Meaningful Collaborations

Within a week or so this fall, I had the privilege of performing several times with my SEU colleague, Ed Bryant, including appearances on the Midday Series at St. Joseph's, at Lasker Baptist Church, and at Florida Presbyterian Homes. Each of these performances left a very distinctive imprint on my memory due to the collaborative experiences involved.

As I often say to my students, making music is about collaboration - 
collaboration with other performers, 
collaboration with a composer through the music, 
collaboration with a particular instrument, 
collaboration with the room in which you find that instrument, 
and, last but not least, collaboration  with the audience. 

Collaboration requires receptiveness, sensitivity, and acceptance on the part of the collaborative partners, and the collaborative spirit is developed over time. Numerous performances with the same partners over the years deepen your rapport and grow your potential for discovering new possibilities and communicating them.  

We performed at St. Joseph's within a day of the death of their director of music's father-in-law. We could sense the pain of this loss and the funeral was to be held in the same space in the afternoon. As I started to play Mozart's D Minor Fantasy, I could not but feel the body of the work as an expression of grief and its brief coda in the major mode as a little suggestion of hope.

After the Mozart, I played MacDowell's "From Puritan Days" and "Indian Idyl" from New England Idyls. The two make a nice Thanksgiving couple. Perhaps too picturesque for some tastes, but the composer was a Romantic, after all. The "Indian Idyl" has a catchy tune and a haunting middle section that corresponds to a portion of the poem at the top of the piece   ". . . afar through the summer night sigh the wooing flutes' soft strains."

This performance at St. Joseph's also included the premiere of A Thanksgiving Journey, a series of six original settings of short poems I wrote in 1993. (At least they were short by the time I finished editing them in 2014!) They could be love poems or mystical prayers or both. I invite the listener/reader to imagine addressing them to any loved one - a muse, a child, a parent, or even to God. I also like that these poems are expressions of my native northeastern North Carolina. Kathy immediately recognized and appreciated that. I've copied these poems at the bottom of the post for others who might enjoy them.

The midday event concluded with an arrangement of "We Gather Together" which, for me, was emblematic of the significance of the whole event: we were sharing art in the context of the life of a faith community.  What was sung and played was heard as a prelude to the midday Mass, as a processing of grief, and as a pre-funeral meditation. 

Two days later, we presented the annual holiday concert in Lasker, N.C.. Each year, sometime between Thanksgiving and New Year's, I travel to Lasker and play a concert that is always at least a Christmas concert but can include classical works and music for Thanksgiving or New Year's, too. It's one of my favorite things to do. 

This year, Kathy, Mr. Bryant, and I enjoyed a sweet and peaceful twenty-four hours on the road together. As we talked along the journey, I also found myself thinking of all the musical experience accumulated by the three of us, and indeed, by our SEU music faculty at large. 

As always, the members of Lasker Baptist Church took great care of us. A yummy breakfast casserole was waiting for us to pop in the oven. For lunch, we were treated to Eastern N.C. barbeque at Claudine's. And a great pot roast was cooked up for supper. After the concert, we experienced more classic Lasker hospitality at a reception where the fellowship was very fine.

Appropriate to the pilgrimage quality of this performance experience, we planned a program that related to journeys of faith. In addition to some repertoire from the St. Joseph's concert, we included "Amazing Grace" and Liszt's "Dante Sonata." There was also some lighter Christmas fair that continued the theme of travel - "I'll Be Home for Christmas," "I wonder as I Wander," and a quodlibet of "Bring a Torch, Jeannette, Isabella" with "Joy to the World" called "Bring a Torch with Joy."

To me, the most powerful moment of the evening was Mr. Bryant's a cappella rendition of "Sweet Little Jesus Boy," a song written in a spiritual vein. 

What made it powerful? 

This collaboration:
A song born out of the bad days of Jim Crow
An African-American performer singing it with deep eloquence
A white audience listening to him with attentiveness
Both performer and audience remembering the struggles that made such sharing possible

It was a moment in which some generations-old wounds might have healed a little. 

***

As we arrived for our concert at the Presbyterian Homes, a resident who had just had a stroke was leaving on an ambulance. 

While performing "I'll Be Home for Christmas," I thought of how many of our audience members could, in a sense, no longer return home. Their parents have been gone for a long, long time and many have lost spouses. In addition, their thoughts no doubt linger, at times, on what they used to have, what they used to do, where they used to be . . . Holiday visits with their children will be good, but I'm sure things will simply never be the same.

And so I felt sadness and longing, and I felt moved to say something about it. I acknowledged my awareness of the amount of loss in the room, the amount of not really being able to go home for Christmas anymore. And, as the song suggests, I wished for them, and for myself, blessed dreams in which we do go home and see the people and places to which we can no longer return in waking life.

 

  

A Thanksgiving Journey

I. The Window

The spacious window,

the quiet city:

alone, we listened.

I heard your heart beat.

II. Over the Road

We sped over the road by the river

as I missed you.

The sun set in rich hues as my heart wept.

I longed for your sweetness in the concealment of the night

under the blue stars.

III. Mittens and Flannel

Mittens and flannel  

long walks in the country

the weathered statues in the garden

the lonely moon vine races to bloom before the frost’s kiss.

The distant hunters’ guns

fire the last salute

as trees drop their leaves

to shroud the summer’s delight.

IV. My Heart Sings a Song

My heart sings a song I feared forgotten!

I’m learning again the joy of the sky!

All this from your dark eyes looking

to a scene I cannot see

and your unexpected smile

in a moment of silence.

V. A Mystery of Peace

A mystery of peace

whispers in this place

and a heartbeat of the world

quickens my soul

with a swift gesture.

VI. My Journey is Ended

My journey is ended for now

and I keep a few wishes from your heart

as I light a candle

on the Thanksgiving table.

Christmas Around the World

The theme of this year's Southeastern University Department of Music Christmas concerts was "Christmas Around the World." At the beginning of the concert, Dr. William Hackett, our provost, read these scripture passages. My concert-concluding remarks, a sort of benediction, follow.

From Isaiah 42

“Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations. He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice. He will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth . . .” This is what God the Lord says— the Creator of the heavens, who stretches them out, who spreads out the earth with all that springs from it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it: “I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness. I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness . . . Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise from the ends of the earth you who go down to the sea, and all that is in it . . . Let the wilderness and its towns raise their voices. Let the settlements . . . rejoice. Let the people . . . sing for joy. Let them shout from the mountaintops. Let them give glory to the Lord and proclaim his praise in the islands.

From Matthew 28

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Before tonight’s final performance, I would like to share a brief reflection.

First, I want to acknowledge that this concert has been a thoroughly collaborative effort. The focus and the flow of the evening were shaped by the vision of my music faculty colleagues and the hard work of our students. (In case you are wondering, our students are just as special when you get to know them personally in everyday life as they seem when you see them on stage.) But the great ideas of the faculty and the earnest efforts of the students could not have been shared so beautifully without the support of the Department of Student Life, the Department of Communication, Media Services, Facilities Management, and the University’s administration. Since all of those groups worked behind the scenes, I wanted to name and thank them in front of all of you.

Tonight, through music, movement, and images, we have celebrated that the mission of the Christ is good news for the whole world. Because of this theme, I have found myself thinking of a portion of a poem by Phillips Brooks, the author of the hymn-text “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”  His poem “Christmas Everywhere” takes us on a mental tour of the globe and reminds us of the universal significance of the birth of Jesus.

He writes:

Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight!
Christmas in lands of the fir-tree and pine,
Christmas in lands of the palm-tree and vine,
Christmas where snow peaks stand solemn and white,
Christmas where cornfields stand sunny and bright . . .
Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight!
For the Christ-child who comes is the Master of all;
No palace too great, no cottage too small.

As we go from this place, I pray that we are renewed in our desire to take the blessings of Christmas out into all those lovely places and the other places because it is also Christmas

where the inmate feels regret

where the emigrant feels afraid

where the elderly feel forgotten

and where the homeless hope for a place to be.

May the Spirit guide us in bringing peace and in making Christmas merry for others.