By Michael Jon Spencer (left), HAI Founder & Executive Director

I recently returned from a music festival in Rotterdam, Holland. It was the Gergiev Festival named after the dynamic conductor Valery Gergiev, who devoted this year's concerts to the composer Serge Prokofieff on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the composer's death. This ten day festival revealed in retrospect how much the enjoyment and performance of Prokofieff's music has been a source of hope and inspiration throughout my life.

Most people would know of Serge Prokofieff (1891-1953) by his most famous work, "Peter and the Wolf," which was my first introduction, as it was for many, in childhood. The haunting motif for the duck, as played by the English Horn, cast a spell unlike any other music I was listening to as a child. As an adolescent I was introduced to his more dramatic music, which was used in an early sci-fi TV show, "Tales of Tomorrow." Each week the half-hour program would open with a segment from Prokofieff's ballet score for "Romeo and Juliet," an electrifying scene which conveyed the intense energy and hate between the Montagues and Capulets. Later, music from "The Scythian Suite" would be used for the wondrous and unknown in this TV show.

On March 5 1953, Prokofieff died in his native Russia, followed two hours later, ironically, by the death of Stalin, an event which completely overshadowed the funeral services for the composer. Prokofieff was at one time one of the Soviet's greatest composers, and in the final years, was vilified, disgraced, and consigned to oblivion by Stalin.

During my youth I would read the few biographies that existed of Prokofieff to try to understand this man whose music had such an effect on me. With the advent of long playing records and hi-fi, much of his work could now be heard. There were certain elements…driving pounding rhythms, unrelenting tempestuous energy, brash dissonance that would naturally appeal to a mischievous teen. But there was also the composer's soaring lyricism and romanticism, which later as an adult I would appreciate, but could not readily conceive as being created by the same person.

I befriended Prokofieff's first wife, Lina, and their son Oleg, both of whom came to NYC in 1985 from France and England respectively, to participate in an all-Prokofieff fund-raiser for HAI. The high point was this 88 year old, nearly blind, widow reciting in perfect English, (for she was born and raised in NYC over a century ago), "Peter and the Wolf." (Lina subsequently went on to record her performance, as did Oleg and his son Gabriel; both performances available on CD.)

In 1991, both Oleg and his brother Sviatislov stayed with me for a week after joining Mtislav Rostropovitch in Washington, DC for a performance celebrating the 100th anniversary of Prokofieff's birth. Over the years I have also come to know some of the composer's grandchildren who live in England and France. These extended contacts with the Prokofieff families and the biography by Harlow Robinson have yielded many of the answers I have sought about the composer.

The cumulative effect of these highly concentrated performances I attended in Rotterdam provided a perspective on how Prokofieff's music was as a source of energy and inspiration needed to recharge my batteries, battered from the fund wars of the past three decades. If there is one underlying quality to Prokofieff's music it is the positive energy and sense of ultimate triumph which runs throughout. In fact, it was this quality that underscored the film "Alexander Nevsky," in which Prokofieff's impassioned music was used to inspired the Soviets to counter the Nazi invasion. Prints of the film were distributed nation wide to help energize and mobilize a country under savage attack. Music from this film has now become a part of the 20th century mainstream. This, and other Prokofieff works ( symphonies, ballets, operas, piano works) have given me the energy to persevere in spite of seemingly overwhelming obstacles, a first hand testimonial to the basic philosophy of HAI.