Congrats and Thanks!

Last night's concert was a big success for the choir. I think I speak for everyone involved when I say we were pleased to see so many people in attendance, especially on a beautiful holiday weekend, and we appreciate the applause and kind comments.

I also want to add my personal thanks and admiration for the hard work and talent of everyone involved. Last night went so far beyond a typical choir concert by incorporating original musical compositions, poetry, photography, sculpture, and drawing - I suppose even the food represented a creative art form. It was a fantastic finish to the spring season, and the choir will definitely be missed during its summer vacation.

All alone, as it shouldn't be

Tonight, we watched the film The Soloist, the inspiring and disturbing story of the friendship between a mentally ill cellist (Denzel Washington) and a newspaper columnist (Robert Downey, Jr.). The music was beautiful, of course, but these particular lines caught my ear:

"We're all alone."
"Just like it should be."

At this point in the film, the two characters are the sole attendees at a rehearsal of the LA Philharmonic. How many of us have had a similar feeling at a concert, movie, musical, or other public event? The experience would be perfect, if not for all those other people around - the cougher, the early clapper, the talker, the cell phone user, the list of complaints could be endless.

But on further reflection, I thought that the most magical moments in a concert hall are actually times when we transcend the status of individuals and become a group. I hope everyone has experienced sitting in a concert hall in total silence, savoring the final chords of a symphony, or waiting in anticipation for a Beethoven Symphony to crash into existence.

We should not be all alone, and the modern world too often allows us to nest in our homes, thereby avoiding those group experiences. The church should be part of restoring community to our neighborhoods. Those same thoughts were with me as I read about the potential, perhaps likely, destruction of a Brooklyn, New York church. (The NYTimes article at this link has some beautiful pictures.) Of course, the Cleveland area has churches of its own in disuse and disrepair. Is it partly a reflection of our great desire to be alone, rather than come together in community?

This week, Holy Week, I will spend many hours in the church, and among my prayers will be the hope that the church (meaning the universal church) will reinvigorate its role in outreach and community. Indeed, all alone is not how we should be in such a setting.

In praise of church music

I came across this quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and I thought it would be perfect to share here:

"The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art. The main reason for this pre-eminence is that, as a combination of sacred music and words, it forms a necessary or integral part of solemn liturgy."

To put the same idea in my own vernacular version, I'd paraphrase the musical "Nine": What good is church without le singing? (And that idea is even more fun if you can hear Judi Dench singing it in your head.)

So is it true that music is greater than any other art when it comes to religious value? Can we even measure the value of Michelangelo's Pieta against Mozart's Requiem? Or perhaps the value simply in the weekly direct participation of the congregation in music.

The profit motive

Some of my readers know that in my non-church-musician life, I am an academic who studies statistical finance. That puts me in contact with plenty of people, books, ideas, and philosophies about the importance of free markets and the role of the profit motive. Many of those ideas have had incredible power in shaping modern American life.

I was poignantly reminded of that fact by an article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer a few weeks back about the future of the US Postal Service. On the whole, it is a challenging time for the organization. They are losing money and struggling to compete with traditional rivals as well as email, of course. The author of the opinion piece, however, noted that the profit motive was not the driving philosophy of the Postal Service. Instead, it was founded to provide an affordable service to every citizen. It was a democratic institution with high-minded ideals.

I can't help but notice the way that schools and churches - similarly idealistic public, democratic institutions - are also struggling because they don't turn a profit. In particular, music and art must work hard to justify expenditure during tough economic times. We don't fund these activities, nor do we participate in them, because they provide measurable, financial benefits. We participate because they enrich our lives and enhance the broader community.

I understand the need for balance, and we cannot waste valuable resources. I just hope we continue to recognize nonmonetary values can be just as important. If the Post Office shrinks or even closes, I will miss it, just as much as we would miss the music that fills our church. So this week, I encourage you all to write a letter and to sing out in church - even consider joining the choir! We had a good first rehearsal last night, and we'd be happy to see new faces next week.

Back in the Buckeye State

I've returned from the Land of 10,000 Lakes, where the weather was unseasonally cold, gray, and dreary, not at all the beautiful days at the lake that I had been hoping for. But it was a wonderful visit with friends and family, as well as a chance simply to relax and be away from home for a few days.

On the drive back through Indiana, somewhere near South Bend, I noticed a billboard for a regional website www.artseverywhere.org. I know most of my readers won't be attending any of their events, but I do love the fact that the site exists and has such a great name. Art is (and should be) everywhere around us, and it only reinforced one of my original goals of this blog: to share more information about the arts in greater Cleveland. So I'll be redoubling my effort to find local events, and I ask you to send along any events that you find particularly worthy as well.

I heard Garrison Keillor quote Ben Jonson today, "Art hath an enemy called ignorance." In troubling economic times, arts organizations can struggle for funding to the point that their existence is threatened. Schools focus on the "core curriculum" and trim music and art budgets. That only reinforces the importance of church music. Some of the greatest musicians of all history were church organists, J.S. Bach being the most prominent. Gregorian chant gave rise to the earliest systems of written music. Furthermore, Vatican City is bursting with some of the greatest sculptures and paintings of history.

It's not only Christianity that has inspired great music and art, of course. The temples of Ankar Wat, the pyramids of Egypt, the calligraphy of the Quran - art and religion have a symbiotic relationship around the world. The arts can inspire and educate us, buttressing our faith with liturgies and hymns. Those are good reasons to sing out on Sunday morning and for me to get back to work planning for this Sunday's services. See you in church!

In praise of NPR - Part 1

Growing up near Lake Wobegon, I think it was inevitable that I became an avid fan of all public radio - NPR, MPR (now American Public Media), CBC, and BBC. One of my favorite things about my old early morning paper route was hearing Alistair Cooke's "Letter from America" at 6 am every day. Today, I download 10 weekly programs to my ipod and read Garrison Keillor's "Writer's Almanac" almost every day. (I should also put in a plug for our local station WCPN for all their excellent work as well.)

I've built up a list of topics and shows from NPR that I want to share on the blog, so I've decided to start another mini-series for the next few weeks - in addition to such other ongoing topics as Unorthodox Wisdom and the Church Tour. Today I simply want to direct my readers to the joy of a daily poem from Garrison Keillor available at the "Writer's Almanac" website. Reading it will never substitute for hearing his distinctive voice and cadence. After all, poetry should be listened just as psalms should be sung! But I encourage you to check it out regularly. Meanwhile I'll share the poem "Music" by Anne Porter from May 1, 2009, because it captures the spirit and power of music and the primal religion it represents.

Music
When I was a child
I once sat sobbing on the floor
Beside my mother's piano
As she played and sang
For there was in her singing
A shy yet solemn glory
My smallness could not hold

And when I was asked
Why I was crying
I had no words for it
I only shook my head
And went on crying

Why is it that music
At its most beautiful
Opens a wound in us
An ache a desolation
Deep as a homesickness
For some far-off
And half-forgotten country

I've never understood
Why this is so

But there's an ancient legend
From the other side of the world
That gives away the secrret
Of this mysterious sorrow

For centuries on centuries
We have been wandering
But we were made for Paradise
As deer for the forest

And when music comes to us
With its heavenly beauty
It brings us desolation
For when we hear it
We half remember
That lost native country

We dimly remember the fields
Their fragrant windswept clover
The birdsongs in the orchards
The wild white violets in the moss
By the transparent streams

And shining at the heart of it
Is the longed-for beauty
Of the One who waits for us
Who will always wait for us
In those radiant meadows

Yet also came to live with us
And wanders where we wander.

Writing about music

Writing about music is like writing about wine. It's a Sissyphean task to describe such sensory experiences in words. That's why I want to share this poem by Irene McKinney from today's edition of Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac. She captures the essence of music in her couplets of Homage to Roy Orbison. Among my favorite lines are these: "the singing we do gives us a taste and not a meal...So why not sing as hard and deep as we can?"