It all began January 26, 2002 seated in a pub in Aberdeen where we are planning a meeting looking at the fire and my surroundings and listening to yet another story of a Robert Burns night

There is this 200+ year tradition of Robert Burns nights and suppers in Scotland and all over the world as an expression of Scottish culture and fun seeking.  So I thought why not Leonard Cohen nights on Leonard's birthday September 21st as an expression of Canadian culture and fun seeking?  Needs some beginning structure, but beyond that needs no elaborate justification.   Would people attend and enjoy it: yes.   Would it be easy to organize locally: yes.  Need it be anything like Robert Burns night: no - the less similarity the better. 

Canadian culture and traditions are sufficiently understated that the evening would ultimately be mainly a personal journey for each attendee through Cohen's work.   Introspective and a celebration of themselves.  Digital photography would be incorporated and later in the evening some songs would be punctuated with projected digital images of people from earlier points in the event.  Bill's Bar from Night Comes On would be there as well as a celebration of Tower of Song.  A populist relaxed event, with enough flexibility and variations to be successfully mounted in every country in the world.

Leonard's body of work is large enough now that numerous references can be found to many subjects that could be used to create structure for the nights including medicine, food, drink, Canada, winter ....

And love?  Of course Leonard Cohen nights would be about love.  Each venue could decide how that should be expressed.

So my son Kevin and I and colleagues Michele Hales and Sheila Moriber Katz have set about to create a structure for the first prototype Leonard Cohen Night September 21, 2002.  We are keeping Leonard and Sony Music Canada in the loop as the planning evolves and would welcome thoughts from any interested person on the provisional structure.

Just a word about me:  I am a physician with strong technology and music interests in Edmonton, Canada who fell in love with Leonard Cohen's work almost from the moment I came to Canada from the US as Chairman of Pathology at the University of Alberta in 1987.   I actively follow discussions on the Usenet group alt.music.leonard-cohen. You can learn more about me at http://www.cyber-medicine.org/, http://www.cybernephrology.org/education/eduPress.htm http://telehealth.net/interviews/solez.html and http://www.cybernephrology.org/education/Press/Documents/USA.htm .  A recent presentation I gave has Cohen references.

Sheila Moriber Katz, my partner in cyberMedicine, is actually a good deal more interesting than I am!   You can read about her here.

Michele Hales is a long term colleague responsible for the success of many of the initiatives I have undertaken.  She is Assistant Director of NKF cyberNephrology.

Kevin Solez is a University undergraduate, poet and musician who plans a career in Indo-European studies.