eastern, polyrhythmic, electronic, etc. I always felt something I couldn't quite put my finger on was missing. An inner link to myself was not connecting and I felt trapped and insecure. Until the day I met Prem Rawat, a man who showed me a way to go inside myself through a series of four techniques he calls Knowledge, or Knowledge of the self. Now I feel a sense of completion, as though there really is nothing missing and a true sense of freedom evokes my life and subsequently my music.
What else, if anything, has this Knowledge of the self done for you?
Most importantly Knowledge has enabled me to correspond with my own heart. It's taken some practice for me to be able to recognize its' voice, as it speaks softly and directly through the inner realm of feeling. I'm grateful for this access, for I've found an endless river of understanding there. So often, where the mind has been plagued with questions, the heart has been fluent with answers. Where the mind has been taken by the complexities of this world, the heart has remained in constant appreciation of the joyous simplicity of life itself.
Do you have any new creative projects in the making?
Creativity to me is like an infinite well. Infinitely used, but never used up. I can't really seem to help myself. I'm always juggling too many creative endeavors. But to name one or maybe two; I'd like to make a collection of DVDs that embody the voice of Prem Rawat. Because I think he's really someone to hear and I'd like to share his message in a fun and unusual way. I'd like to compose soundtracks of various styles to accompany his voice to go along with visuals i.e. film, graphics, text and photos to create an entire collection of playful, short and sweet, vignettes. I'd also like to include the poetic works of Gibran, Rumi, Haviz and Kabir in this collection. Although they lived long ago, they were focusing on many of the same things, embracing and recognizing the gift of our existence and courting a practical relationship with the infinite.
I'm excited about the prospect of collaborating on this project with people from around the world, namely the Middle East. By focusing together on the shear beauty of life a natural cultural bridge is built.
