Echo from the Wind: Remembering Scott

Scott, 1965-1995

Only Love Will:

For Scott:

To Scott:

Composing music for the first time, Nina Livingstone created the music above for her documentary from the early 1990s that reflects the story of her cousin, Scott, and his mother. The two instrumental pieces were set to suit the documentary’s direction. One song was separate from the film’s theme, but part of Nina’s experience as she found herself composing new music while coping with the grief of her cousin Scott’s death from AIDS in 1995.

“Scott inspired the musical notes in me; the process of composing music was a manifestation of grief. I found that losing someone you love dearly can unwittingly open a creative path that you never knew existed.”

The musicians and students Nina gathered, worked together and echoed the notes that resonated through her mind and heart — both within the mood of the film and what existed outside of it.

Although the film was never completed — and the music, while only a rough draft that may seem dated against today’s music — Nina remains grateful for the generosity of the musicians who respectfully tuned into the random whim of the notes carried within her composition.

What we have here is music that is immortally sealed within the passionate, yet tragically short life of a young man who will never be forgotten.

“The message here — I learned; to lose someone you love, someone you care about deeply, feels like a sting of jolting pain, unbearable loss, words cannot fill in the air of silences; somehow, there are creative gifts and pathways that either rejuvenate latent treasures in a person or simply light another pathway to a new one –

Follow it.

— Nina Livingstone, 2018 ©

The musicians I remain indebted to are students at Berklee College of Music in Boston.

Ajda Snyder

Dave Christopolis

Jeff Rothschild

Eric Harper

Reina Umeda

Nora Creitz

Ricardo Espana

Kai-tan

Julie Wong