David Woodard (, ; born April 6, 1964) is an American conductor and writer. During the 1990s he coined the term ''prequiem'', a
portmanteau
A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of words[requiem
A Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead ( la, Missa pro defunctis) or Mass of the dead ( la, Missa defunctorum), is a Mass of the Catholic Church offered for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons, ...](_blank)
, to describe his
Buddhist
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
practice of composing dedicated music to be rendered during or slightly before the death of its subject.
Los Angeles memorial services at which Woodard has served as conductor or music director include a 2001 civic ceremony held at the
Angels Flight
Angels Flight is a landmark and historic narrow gauge funicular railway in the Bunker Hill district of Downtown Los Angeles, California. It has two funicular cars, named ''Olivet'' and ''Sinai'', that run in opposite directions on a shared ...
funicular
A funicular (, , ) is a type of cable railway system that connects points along a railway track laid on a steep slope. The system is characterized by two counterbalanced carriages (also called cars or trains) permanently attached to opposite en ...
railway honoring mishap casualty Leon Praport and his injured widow Lola. He has conducted wildlife requiems, including for a
California brown pelican
The brown pelican (''Pelecanus occidentalis'') is a bird of the pelican family, Pelecanidae, one of three species found in the Americas and one of two that feed by diving into water. It is found on the Atlantic Coast from New Jersey to the mou ...
on the
berm crest of a beach where the animal had fallen. He is reputed to favor colored inks in preparing a score.
Timothy McVeigh
Timothy James McVeigh (April 23, 1968 – June 11, 2001) was an American domestic terrorist responsible for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people, 19 of whom were children, injured more than 680 others, and destroyed one-third o ...
asked Woodard to conduct a prequiem
Mass
Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...
on the eve of his execution in
Terre Haute, Indiana
Terre Haute ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Vigo County, Indiana, United States, about 5 miles east of the state's western border with Illinois. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 60,785 and its metropolitan area had a ...
. Acknowledging McVeigh's
"horrible deed", yet intending to provide comfort, Woodard consented by premiering the coda section of his composition "Ave Atque Vale" with a local brass choir at St. Margaret Mary Church, near
USP Terre Haute
The United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute (USP Terre Haute) is a maximum-security United States federal prison for male inmates in Terre Haute, Indiana. It is part of the Federal Correctional Complex, Terre Haute (FCC Terre Haute) and is oper ...
, before an audience that included the following morning's witnesses. Archbishop
Daniel M. Buechlein
Daniel Mark Buechlein, OSB (April 20, 1938 – January 25, 2018) was a Benedictine monk and an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as the third bishop of the Diocese of Memphis in Tennessee from 1987 until he was appoi ...
and later Cardinal
Roger Mahony
Roger Michael Mahony (born February 27, 1936) is an American cardinal and retired prelate of the Catholic Church who served as Archbishop of Los Angeles from 1985 to 2011. Before his appointment, he served as Auxiliary Bishop of Fresno from ...
petitioned
Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...
to
bless
In religion, a blessing (also used to refer to bestowing of such) is the impartation of something with grace, holiness, spiritual redemption, or divine will.
Etymology and Germanic paganism
The modern English language term ''bless'' likely ...
Woodard's
full score
Sheet music is a handwritten or printed form of musical notation that uses musical symbols to indicate the pitches, rhythms, or chords of a song or instrumental musical piece. Like its analogs – printed books or pamphlets in English, Ara ...
.
Woodard's replicas of the
Dreamachine
The Dreamachine (a contraction of Dream Machine) is a stroboscopic flickering light art device that produces eidetic visual stimuli. Artist Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs' "systems adviser" Ian Sommerville created the Dreamachine after r ...
, a mildly
psychoactive lamp, have been exhibited in art museums throughout the world. His contributions to literary journals such as ''
Der Freund'' include writings on interspecies
karma
Karma (; sa, कर्म}, ; pi, kamma, italic=yes) in Sanskrit means an action, work, or deed, and its effect or consequences. In Indian religions, the term more specifically refers to a principle of cause and effect, often descriptivel ...
, plant consciousness and the Paraguayan
settlement
Settlement may refer to:
*Human settlement, a community where people live
*Settlement (structural), the distortion or disruption of parts of a building
* Closing (real estate), the final step in executing a real estate transaction
*Settlement (fin ...
Nueva Germania
Nueva Germania (New Germania, german: Neugermanien) is a district of San Pedro Department in Paraguay. It was founded as a German settlement on 23 August 1887 by Bernhard Förster, a German nationalist, who was married to Elisabeth Förster-Niet ...
.
Education
Woodard was educated privately and at
The New School for Social Research
The New School for Social Research (NSSR) is a graduate-level educational institution that is one of the divisions of The New School in New York City, United States. The university was founded in 1919 as a home for progressive era thinkers. NSS ...
.
Nueva Germania
In 2003 Woodard was elected councilman in
Juniper Hills
Juniper Hills, California is an unincorporated community located in the foothills on the northern slope of the San Gabriel Mountains, facing the Antelope Valley, in Los Angeles County. The community is situated south and upslope from Littleroc ...
(Los Angeles County), California. In this capacity he proposed a
sister city relationship with Nueva Germania, Paraguay. To advance his plan, Woodard traveled to the erstwhile
vegetarian
Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter.
Vegetarianism m ...
/
feminist
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
utopia
A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia (book), Utopia'', describing a fictional ...
and met with its municipal leadership. Following an initial visit, having encountered a population "in moral and intellectual decline", he chose not to pursue the relationship but had found in the community an object of study for later writings. What particularly interests him are the proto-
transhumanist
Transhumanism is a philosophical and intellectual movement which advocates the enhancement of the human condition by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies that can greatly enhance longevity and cognition.
Transhuma ...
ideas of speculative planner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
and
Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche
Therese Elisabeth Alexandra Förster-Nietzsche (10 July 1846 – 8 November 1935) was the sister of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and the creator of the Nietzsche Archive in 1894.
Förster-Nietzsche was two years younger than her brothe ...
, who along with her husband
Bernhard Förster
Ludwig Bernhard Förster (31 March 1843 – 3 June 1889) was a German teacher. He was married to Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, the sister of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
Life
Förster became a leading figure in the anti-Semitic ...
founded and lived in the so-called colony between 1886 and 1889.
In 2004, acknowledging
sustainable aspects of Nueva Germania's founding ideals, Woodard composed the choral anthem "Our Jungle Holy Land".
From 2004 to 2006 Woodard led numerous expeditions to Nueva Germania, winning support from then U.S. Vice President
Dick Cheney
Richard Bruce Cheney ( ; born January 30, 1941) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 46th vice president of the United States from 2001 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. He is currently the oldest living former U ...
. In 2011 Woodard granted Swiss writer
Christian Kracht
Christian Kracht (; born 29 December 1966) is a Swiss author. His books have been translated into more than 30 languages.
Personal life
Kracht was born in Saanen in the Canton of Bern, Switzerland. He attended Schule Schloss Salem in Baden-Wür ...
license to publish some of their private correspondence, largely concerning Nueva Germania, under
University of Hanover
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz University Hannover (german: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität), also known as the University of Hannover, is a public research university located in Hanover, Germany. Founded on 2 May 1831 as Higher Vocational Sc ...
imprint
Wehrhahn Verlag. Of the
correspondence ''FAZ'' relates, "
he authors
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
obliterate the boundary between life and art." ''
Der Spiegel
''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...
'' posits that ''Five Years'' constitutes "the spiritual preparatory work" of Kracht's subsequent novel
''Imperium''.
According to
Andrew McCann, Woodard embarked on "a trip to what is left of the place, where descendants of original settlers live under drastically reduced circumstances" and was moved to "advance the cultural profile of the community, and to build a miniature
Bayreuth opera house on the site of what was once Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche's family residence." In recent years Nueva Germania has tempered into a more genial destination, with
bed and breakfast
Bed and breakfast (typically shortened to B&B or BnB) is a small lodging establishment that offers overnight accommodation and breakfast. Bed and breakfasts are often private family homes and typically have between four and eleven rooms, wit ...
s and a makeshift historical museum.
Dreamachine
From 1989 to 2007 Woodard built replicas of the Dreamachine, a
stroboscopic device created by
Brion Gysin and
Ian Sommerville, involving a slotted cylinder made of copper or paper encircling an
electric lamp
An electric light, lamp, or light bulb is an electrical component that produces light. It is the most common form of artificial lighting. Lamps usually have a base made of ceramic, metal, glass, or plastic, which secures the lamp in the soc ...
on a motorized base constructed of
cocobolo
Cocobolo is a tropical hardwood of Central American trees belonging to the genus '' Dalbergia''. Only the heartwood of cocobolo is used; it is usually orange or reddish-brown, often with darker irregular traces weaving through the wood. The hear ...
or
pine
A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden accep ...
. Woodard maintained that, observed with closed eyes, the machine could trigger mental states comparable to
substance intoxication or
dream
A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Humans spend about two hours dreaming per night, and each dream lasts around 5 to 20 minutes, althou ...
ing.
Agreeing to contribute a Dreamachine to
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...
' 1996
LACMA
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum).
LACMA was founded in 196 ...
visual retrospective ''Ports of Entry'', Woodard also befriended the elderly author and presented him with a paper and pine "Bohemian model" Dreamachine on the occasion of his 83rd and final birthday.
Sotheby's
Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, and ...
auctioned the former machine to a private collector in 2002, and the latter machine remains on extended loan from Burroughs' estate to the
Spencer Museum of Art
The Spencer Museum of Art is an art museum operated by the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, the Spencer Museum seeks to "...present its collection as a living archive that motivates object-c ...
in
Lawrence, Kansas
Lawrence is the county seat of Douglas County, Kansas, Douglas County, Kansas, United States, and the sixth-largest city in the state. It is in the northeastern sector of the state, astride Interstate 70, between the Kansas River, Kansas and Waka ...
. In a 2019 critical study,
Beat
Beat, beats or beating may refer to:
Common uses
* Patrol, or beat, a group of personnel assigned to monitor a specific area
** Beat (police), the territory that a police officer patrols
** Gay beat, an area frequented by gay men
* Battery (c ...
scholar
Raj Chandarlapaty
Raj Chandarlapaty (born May 12, 1970) is an American educator and author. Chandarlapaty is a product of the American philological tradition and has researched the contributions of Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs. His archival research, inc ...
re-evaluates Woodard's "idea-shattering" approach to the near-forgotten Dreamachine.
[Chandarlapaty, R., "Woodard and Renewed Intellectual Possibilities", in ''Seeing the Beat Generation'' (]Jefferson, NC
Jefferson is a town in and the county seat of Ashe County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 1,611 at the 2010 census.
History
The North Carolina General Assembly created a special commission in 1799 to found a county seat for ...
: McFarland & Company
McFarland & Company, Inc., is an American independent book publisher based in Jefferson, North Carolina, that specializes in academic and reference works, as well as general-interest adult nonfiction. Its president is Rhonda Herman. Its former ...
, 2019)
pp. 98–101
References
Notes
Citations
External links
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Woodard, David
1964 births
Musicians from Santa Barbara, California
Postmodern writers
Writers from Santa Barbara, California
American male composers
21st-century American composers
Living people
American Mennonites
American male writers
American male conductors (music)
American people of English descent
American people of German descent
The New School alumni
21st-century American conductors (music)
21st-century American male musicians