Tracings Inspired by Dalai Lama, a cellist weaves wisdom

By Olivia Tracey

Cellist Michael Fitzpatrick must be a believer in the motto "Do for others as you would have done unto you."

After touring for six weeks with His Holiness, the XIVth Dalai Lama, the cellist found himself in Los Angeles being bombarded with a string of questions about his latest CD, "Compassion," by a rather hard-to-please woman.

So he gave the CD to her as a gift.

Touched by his kindness, she invited him to spend the rest of his stay as a guest in her Malibu Beach home. Now, while his hospitable host is happily transported by the soothing sounds of "Compassion," Fitzpatrick awakens to the sound of the ocean. Bliss!

Fitzpatrick defies pigeonholing. He dresses neatly, almost conservatively, even in the presence of the Dalai Lama’s flowing golden robes. One expects a spiritual, New Age-infused temperament. Instead, he resists any labeling of categories, religious, musical or otherwise. His eclectic music blends classical with rock and Gregorian chant and whatever other genre takes his instinct.

"I hold the divinity in the music. The music is the prayer," he said.

Just as diverse is his family background — mostly Irish Catholic on his father’s side, but with Catalonian and French, while his mother’s blood combines Jewish, Polish and Ukrainian.

The one constant in his family, however, is the musical and artistic lineage. His maternal grandmother, Rose, was a concert pianist. Another relative, Bronislaw Huberman, was founder of the Isr’l Philharmonic, and his father was an artist and professor of art. His sister, Josephine, is co-principal violinist of the Barcelona Symphony.

Fitzpatrick’s grandmother Rose bought him a flute when he was a young boy, and for a time, that could have been his instrument of choice. His mother then went to the local music teacher at the high school in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where they then lived, only to be told that while there were too many flautists, they did have a need for a cellist. And so, at age 9, Fitzpatrick took up the cello.

The following year, the family moved to Kentucky where Fitzpatrick studied with this "great, cool, renegade cello teacher" named Rodney Farrar at the University of Kentucky. He flourished under Farrar’s tutelage for many years.

At the Eastern Music Festival in 1981, Fitzpatrick met with the teacher who was to change his life. He was Sean Ballintyne, formerly of the Juilliard School, personal teaching assistant to Leonard Rose and best friend to Yo Yo Ma.

Within six weeks under Ballintyne’s challenging tutelage, Fitzpatrick’s cello playing excelled. He continued to study with Ballintyne in New York before heading back again to the Summer Music Festival, where he won the concerto competition. It was his first solo with an 85-piece orchestra and he was "cookin’ on stage in front of 2000 people."

His studies continued at North Western University, Yale and NYU. While in New York, he went back to studying again with Scott Ballintyne and played in subways, nightclubs, rock’n’roll in Central Park and Broadway show tours including "Miss Saigon," "Phantom of the Opera" and "Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat."

In 1990 he went back to Kentucky where he taught music for a time before completing his Post Masters Degree at North Western University in 1993. Then he decided to create Millenia Music, a non-profit organization designed to bring healing music to hospices, hospitals and centers for the elderly.

The following summer, he won the Prince Charles Award for outstanding musicianship at the Spoleto Festival in Italy, received a mention in The New York Times praising the "virtuosity" of his music, and got a long-awaited 5-string electric cello on his 30th birthday. He also made his first CD "Stations" of which he did very successful live concert versions.

And then, in July 1996, the Dalai Lama came to the Abbey of Gethsemane in Kentucky.

That became an annual gathering known as the Gethsemane Encounter. Its mission was to bring together monastic leaders of East and West through wisdom and compassion, and Michael Fitzpatrick was honored to perform nine concerts over the six-day event.

The next four years were spent producing and recording the "Compassion" CD, released in November 2000 and featuring the Abbey of Gethsemane Monks, Tibet’s Drepung Loseling Monks, the Millenia Music Ensemble, His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, and the voice of the late Thomas Merton.

It was not recorded in a studio but in the Star Chamber of Mammoth Cave, the world’s largest cave, the Furnace Mountain Zen Temple in Kentucky, the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York, St. Paul’s Chapel at Columbia University where Merton studied, the Abbey of Gethsemanie and at the Interreligious Vigil for World Peace led by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

I’m left thinking that the talented musician is indeed living his life as he was meant to, using his gifts to pursue a noble path.

Proceeds from "Compassion" will benefit The Tibet Fund, Drepung Loseling Monastery, Monastic Interreligious Dialogue (MID) and Millenia Music Outreach. For further information or to order the CD, phone 1-800-876-3079, email tuneplant@earthlink.net or log onto www.voicesofcompassion.com.