Composer’s Note:

John Gracen Brown is 83 years old and still thriving in West Virginia. He does not have a cell phone, television or computer and shares a home with his brother. His compromise to the outside world is an old-fashioned wired phone. We can either talk to him on the phone or write him a snail-mail letter. This simplicity, vision of uncompromising hope and goodness is found in how he lives his life and in his words. In the As I Feel musical score the small event is so important, as it is in his words. This understatement gives it beauty and focus, ending with the plaintive text I Cannot Hear the Wind Cry.