A handful of white flags blow in the breeze against the blue of the skies. Two cherry blossom trees and a sprinkling of yellow daffodils set the stage as pianist Murray Hidary, 53, dressed all in white, sits down at a grand piano set up in the sand on the beach last April in Deerfield Beach as part of his MindTravel series.
A few hundred people sat on towels and blankets in the sand or reclined in chairs; many brought coolers of food and drink with them.
MindTravel, an immersive, “silent” musical journey created by Hidary is designed to stimulate inspiration and awakening and foster connection to ourselves, to nature and to others. Participants wear headphones to hear the music and are free to roam around the beach, dip their toes in the water or sit back on the sand and relax.
“Welcome to a continuous, uninterrupted musical journey and a real-time improvisation at the piano,” Hidary says through the headphones.
“Every time is different,” he says. “Isn’t the seeing different? Isn’t the sky different? Aren’t the waves different? We are continually evolving and shifting.”
“I invite you into this conversation,” he says. “All we have to do is take a moment to listen.”
Taking that moment to listen is something Hidary knows firsthand.
A multi-disciplinary artist, award winning photographer and tech pioneer, Hidary grew up in a large Sephardic Jewish family in Brooklyn, N.Y. where music was omnipresent.
“I always knew I wanted to be composer,” he says. “I had my own thing to say.”
He studied music and composition at NYU and went on to perform at both Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center.
Finding music both meaningful and meditative, Hidary says music became a portal into creating deeper connections and a way for him to deal with the stress of everyday life and of running a company.
During his 20s and 30s, Hidary kept a piano in his office and at the end of every day would play to de-stress and reset.
In 2006, after the unexpected death of his sister Mariel, a dancer, at the age of 23, Hidary turned more to music to help him deal with the loss.
“Music opened me up in a beautiful way and allowed me to connect to the love for my sister,” he says. Steering him in a new direction, he says he saw how the power of music can be used for healing and to create deeper connection and decided to make this his life’s work.
After reading Siddhartha by Herman Hesse as a teen, Hidary incorporated the practices of Zen Buddhism into his music.
“When we don’t have the words to express our feelings, we turn to music,” he says. “Music can give expression to the feelings that are hard to communicate and can help us navigate these circumstances in life.”
As Hidary’s relationship with music deepened, he began to see it not just as a tool for his own healing, but as a way to help others in their healing journey.
This realization led him to share his classical, jazz and musical improvisations beyond himself, bringing the experience to others who seeking solace, reflection and connection — thus, MindTravel was born.”
The first MindTravel took place 10 years ago on the beach in Santa Monica, Calif.
Hidary says he was the first to pioneer this communal way to experience music and nature and to bring people together for healing and community.
“I founded MindTravel,” he says on his website, “to create transformational experiences using music to share the wisdom and tools that helped me to achieve greater personal fulfillment, healing, and deeper connection with all things.”
Since then, MindTravel has performed in more than 100 cities, including Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Deerfield Beaches. He performs approximately 150 concerts each year, including in Austin, TX, Southern California and in Central Park in New York City.
He has performed in such disparate areas, from the deserts of the Middle East to the continent of Antarctica.
“I haven’t looked back,” he says about his musical journey. Part of his goal is to create a community where ever he plays and to do repeat performances in those cities.
“I want to make a space for reflection; a space people can just ‘be,’” he says.
In each of his concerts, Hidary creates a theme, such as courage, joy or love.
In Deerfield Beach, the theme was “wild.”
After an hour into the music, Hidary began a spoken word meditation on that theme.
“Imagine a place in you that was never meant to be tamed,” he says softly. “They told us to be good – not wild.”
“To be wild is to be dangerous,” he says. “To be wild means that you belong to something larger. What if wildness was never the enemy?”
He talks about “a silence so complete, your breathe forgets it’s rhythm.”
One of Hidary’s favorite parts of the evening is the open mic section at the end of the concert where people get up and express how they’re feeling.
“People share the most heartwarming and fulfilling stories and emotions,” he says. “It’s so human.”
In Deerfield Beach, a young man named Pedro got up to express his happiness at meeting his girlfriend, Amanda, and told her he loved her and was grateful for their two years together. Another couple expressed their love for each other, while another participant who said they were in the military and leaving for Korea, expressed appreciation to Hidary for the special evening.
“Offering ways to destress and find deeper connections and healing makes me happy,” says Hidary, who now lives in Miami.
He’s motivated by the Jewish concept of “tikkun olam,” or, repairing the world.
“We can each bring a bit of “tikkun olam” in our own lives,” he says. “As long as my fingers still work and people show up, I’ll do this until I’m 100 years of age.”
Visit mindtravel.com
Hidary will perform in Deerfield Beach on July 13. Visit Eventbrite for tickets.