From the Maslanka Archive – No. 29, David on Dreaming and the Unconscious Mind

From the Maslanka Archive features media and stories of David’s life and work. Did you work with David? Please consider contributing material.

It’s time for another edition of From the Maslanka Archive. We are actively building the Archive, but it won’t be ready for public viewing for a while. In the meantime, we wanted to show off some great items we’ve already collected.

We also wanted to inspire YOU to help grow the collection. We would love to feature you in an upcoming edition! Simply provide us with photos, video, audio, or stories of your time together and you may find them on the front page. 

This week, we are excited to feature a speech David gave on matters of dreaming and the unconscious mind before a performance of A Child’s Garden of Dreams by the James Madison University Wind Symphony.

“Everybody dreams, whether you remember them or not. The function of dreaming, largly, is to clear the mind of the day’s stuff so that you’re ready for another day. But then there are big dreams…(They come from) the deeper mind that we’re all born with, what Jung would refer to as the “Archetypal Mind” that is our heritage as a human being, which contains everything of our experience of the evolution of our lives. Billions of years of evolutionary life is there. This comes out of the earth, the earth comes out of the universe – you are all of that. That’s a very big thought!” – David Maslanka

Watch below as David gives his full remarks.

Led by Stephen Bolstad, The JMU Wind Symphony is the premier woodwind, brass, and percussion ensemble at James Madison University. With an active performance schedule, the Wind Symphony is committed to performing the great works of the wind band’s core repertoire while also exploring the best of contemporary composition. The ensemble has hosted on-campus residencies with composers David Maslanka, John Mackey, Michael Daugherty, Joel Puckett, Steven Bryant, Donald Grantham and JMU alumnus Brian Balmages. The ensemble has also presented premieres of faculty composers Jason Haney (Jetpack) and Eric Guinivan (Vicious Cycle), and consortium premiers of Maslanka’s Symphony No. 8, Puckett’s The Shadows of Sirius, Grantham’s Tuba Concerto, Turrin’s The Sounding of the Call, Stamp’s Divertimento, Plog’s Concerto 2010, and Balmages’ Portraits in Bluestone. As part of JMU’s annual Contemporary Music Festival, students have also had the opportunity to work with composers such as Karel Husa, Joseph Schwanter, Don Freund, Donald Erb, John Harbison, Francis McBeth, Mark Camphouse and Samuel Adler. 

A very special thanks to James Madison University for sharing this speech with the David Maslanka Foundation.

Would you like to be featured in an upcoming edition of From the Maslanka Archive? It’s easy! Please send us anything you have (picture, audio, video, concert poster, concert program, correspondence with David, etc.) and we will feature you!