The Ascending Voice - #2

Mrs. Mathewes-Green was truly a phenomenal speaker. So how do you follow her speech on the agenda without having a let down? Oh, I don't know, maybe schedule a singing session with Alice Parker. Yes, THE Alice Parker.

If you're not familiar with Alice Parker, she is probably the premiere choral music arranger in the United States. I've sung and directed her music in high school, college, and in churches. Dixie and I even used her arrangement of "Wondrous Love", performed by Robert Shaw's Choral Series, in our wedding. She has contributed to American choral music like no other person over the last 50 years.

So here we sat, a hundred or so vocal musicians, ready and eager to sing under Mrs. Parker's direction. She had passed out a few melodies on paper for us to go over, so we began with those. Because we were a collection of people familiar with vocal music, even sight reading a new melody sounded pretty good, but after an initial run through of a tune, we would stop and listen. Mrs. Parker would say a few colorful words to describe how we ought to sing the tune. We'd sing through it again, and her words would make an unbelievable difference. Her comments would transform a pretty song into a moving and worshipful piece of music. She is amazing!

I walked away from that session with several fun memories. The strongest memory I took away from that session was when she was trying to emphasize that notes on a page are just really a suggestion for the way the music ought to sound. Our notation system never can quite capture perfectly the intended sound of a certain piece. She said music on a page never sounds good. She held a piece of sheet music up to her ear and said, "I don't hear anything." But when we sing together with deep emotion, the music comes to life and God is praised.

Next on the agenda was a Russian quartet led by Konstantin Zhigulin. His music can be purchased from the Paperless Hymnal website.

The quartet sang mostly Psalms set to original music composed by Zhigulin. All the songs were beautiful. The soprano had an amazingly crystal clear, easy voice with quite a range! Listening to this group was a real treat.

After this performance we headed back out to walk over to the cafeteria. Here's where I had to eat my thoughts/words from earlier in the day. Driving to Malibu I had thought "this place is ok, but it's not as beautiful as I expected." But walking over to dinner, the sun had conquered the clouds and turned the ocean to from a dirty gray to a deep cobalt. The air had warmed to about 68 degrees and the ocean breeze was steadily blowing in my face. I decided dinner could wait a bit and strolled around the campus to see some of the views.

From the lower area of dorms:


Looking back south a bit:


Deer roaming the hillside just outside of the dorm where I stayed:


The beauty of God's handiwork was everywhere. In the ocean, the sun, the breeze, the trees, the landscape, the deer, and in the beautiful music. It was overwhelming!

After dinner we heard a performance by the talented group, The Concord Ensemble. Their sound, filled out with a countertenor and male alto, is impressive. Their sound and repertoire reminded me very much of Chanticleer, whom I have enjoyed for some 15 years now. Chanticleer is composed of 12 male singers so their sound is even a bit richer and fuller than Concord's since their number of singers allows for some more intricacies in the voicings. Still, The Concord Ensemble sang a wonderfully polished concert which included a couple of more modern pieces of sacred music that I enjoyed very much. If you enjoy a cappella music, you won't be disappointed in any of Concord's CDs.


Finally the evening concluded with a Vespers service in Stauffer Chapel. The service was fashioned in the Orthodox traditions and the Boston Byzantine Choir offered their voices for the music of the service. It was not only beautiful, (click here to hear a sample) but the simplistic a cappella chants accompanied by the lower pitched drones seem to propel us into God's presence in a way I had never experienced. The following day, Charles Marge, the director of the choir would say how Orthodox chants seem to inexplicably draw us into God's presence. Had I not experienced the previous night, I would have dismissed his comment as a "worship style preference" comment. There was truth in his statement. I don't know why or how. Maybe just the knowledge that 50 generations of Christians before us have used these chants to open up a channel with the Almighty. All I know is that when I walked out of the chapel that evening, I could no longer hold in the emotion. I walked back to my room with tears in my eyes and a heaviness in my chest, more aware of God's love, more aware of the breadth of God's Kingdom, more aware of the variety in Christ's body, and more aware that when we limit the ways in which we worship God, we miss out on whole avenues of approaching Him. I was moved.

The words of "O Gladsome Light" sung in Tone 2:
O gladsome light of the Holy glory of the immortal, heavenly, holy, and blessed Father: O Jesus Christ; Lo now that we have come to the setting of the sun, as we behold the evening light, we hymn Thee Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, God. Meet it is for Thee at all times to be magnified with joyous voices, O Son of God and Giver of Life; wherefore the whole world doth glorify Thee.

With these hymns we closed the day.

The Ascending Voice - Monday

The Ascending Voice, hosted by Pepperdine University was an international four-day festival devoted exclusively to a cappella music. It was designed for college, university, and church choir directors, as well as theologians, musicologists, church historians, singers, and the general public.

The Ascending Voice was of special interest to Mennonite, Eastern Orthodox, Reformed Presbyterian, and Church of Christ congregations, and other groups that maintain a cappella music traditions.

With the line up the folks at Pepperdine had put together for this conference, I knew right away I would love to be a part of it.

I headed out to Malibu, CA Monday morning to Pepperdine's beautiful campus. Well, I was expecting beautiful... To be honest I was a little bit surprised by my drive from LAX out to Malibu. I'm used to the appearance of big cities, but LA was exceedingly dirty. Trash was strewn along the side of the interstates, and it seemed the medians and highway roadsides had long been neglected by LA's Department of Transportation. Also, the morning I arrived was gray and drab which didn't help the view I was hoping for. Still, I was excited to arrive and eager to complete the registration process at the symposium. After finding the registration office I checked into my room, grabbed a pen and notebook and headed to the cafeteria for lunch. I ate a quick bite and walked over to Smothers Theatre for a plenary address by Frederica Mathewes-Green.

Mrs. Mathewes-Green is a renown author and speaker who provided excellent insight into the Orthodox Christian faith practice, and shared some valuable insight into the relation of music to worship. The fact is, throughout history, the vast majority of Christians have been illiterate. Illiterate people and oral cultures rely on rhythmic sound to convey ideas and stories that are intended to be remembered and passed along. Music enables memorization, which is essential for passing information among those who do not read the written word.

That said, since our worship music is directed at God, music cannot be limited to a cognitive exercise of conveying information. Many christians have often had discussions of the balance between head vs. heart in our worship times. That is, we discuss how much of our worship is a cognitive exercise and how much of it is an expression of emotion. Mrs. Mathewes-Green makes the point that the head vs. heart is a false dichotomy. A large portion of our worship is taking comfort in the perception and experience of God's presence among His people.

The contemporary discussion about "experiencing God" in worship isn't exactly her point here. The Greek word "nous" speaks about our ability to notice God among us. We don't just think about God or try to mentally unpack and expand our meager knowledge of God, rather our souls perceive God's presence during our worship which enables us to praise Him more fully.

She argued that singing praises to God in an a cappella style allows us to connect even more deeply with God. The very act of our breathing during our singing is as if we are breathing in God who is all around us. "We praise him with nothing we have made, we praise him with creations he has made."

Wow. And that was just the opening plenary address...

*crickets*

Well I'm pretty sure nobody reads this space anymore but I plan to resurrect at least for the next week or so. I'm actually not going to pretend that I'll write here indefinitely, but I do have some writing I'd like to do in the short term, and I know there are a few people interested in it, so I plan to post it here.

Over the next few days (starting tomorrow), I plan to describe my experiences at The Ascending Voice symposium last week. In short, it was a wonderful week, rich with insight into other religious traditions who worship in an a cappella style. Great stuff!

Mostly I want to jot down the experiences I had as a way to process the whole week, but by posting it here I know a few folks will be able to read along to find out what the week was like.

In other news, we had a great evening of worship last night at Skyway Hills CofC. It's great to be able to share worship times with other groups of Christians. Experiencing God's presence with the folks at Skyway Hills, which we do a couple times a year, is always such a blessing. It's good to be with brothers and sisters.

Our family had a full day today. I'm off on Mondays, and since I was gone all last week, we had some good family time. We worked in the yard, played games, and hit the pool. Lots of fun.

Also, Sam, Dixie and I have joined "The Club", a local health club, so we can all have rock hard bodies pretty soon. Sam and I had a good workout today which always makes me feel good. It's so easy for me to sit around and be a blob. When I do exercise it makes such a difference.

I'll wrap it up today. Tune back in tomorrow to begin reading about The Ascending Voice.