Scott Reich’s new album Interbeing is based on Thich Nhat Hanh’s concept of becoming aware of our interconnectedness, seeing that we’re not separate from each other, from life or from the Earth. As this state is achieved, it promotes world peace, caring and understanding amongst us. Each piece on this album is a portal into this space, by musically embodying one quality that helps open up our hearts to connection. These are the Elements of Connection.
Press Release by Higher Level Media
Genetically, Scott Reich’s musical story starts with his father, Lenny Reich, who was a jazz trumpeter who had his own jazz band. While he stopped touring about the time Scott was born, his love for music was unabated. Scott can remember wonderful, formative experiences going to jazz clubs with his father as a child. These became almost core identity memories for Scott and he took a great liking to playing drums, and his pursuit of studying music eventually led him to the Berklee College of Music, and also to studies with the great jazz drummer Max Roach.
Here’s track 2, “Sweetness”:
Scott attended Amherst College, where, as a freshman, Reich double majored in both Pre-Med and Music Composition. These disparate paths may have had more in common for Scott than was apparent at the time – the shared root may have been a desire to provide healing and a sense of vitality. Eventually, he chose Music Composition, graduated Magna Cum Laude, and then went on to a Doctoral program in that field at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. At Amherst, Scott studied Classical and Contemporary orchestral music. Afterwards, in Ann Arbor, he discovered electronic music creation and spent many all-night sessions in the university’s studio with oscillators, filters, sequencers, plate reverbs, tape loops and multi-tracks.
After completing graduate studies, Scott’s life took a major, unexpected detour. He moved to NYC to begin a career in the music industry but instead ended up working on Wall Street in a hedge fund. Bereft of his original purpose in moving to New York, Reich eventually tired of the concrete jungle and relocated to Kona, Hawaii.
The album is available on Bandcamp:
Kona was like a second birthplace for Scott and in Hawaii, his nascent love of nature bloomed into a rapturous passion. The sense of vitality he had there was palpable and changed him fundamentally and irrevocably, also unlocking other dimensions of his life. Reich married in Kona where he and his wife raised two children. It is also the place where he was introduced to Kabbalah, the ancient mystical dimension of Judaism.
Nature has helped Scott to understand the perfection that our world is capable of. “The sense of vitality I had there was palpable. And Kabbalah taught me that each of us can participate in “tikun olam”, the repair and healing of the world, to bring it – and us – to a perfected state, where our best self can be revealed.” It just didn’t make sense to Reich (then, or now) to think that a flower or a tree could be perfect, but a person could not.
With these things more realized in Scott’s heart, he felt ready to return to the music industry. He understood his purpose in music – to help reveal, activate and strengthen the vital forces of healing in the world, with the goal that it becomes a vessel of peace and love.
As an ardent lover of Nature, Scott loves hiking either in the mountains or on the coastline in the vicinity of his home now located in San Diego (although in some ways, Kona will always be home for Scott regardless of where he lives). According to Scott, his music is “like a windblown seed, carried aloft on the air currents, its mission to find a home. The real home of the music is in your heart, should you choose to accept it.”
For more information and music samples, visit heartdancerecords.bandcamp.com