Winds of Freedom Symphony Finds Russian-Soviet Roots: Alex Ayzin’s Family See Themselves in Music, Its Creation & Peace Mission
Finding the hidden meaning in the creative process can be vexing, often proving difficult to fathom for years, decades or a lifetime, maybe it never happens. Vindication on taking the hard road can be bittersweet, like when Winston Churchill was proven all too right about Hitler, or beyond the scope, like how the iPhone changed the world far beyond what Steve Jobs ever imagined. Alex Ayzin, creator of the Winds of Freedom Symphony & Multimedia Presentations, is finding new meaning in the creative process as the peace movement around a project he has lived with for decades gains speed.
Ilya Azyin, Alex Ayzin’s father, visiting wife Fenya and her mother, Lucy, in Odessa on the Black Sea.
That new meaning comes from something lost in the welter of everyday life, something buried in the fight for recognition, something millions of people neglect in this busy work-a-day world: His own story, the family from where that story sprang along with their struggle for survival in a land with a complex and fascinating history, Russia. Out of everything in Soviet-Russia that Alex saw, felt, knew, revered, respected, loved, hated and escaped from is wrapped up in his motivation to commission, as a private citizen, two symphonies in an effort to change the world.
The first symphony was Concerto for Astronauts, in the wake of Challenger disaster, and second was Winds of Freedom, commissioned after the Chernobyl meltdown in his homeland, Ukraine. Long after the WOF symphony was completed, Alex Ayzin decided to combine the WOF’s innovative musical score, which he had a hand in producing with Russian composer Emilian Sichkin, with stirring video and still images to create a media event that celebrates life, teaches history, inspires peace and hopes for a better future.
As the WOF campaign began to unfold in summer 2017, a new PR team member realized how unique the Alex Ayzin Story was and the deeper he dug the more strikingly amazing it became. Informed by Ayzin that he wished to stay in the background, this team member, figuratively, broke a stick over his back in the effort to make him realize He was the story, people will want to know His motivation, where He came from, how His Story manifested itself in driving him to do something NO PRIVATE CITIZENS in our world do; Commission Symphonies to Change the World.
Alex and his father checking out new Winds of Freedom website.
Alex Ayzin relented and it has changed the Winds of Freedom Story.
Now for the final piece of the puzzle:
In early August, Alex went to visit his elderly parents with his brother. Viewing this new approach to a project they found difficult to fathom, his Father, a Soviet Naval Officer before they came West, and loving Mother began to understand more fully and here is the key realization that needs to be acknowledged. Alex Ayzin’s parents and grandparents are in the music; Alex Ayzin’s family going back generations are in the music; Alex Ayzin’s Russian homeland is in the music; Alex Ayzin’s upbringing, story of escape from the Soviet Union and finding new life in America are in the music.
As much as Concerto for Astronauts and Winds of Freedom were gifts to the world, they were Alex Ayzin’s gifts to his Father and Mother. Here is where everything starts and stops. Now they know this in their hearts and for Alex it is like being ten-years old and finding a brand-new bike underneath the Christmas Tree, it means everything and more. Thanks Be To God!
