H. Paul Moon

07/10/2025

07/09/2025

happy july9th.com (coming soon...)

The true story of the Declaration of Independence

06/30/2025

Filming the great Dúo Copla

06/08/2025

from 1:27...!

05/23/2025

Sincere thanks to Poetryfilmkanal's Poetry Film Tage (Weimar Poetry Film Award) for presenting my film BESIDE MYSELF written by and featuring Bob Holman, with music composed by David T. Little, today in Weimar, Germany: https://poetryfilmtage.de/programm/world-mirror-of-poetry-3/

05/13/2025

Barbara B. Heyman left this world on May 9, 2025, leaving behind for eternity her lifetime of scholarship and advocacy for the American composer Samuel Barber. Anyone watching the documentary Samuel Barber: Absolute Beauty quickly finds her the star of that show, too. At 130 minutes, it follows the spirit of Barbara's exhaustive enthusiasm, and so a few things just never made it into the long final cut. At the composer's centenary celebration hosted by Performing Arts at the Library of Congress in 2010, naively I thought we might be able to cover everything in one sitting to kick off the film project. But in that hallowed Whittall Pavilion surrounded by priceless rare instruments, I found that Barbara had a lot to say — and there's no shortcut to explaining genius. So we pretty soon just packed up, and made our plans to give it a full day in her New York City apartment later that year. The rest became magic; but here in this clip, you see our early try at buckling down, only to find Barbara's sense of humor, storytelling gift, and now-haunting perspective on life and death, the real order of business. Nobody in the world has seen this material until today, May 12, 2025, 15 years later, when I am reflecting on her life well lived, how much I'll miss her, and how there will never again be anyone like her.

H. Paul Moon
Spring Creek, Nevada

2020 conversation: https://open.spotify.com/episode/75TyCeZSzMk4ZwgGI7ADJC or https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/barbara-heyman/id1473390770?i=1000468112876

04/30/2025

Nina Simone said it best. “An artist’s duty is to reflect the times.”

04/18/2025

To coincide with Good Friday, documentarian H. Paul Moon unveils his new film of Douglas Balliett’s “St. Mark Passion.” The film dropped at 8:00 this morning (3 p.m. Jerusalem time) and is now archived for viewing on demand.

If you don’t have time to listen it today, do try to catch it over the weekend. The idiom is attractive, the work is substantial and, although I only learned of it as the premiere showing was already in progress (I joined it about 45 minutes in), it strikes me as music that will bear repeated listening.

The performance was captured at New York’s Holy Trinity Lutheran Church and features the Theotokos Ensemble, with the composer himself directing and playing viol.

If you’re a regular attendee of concerts of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, Balliett’s name and visage may strike you as familiar – his twin brother, Brad, with whom Doug frequently collaborates (as the Brothers Balliett), is the PSO’s principal bassoonist. Brad is also on the faculty of the Peabody Conservatory and the Juilliard School, so it’s possible you might recognize him from those places too!

Doug teaches at Juilliard as well, as a professor of Baroque bass and violine. He writes cantatas for weekly church services and leads the Theotokos Ensemble every Sunday at St. Mary’s Church on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. As a performer, he has played with many notable ensembles. Prior to its premiere, his “St. Mark Passion” was given a reading by one of them, William Christie’s Les Arts Florissants. Not bad!

He’s also a poet, and for three years, he hosted a radio show dedicated to living composers with his brother on WQXR.

Here’s Paul’s film of the oratorio. Try it; you’ll like it.

https://zenviolence.com/balliett

Learn more about Doug Balliett at his website.

https://www.dougballiett.nyc/

Elaborating on the Brothers Balliett and the ten-point “manifesto” that governs their creative process:

https://www.dougballiett.nyc/brothers-balliett

Doug’s remarks about the Passion:

https://www.dougballiett.nyc/st-mark-passion

04/14/2025

also at (in full quality): https://youtu.be/tyLnahelM8g

04/12/2025

Sincere thanks to The Institute for Experimental Arts for presenting "Beside Myself" today in Athens, Greece at their 12th International Video Poetry Festival:

The 12th International Video Poetry Festival invites audiences to experience the captivating fusion of poetic language and visual art.

03/28/2025

WMPA proudly releases:

second excerpt from:
III. Life

performed by:
Stanislav Khristenko, piano
Washington Metropolitan Philharmonic
Anna Binneweg, conductor

filmed & edited by:
H. Paul Moon | https://zenviolence.com |
at George Washington Masonic Memorial, Alexandria, Virginia
on March 2, 2025

audio by:
John Kean

for the Washington Metropolitan Philharmonic Association:
Caroline Mousset, Executive and Artistic Planning Director
Helenmarie Corcoran, President, Board of Directors

Piano Concerto No. 3 by Myroslav Skoryk (ASCAP)
©2015 Duma Music, Inc. (ASCAP), used by permission

for more information, visit: https://wmpamusic.org