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| 03-FEB-2008 | Carmen's family, Allen and Maya |
| Carmen, aka Mimi, was a beautiful person who was unusually empathetic. A neighbor, she let me use her piano often, and I loved to hear her play as she was so in love with music. I heard this in her daughter Maya's playing too. A really fine jazz pianist, Carmen also loved Chopin and other gorgeous classical music. More than anything, she was just just full of GOOD energy that was very Contagious. Life is more than unfair, as the photo was a recent one. The gift she had besides playing that piano so well was being able to make us feel better just being there with that concern on her face and always that interest in others combined with a zest for life. I miss her and, as with my friend Judy Frankel (whom Carmen had hoped to hear in concert someday), I can never quite believe she's gone.
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| I'll add some pieces here that were favorites of hers. The first two pieces were played at the Celebration/Memorial by pianist Rebecca Bogart, which is the first time I'd heard the Massenet played on the piano and it seemed very apropos. I decided to get the sheet music and do this mp3, and I've added for the page a 2nd Chopin, which was another one that Carmen liked, from the film "The Pianist." I've also added the main theme from the Borodin dances, as the opening section sounds sadder to me than I remember, with the descending minor responses (like tears) to the ascending major-key ones but it ends with the more upbeat major key. However, the underlying sadness in the opening is apropos, I felt, while it's good that it resolves later, as a very optimistic Carmen would have wanted. Even then there is always the descending inner line below the optimistic one, the latter one winning the day. I used a hint of strings with the Massenet and the Borodin, as they are orchestral pieces and both Carmen and I shared a strong tendency toward sentimentality though that is not popular in many circles today. These are also here for my other friend, Judy, though she was not as into this kind of music. It just expresses quite a bit how I feel about both of them being removed from us now and very close to the same time.
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Photo by Carmen Reave's family, Alan and Maya