NATALIE
CAMPBELL
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How
does one describe a life, particularly one's own? I can say
for certain that I was born in 1950 at the peak of the baby
boom bell curve and that much of what I have pursued through
the years has come together in the marriage of form and spirit
that is Blue of the Flame. A metaphor was at hand - a quilt
of mine entitled "A Journey Home" that has been integrated into
the graphic design of the CD. This quilt weaves together thousands
of small pieces of material that I collected over the years.
Choosing and cutting, recutting and piecing, I had no conscious
plan - I just sewed together the pieces that spoke up. As for
the pieces of my life - I come from Cincinnati, went to high
school in Connecticut and college in Colorado. I flew off to
Europe at every opportunity during the days of youth fares,
then settled in New York to sing and act. I had successes -
TV commercials, a running role on a daytime drama, many wondrous
friends and, always, a song. I am an optimist and this was a
time of looking for purpose and focus, During the 1980s I studied
comparative religion and the essence of spirit. I was raised
Roman Catholic but was drawn to the knowledge that each soul
has his or her own unique journey to God. Finding my own voice
and the heart within it became a prayer.
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I
married Russell Walden and we have two children, John and
Susannah. I began the joyous and riotous ride of parenthood
- the all revealing mirror - and the challenge of seeking
the true meaning of partnership. When our children were four
and seven we moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico. I
quilted, rode horses, continued a long distance career to
New York and reveled in the discoveries of being in my forties.
We
moved back to Cincinnati for a year in 1995 and it was there
that I decided to make a career change and become a horse
trainer. I began training, in the familiar landscape of my
childhood passion, and the following year moved back west
to study gentle training with one of the masters of the craft.
As he promised, the horses became the true teachers. I understood
more about myself, parenting and partnership in the exercise
of actively standing alone in a round pen with a loose horse.
In the middle of the third training year we were working on
defining a goal and identifying the steps to accomplish that
goal. I challenged myself to choose and record three Ave Marias
in the six-week interim between two training sessions. I returned
home to enlist my partner. Russell composed The Aramaic Lord's
Prayer, arranged the Caccini and the Mozart, and within those
six weeks "Blue of the Flame" was born.
The
quilt, meanwhile, traveled in trunks and in my thoughts. As
we drew near to designing the cover for the CD Russell kept
encouraging me to complete it. I had always imagined the center
of the quilt as a rose window within a shelter but it was
only after looking through a camera lens that the entirety
of the stained glass window was revealed — a perfect
affirmation of the project.
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So much of the evolution of Blue Of The Flame has been about
trust —moving, or not, by intuition rather than logic -
sensing that perhaps the facts of a situation are not the truth
of it - and here was this cathedral quilt manifesting again
the power of the subconscious and reminding me of the power
of this music to reassure us that we do not travel our paths
alone.
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RUSSELL
WALDEN
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Russell
Walden received a Richard Rodgers Award as composer of the musical
Juba, which was produced off-Broadway in New York in
1991. He has written songs and scores for television and documentary
films as well as award winning jingles. As Music Director for
Judy Collins he served as arranger and conductor for two recent
CD and video releases "A Judy Collins Christmas on A&E"
and "Live at Wolftrap." His arrangements have been
played by the Boston and Cincinnati Pops Orchestras, among others.
Russell
began his piano studies at age 5, double majored in math, music
theory/composition at the University of Connecticut, sang with
the early music ensemble Cappella Cordina at Yale and attended
Tanglewood before moving to New York in 1974. Early theater
work included scores for playwright Jeff Wanshel at the American
Place Theater and participation in the musical theater workshops
at BMI, ASCAP and the Dramatist's Guild where Juba was developed
with collaborator Wendy Lamb.
Russell
still has a sizeable collection of 45s —many on the shelf
and more in his head. His choice of CD for a desert island: Ravel's
L'Enfant et les Sortilèges.
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