"I remember being strongly affected at a very early age (2 or 3) by the music I heard at church. I was also influenced by the 'singing cowboy' movies I saw every Saturday (9 cents admission with a penny left over for gum): Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, the Sons of the Pioneers, and all that. When I was 11, I went to summer camp and discovered the ukulele, an instrument I felt immediately at home with." Early training. Ray's classical training began very early with the piano. "When I turned 12, I asked my parents for a guitar (classical, of course) and shortly thereafter, I heard a recording of Adrés Segovia and was so moved (moved to tears in fact) that I knew what my life was going to be about." Ray continues: "When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a great guitarist, a virtuoso, an impeccable soloist in other words; not because I wanted to be famous, but rather because the classical guitar seemed so beautiful to me that I couldn't stay away from it." Though classical music was his first love, Ray, like everyone growing up in the Sixties, enjoyed rock and roll. "As a teenager in West Texas, I used to go to parties where the entertainment was Roy Orbison and his band. This was before Roy made it big." He also enjoyed and was musically influenced by another West Texas neighbor, Buddy Holly. Ray himself played rock and roll for a while (somewhere around the ages of 13-15), but did not pursue it, because he found classical music so much more interesting.
Training in Spain. At 18, Ray moved to Barcelona to study guitar with Eduardo Sainz de la Maza. "I studied classical guitar with Eduardo Sainz de la Maza in Barcelona for three years in the early 60's. I was 18 when I first went to Spain -- I had been through a year of college and was dissatisfied with my philosophy and psychology courses and had finally made up my mind about what I wanted to do. Eduardo was not merely a good teacher, he was a great teacher. I practiced 8 hours a day, saw him twice a week, and I covered a lot of ground in those three years. He was also a composer and I became increasingly interested in composition. I left Spain to return to the University of Texas in order to study composition and music theory." At age 21, Ray returned to Austin, where he spent the next three years studying composition at the University of Texas, and composing symphonic and chamber music, some of which was performed by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. |
At the University of Texas. At the University of Texas he was invited to join a group of Madrigal singers who needed a lutenist. Ray learned to play the lute within a matter of months. "I took up the lute 'accidentally', so to speak. When I returned to the University of Texas from Spain to study composition I learned that I had to satisfy a requirement for ensemble performance, which meant playing in a band or orchestra, or singing in the choir. I didn't want to do any of those things. Then I found out that the Madrigal Singers (a small vocal ensemble which specialized in early music) happened to have a lute (gathering dust in a closet) and it occurred to me to make a deal: I would learn to play the lute and would perform with the Madrigal Singers and would thereby satisfy the ensemble requirement. That's how it began. But then I discovered how much beautiful music there was from that period and I was hooked." "As a lutenist, I wanted to learn more about early music (which had become more interesting and moving to me than the standard classical repertoire) and I also wanted to play with other good musicians (as opposed to playing solo): The lute offered far more ensemble music than the classical guitar."
With the Renaissance Quartet in
New York. Ray's growing
expertise with the lute earned him a second invitation,
this time from the Renaissance Quartet. He moved to New
York City where he spent the next seven years performing
with the quartet and other "Early Music" groups that
were at the core of New York City's revival of Medieval,
Renaissance, and Baroque music. Some of this time was
spent in Provincetown, Cape Cod, where many of these
groups would play during the summers.
"The time I spent as a part of the early music scene in New York City in the 60's and early 70's was very valuable to me for several reasons. Prior to that time I was primarily a soloist. As a member of the Renaissance Quartet I had to learn how to play with other musicians, and this involved listening and responding to what I heard. I was fortunate to be able to work with some of the best musicians in the country, and as I got better as an ensemble player I discovered that performing chamber music was both more satisfying and more demanding than my efforts as a soloist."
"The
most exhilarating experiences I've had as a performer
were in that context: playing with a few other great
musicians whom I had gotten to know through years of
work, in a situation where we were completely 'on' and
sensitive to each other, and the audience was totally
absorbed. With discipline, freedom and spontaneity
become possible, and sometimes a 'cycle of energy' was
created around the performers, music, and audience that
was really remarkable -- so much so that I was often
unable to sleep until dawn after some performances."
Spiritual and creative growth. Ray eventually moved to a 125-acre farm in Maine, traveling around the country for performances. This seemingly idyllic situation eventually precipitated a profound "personal and spiritual crisis" in which he dropped all the trappings of his musical career and set out for California, where he began a period of intense study and spiritual growth with his Spiritual Teacher, Bhagavan Adi Da Samraj. (He has now been Adi Da's student for 23 years.) Ray's presumption was that his musical career was over, and was somehow incompatible with spiritual life. But, over the years, Adi Da made it clear to Ray that this was not the case; that, in fact, music was Ray's "sadhana" (spiritual practice). Adi Da even suggested that Ray begin composing again, something that Ray hadn't even considered doing since his college days. With renewed awareness and strength, Ray immersed himself in his creative work again. "For reasons which I don't understand, I became compelled to create my own music and to begin an entirely new career. I never felt 'ambitious' relative to composing. I simply saw that if I didn't do it, I would be wasting my life." |
