Musician, Farmer and Energy Pioneer

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Here we are, in a powerful, beautiful and mysterious place.

We want to live and love, to eat and work, to observe and speak,
to strive and rest, to generate and then to die.
Evolving through it, forward as evolution can only go, moving
from the curse of our self awareness to greater blessings therein.
It is the maturity to which reckless youth may grow in time.
At this moment, in this microcosm, an evolutionary step may
be taken.

Bryan Medwed Greenprint, 2000

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Content
Bryan Medwed Biography.............................................. 3-4

The Musician...................................................................... 5-6

Symphony in Three Movements.................................... 7-8
Entrepreneur of renewable energy............................. 9-10
Projects..................................................................................11

Bryan Medwed Award.........................................................12

Media
Turn Away, performed by Gal and Gabrielle Dahan.....6

Symphony perfomed by Ber-sheva Sinfonietta.............. 8

Bryan: Lecture about Solar Energy....................................10
Arava Power Company: Medwed Award..........................12

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Bryan grew up in Detroit, Michigan, in the

At

U.S., in the 1960s . Perhaps he reacted against

his urban upbringing, or maybe his involvement in a Jewish youth movement (Habonim
-Zionist) that celebrated Israels agricultural
spirit pushed him to embrace farming. At
age 16, he was part of a summer program
on Kibbutz Yotvata, where he came to know
Israels southern desert and the kibbutz vision
firsthand.
During his college years, Medwed studied
music and grew interested in composition.
Bryan trained in composition at Oberlin
Conservatory but soon grew disillusioned and
restless. He left Ohio to sort things out, write
music and wander, first in Central America,
then the Canadian Yukon and Europe, and
finally Israel.
U pon returning to the states in 1981,
Bryan enrolled at Evergreen State college. He
immersed himself in the study and practice of
organic farming and sustainable living.

Evergreen, Bryan learned farming

techniques and pondered his place in the
political economy of agriculture. But Medwed
wanted to live the vision, not just learn or talk
about it. Kibbutz life offered the most inviting avenue for becoming a farmer. In 1984,
he suspended his studies two quarters shy of
completing his degree and with his wife Ilene
joined Kibbutz Grofit, a settlement in the
Arava with both Israeli and American-born
members.
As he learned the ropes at Grofit, working
in the mango orchard, Bryan was drawn to
Samar, a smaller community down the road.
Samar members described their way of life as
communal anarchy. Unique among Israels
250-odd kibbutzim, Samar had minimal
rulesno hierarchy or work committees, and
no set personal or family budget. In 1987,
Bryan and Ilene relocated to Samar, where
they raised their daughters Paz, Shani and
Stav.

16 year- old Bryan at kibbuz Yotvata

Paz, Ilene, Shani, Bryan and Stav

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

S ince

On

its founding in 1976, Samar has

adapted and thrived, combining the pioneering spirit of the kibbutz movement with an
open-ended democratic approach to intentional community. Samar is the countrys
largest exporter of organic dates. It is one of
a handful of kibbutzim strung out along the
Arava, a vast, barren desert valley stretching 100 miles from the Dead Sea to the
Red Sea along the Jordanian border. The
harsh climate and isolation pose challenges,
but since its founding in 1976, Samar has
adapted and thrived, combining the pioneering spirit of the kibbutz movement with an
open-ended democratic approach to intentional community.
B ryan completed his degree in ecological design with faculty member Michael
Beug and produced GreenPrint: An Ecological
Retrofitting of a Kibbutz. He received his B.A.
in December 2000.

June 10, 2002, Bryan was returning

home after delivering a lecture on his solar
collector design at Sde Boker. As he drove
on the desolate highway, he apparently was
stricken at the wheel, and his car crashed into
an oncoming truck.
Bryan was the first of Samars members to
die. The community buried him on the rocky
plain behind the kibbutz, creating a graveyard by laying out a simple stone boundary
according to Jewish tradition.
His grave sits on a small hill with a sweeping view of the Arava, his community and the
date orchard he helped nurture. Kibbutzniks
continue to leave all manner of things on the
grave: flowers, dried palm fronds and date
bunches, poems, models of wind generators,
origami, toy cars. Two small acacia trees grow
nearby. Years from now, they will shade the
gravesite from the desert sun.

Kibbutz Samar

Bryan's grave

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

A Few Musical/Biographical Notes

I was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1957.
I recall expressing myself quietly at the
piano before I knew fully how to speak. One
year at Chanuka my father gave me recordings of Stravinskys Firebird and Brahms
4th, igniting my love affair with serious
music.
In 1975 I attended Oakland Universty.
During my one year there, I studied theory,
piano, bassoon, viola, sang in the chorus
and took composition lessons. I wrote
Apollo and Dionysus for brass quintet and
Everexpanding for woodwind quartet. In
1976 I entered the Oberlin Conservatory in
Ohio majoring in composition. Works from
this time include Molto Kliene Pieces: for
piano, Operatic Etude for actor/dancers
and tape, Milk Toss Dead Lack Bolt: musique concrete, Incidental Music: for
computer and analogue synthesizer, and
At the Beach for dancers, clarinet and tape
recorders.
Following a crisis of conscience, (of the sort
common to twenty year olds) I suspended
my studies, and began to travel, write songs,
and perform them, folk style, on the dulcimer. I have written over 600 songs and in
later years they include reggae, rock, and
progressive idioms.
I entered The Evergreen State College in
1981 to study Agriculture. During that time
I wrote a woodwind quintet, The Radish
Harvest an electronic composition
realized on the Buchla system, A chronology of Touches poem and tape, and
Phonojournalism 6, Aug, 1945 musique
concrete in remembrance of Hiroshima.
In 1984 my wife and I moved to a kibbutz
in the southern Arava.
5

I made a conscious decision then to devote energy to agriculture, building my community and learning the language and
culture of my new home, before music. Despite this, and my
isolation from the musical community, I have written several
works here; the most significant being the Symphony in Three
Movements. Other works include music to a play Momo, a
book of duets for flute and dulcimer, and many songs.
I am married to Ilene Moskowitz. We live on Kibbutz Samar
with our three daughters. Some people find it odd that I am a
farmer/composer but I cant imagine it any other way.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Bryan Medwed was a composer, classically trained at the Oberlin conservatory, who left

his formal classical musical studies, and began to write and play music for the dulcimer
folk songs, protest songs, love songs, rock and reggae.
Though Bryan spent much of his time concentrating on farming and ecology, he never
gave up his musical efforts and over the years he composed many songs, classical and
electronic music pieces, and one symphony, which was played by the Ber Sheva Sinfonietta
in 2003 and in 2010 in a youth project of Eilat Music Center and Ldinghausen Germany
Youth Orchester (first movement).
To date, three compilation discs have been made of recordings that Bryan left
behind, and a number of songs have been recorded by others.

Every summer an annual music festival is held in the Arava in his honor, where a mixture

of friends, neighbors, and musicians from up north gather to play both his songs and other
music in a similar vein.
The song Turn Away, performed here by Gal and Gabrielle Dahan, is one of Bryans earliest and most hauntingly lyrical songs.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Bryan was especially proud of his composition, Symphony in three movements

written on the kibbutz:

A Few Words from the Composer

The name Symplony in three movements refers not only to the number of musical

chapters in this work, but also to the idea of three movements or schools of thought
which influence the music.
The first movement shows a post-romantic influence. Here, the beauty of melody and
harmony are deepened by increasing modulation, chromaticism and disonance. Rhythm
and orchestration often work more toward exclamation and effect, less as support of a
Iogical development of ideas. The chromatic main theme is contrasted with a lyrical
second theme as post-romantic music is usually more romantic than post.
The second movement is phenomenological/minimal. It is in traditional ABA form.
The first section is based on a reiterated Bb. All other eleven notes are de-emphasized
and given equal weight such that no strong harmony is implied...
The third movement is rooted in what could be called Integrationism. A theme with
variations, it draws on radically diverse sources placing them in new and interactive
contexts. The fine musical elements of these styles are incorperated and cross-fertilized; their taboos arent. Thus, the disonant language of the serial purist can be used
to express humor and joy, can mingle with lyrical beauty. The elegant back-rhythms of
Jamaican dance music need not be wed to static I, IV, V harmony.
Ideological purity tends to strip music of the joy, humor and beauty which people
naturally seek in music. Although high]y structured, this symphony is written with the
ears first; it is intended more as a listening experience that as an intellectual construction. In this I ultimatly embrace the third movement or philosophy. The progression
is from the increasingly somber Post-romantic idioms, through the narrow emotional
confines of Minimalism, to an lntegration of diverse elements and influences.
Oh yes , and joy.
Bryan Medwed

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Symphony in three movements

Beer Sheva Sinfonietta 2003

Part I

Part II

Part III

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Entrepreneur of renewable energy

B ryan

Medwed was a pioneer and

ground-breaking entrepreneur in the field
of renewable energy. He was one of the
first to see the inherent potential in the
Southern Arava region for production of
electricity from renewable energy sources.
Medweds years of work in the fields under
the hot desert sun brought him to the realization of the huge potential of natural
energy sources, and particularly the power
of the sun. He began to study the subject of
renewable energy, and contacted Dr. David
Faiman, a professor at Ben Gurion University
of the Negev, who was working with students
on renewable energy at Sde Boker. Bryan
began to work at Sde Boker as a technician and researcher in the National Solar
Energy Center. While there he co-authored a
number of articles and gave several lectures
at the international conferences held there.

Solar Panel in Samar

9

In 1993 Medwed established the Sunergy

project, which proposed a 200 kW solar field

that would help supply electricity for Kibbutz
Samar, as well as generating income from the
sale of excess energy to the regional grid.
H e built a 5kW prototype field for the
project, which is still in use at Samar. Bryan
also developed and registered a patent for
a unique solar receptor, which he called the
Light Fence.
Medwed also convinced Amnon Greenberg director of the
Southern Arava
Research and Development Institute
(R&D Ardom), to support his experiments
in growing elephant grass for biomass. This
project developed over the years into experiments on upright tamarix, which have been
very successful.

Elephant grass

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Over time, Medwed also became interested

in wind power. As part of that interest, he

measured and evaluated the wind potential
of the Southern Arava region and attended a
course on windmill management in Holland.
The project included months of reading,
correspondence, meetings and discussions
with environmental decision makers.

Solar inverter housed by homemade geodesic structure

Bryan checking a wind meter

Lecture about solar energy

any who knew Bryan called him

the solar man, because he would

show up wherever there was a renewable

energy project-contributing, helping out, and
generally taking an interest.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

10

An important part of Medweds vision

was his desire for peace.

He was involved in solar planning for
the EcoPeace organization (now called
Friends of the Earth Middle East),
dedicated to working for peace through
shared ecological and environmental activities. In addition, the hardships of Bedouin
communities in the Negev were of particular
interest to Bryan. He believed that those areas
had great potential for utilization of renewable energy, since many Bedouin villages are
not connected to electricity at all, despite the
fact that the electric wires often pass through
the villages themselves.
H e worked on a number of renewable
energy projects in Bedouin villages, including
creating a combined solar/wind system for a
family with a diabetic child. The childs insulin
had to be refrigerated, but the village was
not hooked up to the electricity grid. Bryan
arranged to provide a refrigerator with a solar
panel and generator for the family.

Working on the Wadi Na'am Clinic

11

He also worked in cooperation with the

Arava Institute,teaching students from

Jordan, East Jerusalem and all parts of Israel,
who came to benefit from his experience.
Medwed, together with the group
Bustan
LShalom, worked to establish a solar clinic,
built ecologically with mud, in Wadi Naam,
an undeclared Bedouin village not hooked
up to the electricity grid.Bryans Sunergy
project was the beginning of an idea that was
then considered unrealisticthat renewable
energy could become one of the agricultural products of kibbutzim in the Southern Arava, along with dates and peppers
and mangoes. That dream is slowly coming
true. Bryan Medweds vision of a Sun Valley is
being realized today in hundreds of large and
small projects, both industrial and community-based, technological and educational.

Medwed shepherded his dream toward

reality, when no one else had dared to

dream at all.

Wadi Na'am Clinic

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Said, recipient of the refrigerator

Bryan by the fire...

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

12