Making Music, Going Green: A Look at Composer Jeffrey Fisher's Unique Lifestyle & Inspirations

Speaking by phone one hot June afternoon with composer Jeffrey Fisher, I learn that he is taking a rare afternoon break from his work to speak with me. "Composing The Bhagavad Gita Suite?" I ask, having heard about the project from our mutual friend Suzanne Doucet. "No, I was digging a trench to re-route some water to the barn," comes his unexpected reply. He was, indeed, digging a trench down home on his "green" ranch in Southern California.

One glance over Fisher's biography reveals a habit of balancing the physical with the cerebral and spiritual, blasting away any stereotypical vision one may have of Fisher as a pampered composer tucked away in a cushy studio near Palm Springs. Now that I know him better, I like to think of Jeffrey Fisher as the working man's composer who's not afraid to get his hands dirty between projects. And eclectic projects they are, reaching from his iParenting award-winning ballet FAIRYTALES to his current 2-CD set titled OCEAN OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

Cellphone reception is sketchy out at Fisher's off-the-grid ranch, "Satyagraha" (Gandhi's term for his non-violent resistance movement) in the San Jacinto mountains near Palm Springs, CA, so I jump to the heart of the interview. Why, I ask, did Fisher decide to embrace the ancient Sanskrit text of The Bhagavad Gita now? Is he making a statement on the current state of wars in the world?

Certainly, he says, everything is political on some level. However, to him, The Bhagavad Gita is not so much about war being right or wrong, it is about living a spiritual life in the world in which we find ourselves. For some, especially people who experience conflict, that may pose a challenge. Ultimately, "The Gita" and this music is about victory over the Self.