Music world

Just before Christmas, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, more than 100 American Ballet Theatre supporters are there a “family friendly” pre-show gala on opening night of the company’s new production of “The Nutcracker.” Notable guests included David Koch, Blaine Trump, Ana Gasteyer and Veronica Webb.

Many carried their children, who were well-dressed and well – behaved. They queued for a photo-op against a fake snowed-in forest with the production’s adorable scene-stealer, the three-foot tall, skinny-limbed, pot-bellied mouse, played by 10-year old Raju Sawak.

No child complained of hunger, thanks to two food stations. One featured Russian-themed snacks like blinis, pierogies and chicken soup. The other: fudge, cheesecake popsicles, wrapped chocolates, and donuts. The actress Mary-Louise Parker stacked a dozen treats on a plate and brought them to her mother sitting on a nearby couch. “I mean, who doesn’t like candy?” she asked. The actress had taken dance classes from the age of 4 to 17, but, she said, “I was not very good.” She makes the Nutcracker an annual tradition for her two children, who were off coloring marionette.

With New York City Ballet running its own Nutcracker at Lincoln Center, who better to sift through the dissimilarities between productions than 10-year-old Sara Rose Shannon, who last year performed with NYCB and now appears in one of the irregular casts at BAM. “This one’s a little more modern,” she said.

“Did she tell you she’s understudy for the mouse?” asked her mother, Jennifer. “And that little mouse has a very big role.” When Sara Rose was then asked if she’d ever daydream about debilitating the dancer whose role she understudied, she very sweetly and firmly said no. Apparently, she hadn’t seen “Black Swan.”

Music has always been a very important division of our lives, as of childhood to our being an adult. As a part of our skills, music can have both a physiological and psychological influence upon us as human beings. In addition to the power that it has on our life, music also has many beneficial qualities and has been utilized in promoting a range of healings throughout the ages. As we know additional, music can be a very powerful medium for varying our state, of changing how we actually feel. More purposely music can be very efficient in producing a very deep and healing state of entertainment and in the process, reduce stress and even promote sleep. Music can also be used to assist one in improving his or her self-worth and furthering an individual’s individual growth and development, transformation.

As a therapist I have forever used relaxation music in my medical and counseling work with others. I have establish that when I use relaxation music through both an individual and group counseling session that my customers do more productive work, are able to center more effectively on themselves and the issues that they are attractive present to because they are more relaxed, focused and centered and as a result, better able to focus. Being relaxed through the counseling process always tends to produce more productive results for the personality being counseled. Relaxation music can be an extremely effective and influential aid for assisting a client to reach resolution with deference to that which he or she is working on with their therapist.