Jan Clausen
It feels strange to call my thoughts of Gene "memories"; he is still a very lively, neighborly presence in my mind--the friend who lives down the block on Maple Street, who (like me) isn't necessarily long on social niceties, but who wows me with his generosity when it comes to community involvement, exchange of political ideas, and eagerness to share not only his love of music but his craft and expertise as a teacher, chorus leader, and creative spirit. It means so much to me, as someone who also tries to combine art and activism, that Gene kept going over the long haul, constantly reinventing ways to make music in community and to make community through music--showing by his actions his belief in power, and art, to the people. Along with Winston, my future husband, I first got acquainted with Gene in 1987, when he came to teach the anthem of revolutionary Nicaragua (the "Sandinista hymn") to our small group of activists who were about to travel to that country. (We were part of a delegation from the Brooklyn-Nicaragua Sister City Project, a people-to-people solidarity campaign that fundraised for a clean water system for a tiny community on the Honduran border.) It was after seeing Gene and Nancy's Maple Street house that Winston and I decided to look for a place in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, moving here in 1993. Last year around this time, we had the pleasure of accompanying Gene and Nancy to a holiday concert by the Brooklyn Brandenburgers chamber ensemble. Held in the Old Stone House on Fourth Avenue in Park Slope, it featured, in addition to Bach, Gene's stirring arrangement of several folk melodies and labor songs. It was wonderful to see Gene's joy in the event, as he seemed to "rediscover" both the baroque master and the popular tunes he himself had arranged via this live performance. I've sat in so many community meetings with Gene, some of them quite long and tedious as tends to be the case when people are trying to figure out the mechanics of homemade progressive change. Gene, "unbossed and unbought," knew that freedom often requires taking the long way around. I will never forget his commitment to going the distance.