Q: So what did you think of Supreme Master Ching Hai's poetry put to music?

J.B.: It was fascinating; it was absolutely, the style, the poetry and the words and the pictures that you imagined as you listened to the words, listened to the story and got a concept of Her walk through life, it was absolutely fascinating. And what Fred did to it was equally fascinating because as you know, it involved so many different musical styles. It wasn't all classically oriented; there was jazz in there, there was rock in there, there was folk music in there, and there were, of course, more classical musical themes. And I thought the poetry was wed beautifully to the music and the music beautifully to the poetry. It was a real masterpiece.

Q: Yes, it was. So tell me your feelings about the concert in general. What was your feeling?

J.B. Well, it was overwhelming. Like the piece, it brought together so many different people from so many different backgrounds. And what a wonderful, wonderful experience for all concerned-the musicians, the narrators, the soloists, the musical styles, the colors. I particularly loved the Asian children when they came out in their costumes and then on the other side we had the choir boys in their traditional boy choir costumes, which are really very old in terms of the actual style. They go back thousands of years and the style hasn't changed very much, but I loved that photo in that beautiful volume that was produced recently of the children on the stage and the choir boys in their traditional outfits and the Asian children in their beautiful, beautiful costumes from their various countries. The color, the visual color, was like the music; there were so many colors and so many textures, it was absolutely a miracle!

Everything was so professionally produced and the quality came through, and the standard of excellence. And I know that's all a part of Supreme Master and who She is, Her artwork and oh, it just goes on and on. She is obviously a very special, unique lady and a person of so many dimensions. I would love to know Her better because I think She has so much to offer the world and She is obviously spending a great deal of Her time offering to the world all of Her gifts. I was saying earlier today before we started the session with the kids, I find that in our world when we look around our world and when we see the problems of our world and we see the good aspects and then we see the darker aspects, that there are special people that come along in different periods of history who have a very unique, special and purposeful role to play in helping the world along and in making it a brighter place, a more peaceful place, and Supreme Master is obviously one of those people.

Q: Absolutely. Didn't she surprise the boys with the little red envelopes She gave them? Tell me about that.

J.B.: Oh, dear! We weren't expecting that! Because She had made a very generous contribution to the Choir, to our scholarship fund, it benefited a lot of boys. But this other gift plan, I was not aware of and I hadn't said anything to the kids, so they were not expecting this, so they were absolutely amazed as they are today; those beautiful bags are so artistic and colorful. But anyway, we made the distribution and said, "This is a very special gift from Supreme Master Ching Hai and then we distributed the red envelopes, and some of our Asian boys knew immediately what they represented, but of course our non-Asian kids didn't know what it was. I think they thought it might have been a thank you card or something. And I think they were absolutely flabbergasted. I don't think any of them have ever had that kind of experience before. So it was really quite a shock to them.

Q: That is so, so sweet. So they also got to sing one of my favorite songs from the concert, "I Will Forever Love You."

J.B.: The kids loved it, but I think in some ways for some of the boys, that was their favorite musical piece. Because I think it speaks to your heart and children are touched by that. And it was so moving on stage when all of those children came out. And it began so beautifully and so quietly backstage with the soloist, the adult, the soprano soloist, I believe. And then the walk on and then how the orchestra built.