people i know.

Thomas Feist, Part Two.
A few days ago, I introduced you to my cousin, Thomas, who is a member of Parliament in Germany. He represents his hometown, Leipzig. When he’s not working his 70-hour per week job, he likes to play music and think deep thoughts. Here is part two of our email interview.
Thank you Thomas for making time in your busy schedule to visit with me!

ACE: What is your favorite band, or favorite genre of music?
TF: I don´t have a favorite band; I do like Brahms, Bach and Liszt; same/or different – as you like, like Nono, Steve Reich, Frank Zappa, Straight Edge Grindcore bands like “Cattle Decapitation”, Carlos Nakai, John Zorn, Miles Davis, John Coltrane…and many more. Same with music genres – mostly everything. It would be easier to describe, what I don´t like in music: it is military marches, western fiddler songs, folk-like music and German pop songs.

ACE: Why is music important to you?

TF: It is a way to express myself and enjoy the expression of my friends – it opens the mind, frees the soul, and brings power back to you. It is exhausting at the same time – so a kind of paradox, but it works – yeah!

ACE: What do you like to do for fun?

TF: The best thing is to play music, followed by listening to music. I also enjoy sitting with my family or by myself at home – better in the yard during the warm season; traveling, reading books – you see, I´m a very traditional person…just German.

 yeah, i can’t explain this one.

 ACE: You are also a published author – can you tell us about the books you have written?

TF: I published books mainly on the topic of music, especially contemporary Christian music. I like to think about these constructs, because they are built from music, from cultural influences, from philosophy, theology, and social behaviors.

Two main books I published I will introduce. First my PhD work called “Music as Cultural Issue”. It is about contemporary Christian music – both theory and empirical case studies. It opened for me many possibilities to publish articles and co-publish books on this topic. Second is “Critics on Social Rationality”. It is influenced by the main works of Immanuel Kant, and it is about the way aestheticly performed communication takes leadership in postmodern times. It is hard for me to explain in English, because it is complex material; thoughts and writings in traditional German style how German philosophers like to do 😉 The books you can find via http://peterlang.com , type in “Thomas Feist” in the search engine.

thomas on the left, with angela merkel