[dramatic music] [dramatic music] [dramatic music] Music is what we have left.

Our words have failed us.

Our politics have failed us.

Our policies have failed us.

All of those things have failed But music is something that nev because all it is is vibration.

All it is, is silence and sound, negotiated in order to reflect an emotion that you can't reflect any other way.

[orchestral jazz music] Joe Farnsworth and I grew up as Together.

We played Little League baseball and we were doubles partners on the high school tennis team and we'd hop on the five college and head up to the University of Massachusetts and watch Tommy Flanaga and Ella Fitzgerald and Weather And over the years, Joe's asked about doing a project together.

I always wondered where would Joe and I start?

He's such an accomplished artist One mornin I received a text from Joe and i you know, for two guys that gre in such dysfunctional families, we've done pretty good.

And I wanted to refram that a little bit and say, for t that grew up in chaotic but lov families, I think we've done pre And so Unquiet was an opportuni to start unpacking our childhood and our experiences in close pr to those who struggle with menta bipolar disorder and to start talking about that through art, a stor that was hard to articulate in w for a long time but something that, in my own ve experience, became increasingly to both Joe and myself.

And so w we set out to tell this story th minute orchestral work for strings and jazz quintet.

And at the center, it feature Joe's fierce, mind boggling virt [drum solo] [drum solo] We're goin to get started with the very ope I had first heard about Shelbie when she had launched a music v at the beginning of the pandemic that was featured around back ra What the World Needs Now.

And within two weeks, that video had gone viral.

20 million viewers and I was amo And so I wanted to connect with this young musician, composer, arranger who was also in telling really important stor I spent a lot of time researching and understanding the experience way befor thinking about any of the music No wonder who is at all.

It's th Once we decided that the piece to have some kind of narrative a and it was going to really tell that's when I could really conce and start to hear the music in m a little bit more.

Yeah.

The only thing the eighth note at the end of bar five, the eigh What's unique about Shelbie is speaks multiple musical language She speaks the form and orchestr of Western European classical music improvisation and spontaneity of And she understands the power and the pai and the gift of music from the c And so when we started conceivi of Unquiet and the story we want to tell, and the musical languag upon which we needed to draw, Shelbie became the perfect third collaborator to help us unpack that story.

We'll go from measure one all the way to 50.

Ideally, we're going to do this whole chunk all together, but the arc of the piece actual what's called the 11 year care g And that is something that is co found in people who are later diagnosed with bipolar disorder, where that 11 year span represents the time from the fir all the way to when they actually receive treat And, you know, that's on average over a decade of really intense and hardship.

When we talk about bipolar disorder, we're adding d onto this word bipolar, which is not in itself a disorde The two poles we're talking abou are the poles of mania and the poles of depression.

And all of us have a spectrum that we exist upon, and we can go from one end of o to another over the course of a Never mind a month or a year or a lifetime.

[jazz music featuring violin] What's extraordinary about the p is that it does weave togethe Western European classical music And so some of the music is fix and that composed component of t had always baked within it a musical reflection of the experiences of those who with bipolar disorder.

So it was important for the mus to understand how the compositio was reflecting the journe of those who struggle with menta But of course, this wor also has an enormous amount of s built into the work because of improvisation and because of the who show up in the spac and the ways in which the compos evolved even during the very first rehea So we opened the rehearsal talking about the compositional and how it reflected mental health journeys.

We challenged the musicians to really think about their own experiences whether it's they themselves or with whom they have spent time to find ways to express that in And so we offered a framewor both compositionally and improvi But what we knew is that these w artists were going to be able to pour their own storie into the recording and the perfo All right, everyone, thank you.

We're going to start at the very and just the same way that we've done in concert.

So we'll do that tuning atmosphe And then I will start conducting Shelbie's very intentional.

Shel received the assignment.

She went into that space.

She composed from that space.

And she didn't just write the no She wrote the intentionality around the notes.

When we're speaking to each oth we're using the English language We can say the same sentence with varied inflections.

I'm going to the store.

I'm going to the store, I'm going to the store, you know.

So she wrote the notes?

Yes.

But she put in the intentionalit so that this journey could unfol and we could tap into that.

That's masterful, you know.

And she brings that ou as we are delivering the piece and she's conducting.

The project is meant to normaliz or on mental health for all of us but particularly for young peopl we have normalized dialo about our own physical health.

We should do the same for mental There shouldn't be such a stigma attached to it.

And so for me, this project is both personal and my experience growing up wit who likely struggled with bipolar disorder.

Through this piece of music, we follow this 11 year span.

So it open literally like a timeline year o where we hea the first symptom played in the And it brings us on this journey with the jazz band and the string ensemble and late that literally explains and shows the the emotional ar of what happens during those 11 and the very high highs and the very low lows for to and to honor that, I wanted to m I knew what those experiences we So I spoke with many people who have bipolar disorder and heard some of their stories and some of the experiences that they had to go through.

Also some people who not formally dia but suspect that they might hav disorder and are in that journey now, that 11 year span where th trying to figure out what's goin and they're suspecting it might but it might be something else.

And that's a huge part of why this takes so long, because bipolar disorder is an e disorder.

And so, you know, the highs are The lows are lows.

But when the highs come bac we almost forget about the lows.

People should know that there's not a family on the planet over the course of history that hasn't experienced some kind of a mental health con or substance use condition, a family that claims it's never that in the family is a family.

And profound denial.

Our embarrassment about tha has kept us from acknowledging i and that's slowed down our learn It takes a very long time to recognize that pattern.

[fast paced jazz music] And then, of course, inserting my own feel and and emotions, because I certainly experience high highs and lows, just like we all do.

The disorder condition is when one's experiences of either of those poles is mor on the spectrum, one way or the So a more intense mania, a more intense depression to experienc that swing of bipolar condition when there are sort of abrupt cl or drop offs, and folks that are seeking care for a bipolar disorder find that their sense of stabili and well-being is disrupted and unpredictably across the day or over periods of time where they get stuck in one pla and don't find themselves swingi I fel like I didn't belong certain pla I don't know why.

I was very uncomfortable in my o and I couldn't tell you why, and I couldn't even tell you that I was uncomfortable.

My own skin.

I was just living in life.

And one thing I can tell you is that my brother James passed away young, 33, and I was heading in that same direc And so I got stopped my tracks.

[textured jazz music] It's amazin what the musicians on this album We all met for the first time on a Sunday morning.

Yeah, yeah maybe 10 to 15 seconds of that.

At the beginning of yesterday's there was a clear explanation of where we were sort of charge go, and I added notes to my char knowing that there's this 11 yea journey between the first sympto and the diagnosis.

And it's like, what is that?

What is the roller coaster ride that is that, you know, and so I try to lock myself int and then just seamlessly take my and allow my mind to go throug those sequences, even if I'm not so that when the moment arrive that I have to add my voice to wherever we are in that 11 year I can just tap in.

And so I try to make sure that that I'm there quite challenging You know, in a lot of respects, because you have to go there.

You have to imagine what is this journey like?

What is it?

I'm sure that, you know, at some point in my life, some of those things were there.

And so I just try to tap into t almost like an actor for a film, So it starts with that first sym And then there's, you know, a f just rumblings under the surface And we hear that through the mu and the way that the string sect and jazz band interact with each and some of the textures that we go through in those first few years, your ear will be kind of pulle in one direction, and all of a s we're shifting and representing some of the early mood swings and and as it progresses, then you hear in the music the chaos and the intensity buil and things feel heavier and more chaotic and, and then right back to, to a happy moment Right.

So there's that that mania versu the depression.

All of that is kind of laid out in the next few years until we reach in the musi the eighth year, which is typica again, on average where someone experiences a majo crisis of sorts, and that is sor collapse of, of everything.

And then from there the piece continues, wher finally it's time to seek treatm And what's also so tragic about and the reason why this project happening now and is important there are over 46 million people who have bipolar disorder, and not even half even seek treatment.

There's a phrase in jaz that doesn't exist in other musi and it's called stretching.

And stretching is where an arti in the most vulnerable moment, o or in a studio, reaches for som that they've never played before somethin just outside of their their purv But they can hear it and they go And the vulnerability of that i we feel so connected to those mo that there is this moment of un and risk and excitement and poss and all of that help bring people into a shared exper And that's the great mystery of is that we all can find ourselve something that has enough ambigu that it leaves space for us, but enough sense of shared messa that we can feel connected by it What I didn't realize until we were deep into the project i these transitions are the genius I love every single musical mom but how she moves us from langua to language seamlessl in a way that it seems, of cours this is what happens next is is something that I truly believe has not been evidenced since Miles Davis and Gunther Sc collaborations in the 1960s.

It's as if 27 year old Shelbie Rassler had been listening to the arc of what might have ha had Miles and got the.

Schuller continued their project and 60 years later showed us where that will have r The rest of the piece.

It brings us into thi sort of enlightened state, almos where you'll hea Joe's favorite him from his chil Holy, holy, holy, which is some that was really, really importan really special to him, and something that was almost a mantra to him t to get him out of that dark plac And so we hear that emerge in th and it brings us to this place of inner peace eventu And that's sort of how the piece tapers off.

They don't know it yet, but the will actually be part of the pie They're invited to be part of, o the ending moment, which is where that empathy spreads into the audience.

I. I. It's your turn now.

I yeah, I what's powerful abou this is her compositional techni What's also a powerful bout it it reflects the fact that all of have a mental health journe over a course of a long lifetime Nobody escapes this and the challenge of music, in order to really understan it and embrace it is it's fleeti It unfolds over time.

And that, too, is the challenge health, is that you might get this momen or a snapshot of saying, boy, I want to check in with Mark.

Something doesn't feel quite ri but of course it changes then.

And you say, well, he looks grea everything seems fine.

And so it's hard to ever grasp t journey as it to unfolds over ti And so Shelbie's compositio tells us about that lifelong jou with mental health and its fleet and how hard it is to grab any one moment but that when we can step back and look at the bigger story we can then realize what's happe within those that we love and within our own lives, and indeed, what's happenin compositionally within Unquiet.

It's almost more emotional now, thinking back on the process of writing the piece than it was truly in the moment.

And I think that' because I was literally in real working through these emotions through music.

Once everything was put together in the structure and in the overarching narrativ I think that's when I really fel how deep these emotions are and my own emotions were embedded in I love that everyone can leave hall having their own interpreta but I think at the end of the d what I really would love to have is that everyone feels a closer to those around them, and that the music helps them get there.

When people hear Unquiet, what I risk is to lose themselves in the music, in the story and to experience through music and what so many of us experience in our own lives.

I hope that it will give someone to speak up.

Most important thing to pick up Call somebody.

You're not alone.

There's millions of people that feel the way we feel and there's help out there.

My brother didn't have a way ou and I was going that way, and I Get through it.

And on the other side is this gr At some point, I hope that we re as human beings, that we can all just be a little more quiet, we can be a little mor still and allow the sounds aroun to bring that level of healing, that level of purpose.

All music and all vibration has The birds sing for a reason.

The calls from the animals that there, they do it for a reason.

They have their own songs.

And so we have songs.

And our songs should be focused on telling our stories and healing ourselves.

And I do hope that human beings, as we continue to evolve, we begin to embrace that power m I'll always be hopeful as long as there's music.

[soft orchestral music] [uplifting jazz music]