Sacred Seas

Description

Throughout childhood, Ezra Barany had an affection for music. Born in Oakland, CA on September 20th, 1969, Ezra Barany first expressed his love for music two years later when, as a toddler, he would climb on top of the upright piano to reach the record player and play his favorite records. Wearing only diapers, he bounced to the music on top of the closed piano and if anyone in the room spoke, he removed his pacifier and shouted, Quiet! When Ezra was five years old, his parents started his musical education with classical piano lessons. He always listened to the Beatles and dreamed of being like them. At ten years old, he began taking voice lessons and started to learn music theory. He continued studying music theory in the College Preparatory School and took the AP Music examination, receiving the highest possible score. Ezra was later inspired by his high school crush and wrote his first song during his sophomore year, The Prettiest Girl. His junior year was quite prolific, and with the assistance of Eric Mittler he recorded his first album, Alley Blues. Ezra continued to write songs in his junior year but didnt record his second album, Silent Lover, until his senior year. He spent the summers of 1985 and 1986 at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music refining his music transcription abilities. After high school, Ezra went to California State University Northridge to study classical composition in September 1987. But it wasnt until after he finished his Bachelor of Arts degree in music that he received what he calls his true musical education. The power of music was finally laid out clearly for Ezra when he attended the Dick Gove School of Music from 1993 to 1994. Here was where he learned how to write many different styles of music, such as big band, funk, pop, latin, broadway, dixie, as well as others. The Dick Grove School of Music was made up of teachers whose profession was writing music for TV and film, including Jack Smalley (Charlies Angels, Last of the Mohicans, Murder She Wrote, Twilight Zone) and Thom Sharp (Darkwing Duck, King of the Hill; orchestration for When Harry Met Sally, City Slickers). Sadly, the school had to declare bankruptcy in 1993. So, Ezra finished the Composing and Arranging Program with Dick Grove himself (Bill Cosby Specials, The Dean Martin Show, Hooray for Hollywood, The Jack Benny Special, The Diana Ross Special, Carol Burnette Special, the Grammy Awards Shows, the Golden Globes Shows, The Milton Berle Show). In December 1994, Ezra wrote an orchestrated jazz waltz, Rondo on the Road, which was performed at the College Preparatory School in Oakland, California. From 1995 to 1996, he lived in Israel with his sister while learning Hebrew. Ezra then returned to Oakland where he took up odd jobs through a temp agency, and during the evenings sang with the Sacred and Profane Chorus. The Sacred and Profane, conducted by Susan Swerdlow, Ezras high school music teacher, performed his arrangement of Maoz Tzur, a traditional Hebrew melody. In 1997, Ezra was sobered by the fact that he wasnt doing as much music as he had hoped, and feeling extreme emotional anguish, he contemplated suicide. After a single session with a psychiatrist, he realized that he didnt want to end his life, but just wanted to end the way he lived his life. The next day he applied to the Peace Corps. By 1998, he was volunteering as an English tutor, in preparation for the Peace Corps. Ezra also