GARY MALKIN: COMPOSING FOR CAREGIVERS

An award-winning film and TV composer's unique new project, Wisdom of the World, creates music with meaning for people who need it most

Gary Malkin

Music can do more. That's the message at the heart of the ongoing work of Gary Malkin, an award-winning composer and performer who has written the scores for many movies and TV shows, most notably some 15 years of Unsolved Mysteries. Now he's utilizing the depth and grace of his music through his new company, Wisdom of the World, and its first project, Graceful Passages. It's an astoundingly inspirational CD -- which is a collaboration between himself and what he calls the "wisdom keepers," who range from such speakers as Ram Dass and Elisabeth Kubler-Ross -- to provide a fusion of music and affirmative wisdom about the transition from life to death.

Tragic life events changed his view of what he should do with his music and his life. His wife and newborn daughter almost died during childbirth. "We got so close to losing both of them," he said, "it was horrific." Only six months prior to that time, he lost his father. It changed his life. "I felt I was really getting initiated into the mysteries of life and death."

Around that time, his old friend Michael Stillwater, a pioneer in creating healing music, came to him and asked him to produce a project. "I am at the bedside of people who are dying," Stillwater told him. "I would love to bring music to them." They spent an hour together, and according to Malkin, it became clear that mere songs would not suffice. So he invited Stillwater to step up to the microphone and "just speak from his heart to someone who had received a terminal diagnosis. I got on my keyboard, and we jammed together. And after it was done, it was a perfect transmission. I remember getting chills. And I asked him, 'Has anyone ever asked the humanitarian leaders of our world, the true mentors of the world, to speak from this place? Not the radio/TV voice, but the voice of depth. And has anyone ever scored them like a film?'"

Malkin feels the potential for this usage of music is unlimited, and barely exploited. "We have not even scratched the surface of what is possible for the healing power of music," he said. "That when used in a specific way, it could address certain kinds of pathology, stress and suffering that human beings go through during different transitions of their lives. We're only at the beginning of understanding the power of music to make a difference in people's lives."

Graceful Passages is being used in hospices and hospitals where those suffering from cancer and other terminal diseases can face their fear of dying, and as a result of that, come to a greater peace. "It can alleviate the anxieties that can complicate the immune system's response to stress. Professionals in the end of life arena have said they have never seen anything other than pharmacology come close to alleviating people's anxieties to the level that this does, both the music and the words. So we are seeing that audio can have a profound healing effect on the way that people can approach this part of life. Because so many people are locked in this denial of death, that makes everyone, like Terry Schiavo's family, fight to the death." In fact, the hospice in which Terry Schiavo lived her last days has embraced Graceful Passages. "The music had been playing in Terry's room for the last four years," said Malkin.

Music can do so much more than entertain, explains Malkin. "It can be used for courage in the face of adversity," he said. "For forgiveness in the face of intractable disagreements. For birth and creativity. For moral leadership in the 21st century. We can have these leaders and mentors speaking from their souls, and application-specific music supporting it, so it becomes a new kind of audio medicine that supports people through the transitions of their lives. I think it can become a new form for composers to step into, a kind of audio pharmacology. It's a new way to bring universal wisdom to people -- the wisdom may not be attractive to a lot of people, but the moment you add the music, it is."

Still active in film and TV scoring (you can find more about him at Musaic.Biz), Malkin doesn't want to be defined as a guy who only creates music about dying. "I want this to be about life," he said. "This project is not morose. It's about the possibility of living life to the fullest. My next project is about courage." A serious bicycle accident almost robbed him of his own life, and fractured his body and soul. It took seven months before he could play the piano again. "My life was essentially shattered," he said. "The only thing that got me through was listening to these voices of wisdom. I felt that if I am going to die metaphorically, I am going to do something that leaves a legacy behind that makes a difference in this world, and might help people when they fall apart."

Malkin, who is using his music in other ways that serve humanity, urges other music-makers to do the same. "I see this as a call to the possibility of artists recognizing that they can serve people's lives in powerful ways that maybe they have never thought of."

By Paul Zollo