Art and Activism
Crowdfire Spotlight: Brooklyn-based composer, performer, activist, and storyteller. This is Michael Harren’s story.
With a beard that sometimes reaches the middle of his chest and a smile that always reaches his eyes, Michael Harren has a way about him that puts you immediately at ease. Just a glance at him wouldn’t quite convey everything this artist has accomplished over the past few decades though.
A talented pianist, composer, performer, sound designer, and veteran podcaster, Michael was born in California and grew up in Houston, Texas in the 80s.
The Sound of Music
For as long as he can remember, he had a particular affinity for everything musical, starting with a “crappy” organ that he played as a kid. “It made a terrible sound but I played it all the time anyway,” Michael grins. It wasn’t until he was twelve that his mother brought home a piano and he started teaching himself to play it. Michael took lessons, joined the choir, and given all his musical proclivities he was generally considered the odd one out among his peers.
“Music was my thing, something I could connect with,” says Michael. “I’m gay and I didn’t come out till I was 19 or 20, so music became a coping mechanism for me.” He lived in a small town in East Texas during high school — “it was a really cool place to be a musician and a gay kid.”
Even so, it wasn’t all smooth sailing for Michael. Right after graduating high school, he decided to opt out of going to college. “I started partying like crazy and doing a lot of drugs, because a lot of my friends were going to gay bars and I just wanted to have fun.” Reality painted a rough picture eventually.
He was battling with his desire to be a musician and his fear of not being good enough to make it. The fear won out. Cowed by his internal struggles, he took up television production, reasoning that it was close enough to the field he wanted to be in.
Party’s over
Michael found himself growing steadily unhappier with his career and lifestyle. Having had enough of throwing himself a never ending pity party, he put his foot down and truly got to work, cleaning his act up. He quit drinking, stopped taking drugs, and went back to college in his mid-twenties to study piano.
This significant turn of the page brought good fortune to his door. As he started playing music and interacting with peers in his field, he got hired to be a musical director for a local play. “When I was in high school, there were no gay people on TV, unless they were a caricature, or the punchline to a joke.“ Getting an opportunity to share his story was a blessing. Things were looking up for Michael.
Coming in from Houston, it took him a while to find his “groove” in New York. The city was ripe with opportunities for struggling artists with Michael being one of many. The city welcomed him with encouraging arms, its people truly inclined toward the arts and performers.
“Moving to New York helped me get the confidence to start writing my own work and trying to perform it. It seemed like from living somewhere else, I felt New York would be really scary, that it would be hard to get things in place. But lots of people are excited about encouraging artists to do the stuff that they want to.”
To thine own self be true
One such example Michael came across was the Judson Memorial Church — a historic place in the West Village where he first started work. Apart from being a place of worship, they provide space for artists to perform, with the added benefit of being activists and LGBTQ friendly. “That’s the first place that believed in me even though I was nervous and unsure of myself.”
He’d approached the minister, Micah Bucey, with a fledgling and vague idea for a show. “It’s almost as if I was trying to give him an opportunity to reject me, waiting for him to tell me that my idea sounded terrible.” But the accommodating and kind-hearted minister was right on board and enthusiastic about setting a date for Michael to perform the show.
That would only be the start of a long line of shows for Michael. But he truly recognized the extent of his passion for art only with the passing of his mother. “When she passed away, part of me had to admit that music was the way to go. Her death made me realize that she always wanted me to do music but I never really committed to it. It made me get serious about writing my own work.”
He also credits the world wide web for a lot of his success and improvement. “I’ve been interested in the internet and social media for as long as I can remember.” He recalls LiveJournal, one of the earlier blogging sites that was a craze in the late nineties, where he first started writing online. His friends wondered why he’d want to share his life there. It sounded inconceivable to them, and they’d keep asking, “Why would you do that?”
As it turned out, Michael got a long time to build a following. In fact, some of his friends from LiveJournal from back in 2000 are still his friends on Facebook. “I’ve been collecting people on the internet,” he quips roguishly. Michael was also early to the podcasting game, easily getting into the “vibe” of it when it started catching hold in late 2004 . He’s known to record upbeat and easy going interviews with guests including activists, musicians, pastors, and authors.
It’s the farm life for me
His most passionate oeuvre to date is The Animal Show, where he got in-depth experience at an animal sanctuary to come up with material for his work. He lived at the Tamerlaine Farm for a whole year, recording and collecting sounds from the every day farm life.
“A lot of the music came from me walking around with a recorder, recording different animal sounds, or sounds from the barn and I’d put them in Ableton Live, a software that I use to make music.” Michael would collect those sounds and sometimes a rhythm would come out. He’d proceed to build a multi-media performance around that.
As it is, animal rights is incredibly important to Michael. Wanting to write something meaningful that would revolve around animals without actually being around them though proved to be an insurmountable task for him. Which is why he decided to submerge himself in farm life.
“Going out to the farm and experiencing it for myself, being around the animals, learning about their histories, and their stories and sort of connecting them to my stories with animals gave me something to talk about.”
Instead of concocting something about animals being individuals that value their lives, Michael went and met some animals and found that he was able to write about them more lucidly. “Instead of it (animal rights) being a concept, I was talking about actual beings that I got to know.”
Keep struggling
The way forward for Michael is clear. He wants to record a musical album out of the Animal Show performance, as well as write a book based on the show. “I’d love to make this a project that keeps going on,” says Michael. Over the summer, he’s toured with the show, performing in Berkeley, Los Angeles, Portland, and Houston. And in between, he visited animal sanctuaries and did some more activism. He took the entire trip to be able to write more stories that are going into the show.
Nevertheless, it’s a long road ahead for Michael. “It’s really hard,” he acknowledges with a shake of his head. “I feel like I’m still struggling. I think it’s funny, because when I try to make my whole process, my whole creative life, about doing the thing I’m passionate about, that’s when it’s working. Instead of trying to worry about not making money, thinking about the struggle — these thoughts that can get really big and overwhelm you — the moments when I’m really focusing on being authentic is when everything else works out.”
He tells me about hearing Jo-Anne McArthur, photographer and animal rights activist, speak at an event recently. She’s renowned for sneaking into fur farms and slaughterhouses to photograph animals in captivity. A member in the audience asked her how she was still so hopeful. “She said she has hope because her hopes are small — she just hopes that her work has a positive effect on someone. That really meant a lot to me.”
In the long years that have come and gone, Michael has finally found a place for himself in the world. His idea of success lies in being true to himself, pursuing his creative dreams, getting all his thoughts and dreams out on stage and in music, and continuing the fight for animal rights.
“If I focus on being my authentic self, then I feel successful no matter what.”
You can find Michael on his Website, Soundcloud, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Website.
