Composer Max Richter is known for his ability to translate profound human emotions into music. Max’s record Sleep is the most streamed classical album of all time and his catalogue has surpassed 3 billion streams.

A prolific collaborator, he scored and performed for Kim Jones for the Dior shows, and the new Wayne McGregor and Margaret Atwood ballet MADDADDAM, and arts collective Random International on the Rain Room installation.

Max has collaborated with film directors Denis Villeneuve, Martin Scorsese, and Ari Folman, and scored film & TV including Ad Astra, Black Mirror, Shutter Island, The Leftovers, Arrival and his Emmy-nominated score for Taboo.

He’s the co-founder of Studio Richter Mahr, with his partner and artist Yulia Mahr in Oxfordshire, UK. Max and Yulia built the studio around an old tractor barn, and have powered it with cutting-edge solar and heat-pump technology. It’s a haven for their family and community of musicians and artists which regularly come through. Set within 31 acres of woodland, Max and Yulia have a huge passion for using the land to farm and provide a sustainable working environment as well as using creativity as an elevating force within society. Operating as a free space for artists to develop their work, the studio also works with local partners to support the local community.

"So Studio Richter Mahr is a project which really is the outcome of an idealistic vision of how creativity can coexist with the broader community, but it's something that Yulia and I passionately believe in. We believe in the possibility of creative work having an elevating effect in society more broadly. And in a way, it's a laboratory. We're excited by other minds, other people with their own ideas, their own thoughts coming in. So it's a space where we can exchange ideas.

Well, Yulia is really important in everything I do because we have collaborated explicitly on some projects, for example, on Voices, that's very much the outcome of a million conversations we had. And she's made some beautiful visual material for that project. Sleep was a great long conversation between us. You know, we've sat around over the kitchen table for 20 years having ideas and talking to one another about creative ideas and approaches to how creativity can sit in the world, and what should we do next. And how's her work going and how's my work going? I mean, this is what we do. So if we're talking about sources, then I guess that's really the primary source. And then of course we're also on our own creative journeys, exploring, researching, and thinking.

A piece like Voices, this comes out of conversations Yulia and I were having in 2017, 2018 in a sort of Trump era, I guess, where you just think, hang on, this isn't right. What's going on here? Okay, so in the way that somebody who isn't an artist, they would just say that to their friends. They would have a conversation, "I don't like what's happening here. This is all wrong." Well, as artists, we also want to have those conversations. We also want to convey our thoughts and feelings about the world we're living in. And it was very simple, in a way, an intuitive response to the things we saw happening around us in our daily lives. Artists are of course just ordinary people, too. And it so happens that instead of having a conversation or having a coffee with a friend, making a piece of music about it - it's the same impulse."

www.maxrichtermusic.com

https://studiorichtermahr.com

Photo by William Waterworth

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Max Richter’s music featured in this episode in order of appearance "On the Nature of Daylight” from The Blue Notebooks, Path 19: Yet Frailest” from Sleep, “Spring 1” from The New Four Seasons – Vivaldi Recomposed, "Lullaby From The Westcoast Sleepers” from 24 Postcards in Full Colour, Vladimir’s Blues” from The Blue Notebooks.

Music is courtesy of Max Richter, Universal Music Enterprises, and Mute Song.

00:25 JERICHO BROWN - Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet, Author of “The Tradition” & “The New Testament”

00:39 JILL HEINERTH - Explorer, Presenter, Author of “Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver”

01:02 ALICE FULTON - Poet - Recipient of MacArthur “Genius”, NEA & Guggenheim Fellowships

01:31 BERTRAND PICCARD - Aviator of 1st Round-the-World Solar-Powered Flight, Explorer, Founder, Solar Impulse Foundation: 1000+ Profitable Climate Solutions

02:31 CHRIS BLACKWELL - Founder of Island Records - Bob Marley, U2, Cat Stevens, Grace Jones, Roxy Music, Amy Winehouse…Author of “The Islander: My Life in Music and Beyond"

03:31 ALICE NOTLEY - Poet & Artist - Academy of American Poets Award Winner

04:08 MIA FUNK - Artist, Writer & Host of The Creative Process reads “In My Dreams"

04:45 MAX STOSSEL - Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker, Speaker - Creator of "Words That Move”

05:04 GERALD FLEMING - Poet, Author of the collections “The Choreographer”, “One”, “Night of Pure Breathing”, among others

05:29 MARGO BERDESHEVSKY - Award-winning Poet - "Kneel Said the Night”,"Before The Drought”, “Between Soul & Stone”

05:56 SAM LEVY - Award-winning Cinematographer of “Lady Bird” “Frances Ha” “While We’re Young” “Confess, Fletch”

06:31 CHAYSE IRVIN - Award-winning Cinematographer - “Blonde" starring Ana de Armas, “Beyonce: Lemonade”, Spike Lee’s “BlacKkKlansman”

06:57 KARINA MANASHIL - President of Mad Solar - Creative Confidante for Kid Cudi - Executive Producer of Netflix’s “Entergalactic”, A24’s “Pearl”, “X”

07:37 CARL SAFINA - Ecologist - Founding President of Safina Center - NYTimes Bestselling Author of “Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace”, among others

www.creativeprocess.info
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Flower Duet - Leo Delibes
Creative Commons  Attribution 3.0 Unported  CC BY 3.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Conducted by Philip Milman https://pmmusic.pro/

“And so I started experimenting in different things. And that journey has taken me on kind of a different route. For a while, I've only done one movie a year, and then I may not do a movie that year, but I'm doing a lot of fine art. You know, I've worked with Adam Pendleton and Dina Lawson and Khalil Joseph, and other fine artists. And we'll do works that will be exhibited in museums and stuff like that. But I'm always just getting opportunities to sort of express what I'm feeling at the time. Whereas if I had a different need, I migh have just concentrated on films. There's projects that have come on my doorstep that have been big budget projects, you know, a superhero or whatnot, but I've always declined because I really have a need for freedom. And when I say that, I mean specifically freedom of interference from others. And I know that when you're spending a certain amount of money, you will get that interference. But then there's the other form of freedom, which is having the resources to act on your free will. So really the only way that I get those opportunities is working with guys like Spike Lee, where he gets the resources, just enough to act on his free will. But then he also protects the film so there's no interference, and he'll get rid of anyone who is messing with that. And so I just try to find directors with a like mind, and I am lucky to work with them. And I hope to travel my whole career working with people like that, or my whole life.”

Chase Irvin is a Canadian American cinematographer making waves in the film industry. Chayse has received immense critical acclaim for his vision and style. He has worked on features, shorts, and visual albums, most notably in his collaboration with Director Kahlil Joseph on the film Beyoncé: Lemonade. He lensed Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, which received 6 Academy Award nominations, winning for best adapted screenplay. Chayse’s first feature film Medeas won the prestigious Best Cinematography Debut at the Camerimage Film Festival in 2013. Hannah, starring Charlotte Rampling, won a Silver Hugo from the Chicago International Film Festival. Chase is a member of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers. His latest films are Netflix’s Blonde starring Ana de Armas and A24’s God's Creatures starring Emily Watson.

www.chayseirvin.com

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Chase Irvin is a Canadian American cinematographer making waves in the film industry. Chayse has received immense critical acclaim for his vision and style. He has worked on features, shorts, and visual albums, most notably in his collaboration with Director Kahlil Joseph on the film Beyoncé: Lemonade. He lensed Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, which received 6 Academy Award nominations, winning for best adapted screenplay. Chayse’s first feature film Medeas won the prestigious Best Cinematography Debut at the Camerimage Film Festival in 2013. Hannah, starring Charlotte Rampling, won a Silver Hugo from the Chicago International Film Festival. Chase is a member of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers. His latest films are Netflix’s Blonde starring Ana de Armas and A24’s God's Creatures starring Emily Watson.

“And so I started experimenting in different things. And that journey has taken me on kind of a different route. For a while, I've only done one movie a year, and then I may not do a movie that year, but I'm doing a lot of fine art. You know, I've worked with Adam Pendleton and Dina Lawson and Khalil Joseph, and other fine artists. And we'll do works that will be exhibited in museums and stuff like that. But I'm always just getting opportunities to sort of express what I'm feeling at the time. Whereas if I had a different need, I migh have just concentrated on films. There's projects that have come on my doorstep that have been big budget projects, you know, a superhero or whatnot, but I've always declined because I really have a need for freedom. And when I say that, I mean specifically freedom of interference from others. And I know that when you're spending a certain amount of money, you will get that interference. But then there's the other form of freedom, which is having the resources to act on your free will. So really the only way that I get those opportunities is working with guys like Spike Lee, where he gets the resources, just enough to act on his free will. But then he also protects the film so there's no interference, and he'll get rid of anyone who is messing with that. And so I just try to find directors with a like mind, and I am lucky to work with them. And I hope to travel my whole career working with people like that, or my whole life.”

www.chayseirvin.com

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

“When I started and I had to decide what to do in life - because I was working with museums, in exhibition design, and on the restoration of buildings - and then at some point, I had the chance to arrive at the Venice Biennale and my whole perspective changed. And it changed because I was working with living artists and architects. Until that moment, I was working around Old Masters, works in museums, and things that were there with the aura of history. And all of a sudden I was dealing with living architects and artists, and this was, for me, the most incredible experience. So I decided to leave all the rest, because I was doing quite a lot at the same time, and to concentrate on the Biennale.

And the very first lesson I learned is that we are there for the artists. And when I say artists, I mean also architects, of course. There would be no Biennale and probably no institution, no museum, without the artists. And to be able to deal with the artists, architects, curators, let's say the creative part of the process, you have to develop empathy and mutual respect and trust, but also you have to be very flexible and very decisive and firm when necessary. So it's quite easy to say, but it's not so easy to put it into practice, I must say.”

Manuela Lucá-Dazio is the newly appointed Executive Director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. In this capacity, she works closely with the jury, however, she does not vote in the proceedings. She is the former Executive Director, Department of Visual Arts and Architecture of La Biennale di Venezia, where she managed exhibitions with distinguished curators, architects, artists, and critics to realize the International Art Exhibition and the International Architecture Exhibition, each edition since 2009. Preceding that, she was responsible for the technical organization and production of both Exhibitions, beginning in 1999. She holds a PhD in History of Architecture from the University of Roma-Chieti, Italy and lives in Paris, France.

www.pritzkerprize.com
www.pritzkerprize.com/jury#jury-node-2236
www.labiennale.org/en

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Manuela Lucá-Dazio is the newly appointed Executive Director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. In this capacity, she works closely with the jury, however, she does not vote in the proceedings. She is the former Executive Director, Department of Visual Arts and Architecture of La Biennale di Venezia, where she managed exhibitions with distinguished curators, architects, artists, and critics to realize the International Art Exhibition and the International Architecture Exhibition, each edition since 2009. Preceding that, she was responsible for the technical organization and production of both Exhibitions, beginning in 1999. She holds a PhD in History of Architecture from the University of Roma-Chieti, Italy and lives in Paris, France.

“When I started and I had to decide what to do in life - because I was working with museums, in exhibition design, and on the restoration of buildings - and then at some point, I had the chance to arrive at the Venice Biennale and my whole perspective changed. And it changed because I was working with living artists and architects. Until that moment, I was working around Old Masters, works in museums, and things that were there with the aura of history. And all of a sudden I was dealing with living architects and artists, and this was, for me, the most incredible experience. So I decided to leave all the rest, because I was doing quite a lot at the same time, and to concentrate on the Biennale.

And the very first lesson I learned is that we are there for the artists. And when I say artists, I mean also architects, of course. There would be no Biennale and probably no institution, no museum, without the artists. And to be able to deal with the artists, architects, curators, let's say the creative part of the process, you have to develop empathy and mutual respect and trust, but also you have to be very flexible and very decisive and firm when necessary. So it's quite easy to say, but it's not so easy to put it into practice, I must say.”

www.pritzkerprize.com
www.pritzkerprize.com/jury#jury-node-2236
www.labiennale.org/en
Photo credit: Anselm Kiefer

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

"How do you know that you're talented at something? At some point you encountered it or you were around it and you felt the pull, the drive towards it. Some people have it very early on. And other people do not. And the question of how do you know what works for you is a very big one. And partly it has to do with the opportunities that you have, the house you grew up in, and so on. And that's not to say that those are determining factors because there are plenty of examples of people who didn't come from any sort of background of artistry and then went on to become incredible artists. And the same for the sciences.

So, how to identify it is really based on what you encounter in the world and what you're aware of, and your awareness of your own skills. But for anyone who takes to art, they just understand that when you first did it or the early encounters with it were a sort of almost spiritual phenomenon. This is also true of scientists. They feel like they're part of something larger and it's impossible to define it for any one person, but you know it when you're in it. You discover for yourself that when you're writing a diary at night, that when you twist the words a specific way, it gives you incredible joy. And then you realize that this is your own private thing, that you can do really well, and you choose to pursue it more and more. But I think one way to do it is when they're young enough to sort of expose children to as many different things as possible."

Anna Abraham, Ph.D. is the E. Paul Torrance Professor and Director of the Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development at the University of Georgia (USA). She investigates the psychological and neurophysiological mechanisms underlying creativity and other aspects of the human imagination, including the reality-fiction distinction, mental time travel, social and self-referential cognition, and mental state reasoning. She is the author of the 2018 book, The Neuroscience of Creativity (Cambridge University Press) and the editor of the multidisciplinary volume, The Cambridge Handbook of the Imagination (2020).

www.anna-abraham.com 

https://coe.uga.edu/directory/torrance-center 

www.cambridge.org/core/what-we-publish/elements/elements-in-creativity-and-imagination

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Anna Abraham, Ph.D. is the E. Paul Torrance Professor and Director of the Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development at the University of Georgia (USA). She investigates the psychological and neurophysiological mechanisms underlying creativity and other aspects of the human imagination, including the reality-fiction distinction, mental time travel, social and self-referential cognition, and mental state reasoning. She is the author of the 2018 book, The Neuroscience of Creativity (Cambridge University Press) and the editor of the multidisciplinary volume, The Cambridge Handbook of the Imagination (2020).

"How do you know that you're talented at something? At some point you encountered it or you were around it and you felt the pull, the drive towards it. Some people have it very early on. And other people do not. And the question of how do you know what works for you is a very big one. And partly it has to do with the opportunities that you have, the house you grew up in, and so on. And that's not to say that those are determining factors because there are plenty of examples of people who didn't come from any sort of background of artistry and then went on to become incredible artists. And the same for the sciences.

So, how to identify it is really based on what you encounter in the world and what you're aware of, and your awareness of your own skills. But for anyone who takes to art, they just understand that when you first did it or the early encounters with it were a sort of almost spiritual phenomenon. This is also true of scientists. They feel like they're part of something larger and it's impossible to define it for any one person, but you know it when you're in it. You discover for yourself that when you're writing a diary at night, that when you twist the words a specific way, it gives you incredible joy. And then you realize that this is your own private thing, that you can do really well, and you choose to pursue it more and more. But I think one way to do it is when they're young enough to sort of expose children to as many different things as possible."

www.anna-abraham.com 

https://coe.uga.edu/directory/torrance-center 

www.cambridge.org/core/what-we-publish/elements/elements-in-creativity-and-imagination

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

“It's interesting because I'm an artist, a citizen scientist. I think of myself primarily as an artist, where many scientists that I work with are very pure applied scientists. And so when you are working for an academic institution, there's a very strict sort of chain of events, and protocols for observation, research, and writing for a peer review publication takes a long time. And at each step of the way that peer applied scientist needs to be quite specific and careful with their language. So they're not saying anything that can't be immediately and fully defended otherwise they might harm their reputation. Where an artist is really encouraged to sort of paint and imagine and just throw crazy ideas out there and brainstorm. So we might say things that are like, ‘Oh my gosh, did you see that skull? It's got silver teeth on it. Gee, I wonder if they were hiding their valuables inside this skull? Or whether that was a decorative application or whatever?’ So we could throw out these crazy ideas, and the scientist is constantly going, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's wait. We need to get evidence, research... And so we kind of temper each other in that yin-yang sort of way. But I would propose the planet doesn't have time for some of that traditional science anymore, and we need to put a little bit more effort into involving artists and citizen scientists in contributing to that data stream and the idea stream that can be synthesized into solving some of the planet's greatest issues right now, like water issues and climate change.”

Jill Heinerth is a Canadian cave diver, underwater explorer, writer, photographer, and filmmaker. She is a veteran of over thirty years of filming, photography, and exploration on projects in submerged caves around the world. She has made TV series, consulted on movies, written several books and is a frequent corporate keynote speaker. Jill is the first Explorer in Residence for the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, recipient of Canada’s prestigious Polar Medal and is a Fellow of the International Scuba Divers Hall of Fame. In recognition of her lifetime achievement, Jill was awarded the Sir Christopher Ondaatje Medal for Exploration from the RCGS and the William Beebe Award from the Explorers Club.

www.intotheplanet.com

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Jill Heinerth is a Canadian cave diver, underwater explorer, writer, photographer, and filmmaker. She is a veteran of over thirty years of filming, photography, and exploration on projects in submerged caves around the world. She has made TV series, consulted on movies, written several books and is a frequent corporate keynote speaker. Jill is the first Explorer in Residence for the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, recipient of Canada’s prestigious Polar Medal and is a Fellow of the International Scuba Divers Hall of Fame. In recognition of her lifetime achievement, Jill was awarded the Sir Christopher Ondaatje Medal for Exploration from the RCGS and the William Beebe Award from the Explorers Club.

“It's interesting because I'm an artist, a citizen scientist. I think of myself primarily as an artist, where many scientists that I work with are very pure applied scientists. And so when you are working for an academic institution, there's a very strict sort of chain of events, and protocols for observation, research, and writing for a peer review publication takes a long time. And at each step of the way that peer applied scientist needs to be quite specific and careful with their language. So they're not saying anything that can't be immediately and fully defended otherwise they might harm their reputation. Where an artist is really encouraged to sort of paint and imagine and just throw crazy ideas out there and brainstorm. So we might say things that are like, ‘Oh my gosh, did you see that skull? It's got silver teeth on it. Gee, I wonder if they were hiding their valuables inside this skull? Or whether that was a decorative application or whatever?’ So we could throw out these crazy ideas, and the scientist is constantly going, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's wait. We need to get evidence, research... And so we kind of temper each other in that yin-yang sort of way. But I would propose the planet doesn't have time for some of that traditional science anymore, and we need to put a little bit more effort into involving artists and citizen scientists in contributing to that data stream and the idea stream that can be synthesized into solving some of the planet's greatest issues right now, like water issues and climate change.”

www.intotheplanet.com

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast