The Passion of St. Matthew

So, I sincerely apologize for the horribleness of my ability to update this. I am a bad blogger. From now on I shall be better. 

This weekend I had the immense pleasure to listen to one of the world's most compelling and unique pieces of music: J.S. Bach's "Matthäus-Passion" 

I almost didn't go to this concert. I almost stayed at my house my closest friends Jayne and Toby and Mustang Sally and was just going to procrastinate writing my recital paper, maybe watch a couple of episodes of SVU and then pass out. I know, I know...I don't know WHAT I was thinking. Who the HELL in their right mind not only gives up the opportunity to see this work performed but gives up the opportunity to see it FOR FREE?!?!

That's right, ladies and gents I was able to go for free. Why? Well, despite it's many pitfalls and non-handicap accessible areas Westminster Choir College of Westminster College of the Arts of Rider University's Princeton Campus does allow it's students to go to all on-campus performances for free. 

So that's what I did. It was the Westminster Kantorei and members of Fuma Sacra and can I just say that it was basically the shiznit? Yeah, it totes was. 

I have found myself lately unwilling to reach out an experience music in concert settings as an audience member. It is really interesting I think because I have performed in so many concerts since I have been here but I really have not actually BEEN to many concerts. Kantorei is pretty much the only choir I've seen in performance and I think that is a shaaaaaaaame. But I digress...what I mean to say is this:

There is something about being an audience member, about being separated from the score and having a primarily audial experience (hm...audience, audial...interesting) that brings back a sort of innocence to music that I was afraid I had lost. Maybe it sounds crazy but sometimes I feel like where I really belong is somewhere in between a master and an amateur, someone who really just loves is because it's worth loving. I used to be all shapes and bubbles and now I'm in love with theory and logic and the way music works mathematically, and perhaps that's just the evolution of myself...but it was nice to sit in the audience. 

So, back to that innocence thing...the audience is such a valuable tool in performance because their minds are often not poisoned by the rehearsal process. Don't get me wrong, I love love love love being the performer, but I sometimes find myself not seeing the bigger picture, not hearing the whole piece because I'm so concentrated on the phrasing, the dynamics, the text; I'm preoccupied with conveying to the audience the right message and that often results in the inability for ME to realize the message. The audience acts as a really honest reflection upon the performance and upon the art. It's so powerful when an entire room full of people have the same reaction to a phrase that was written by a German Lutheran almost 400 years ago. 

Which brings me to the set up of the room. Bristol Chapel was utilized beautifully, with the choir sitting on one side and in a horseshoe pattern and the audience across from them and also on the stage and in the balcony. I hate hate hate hearing concerts and singing concerts in Bristol Chapel but I think that Dr. Megill may have found the solution. If I asked Dr. Arneson I'm sure it would have something to do with the acoustic in the room having a shorter wavespan due to the singers facing horizontally instead of vertically, thus allowing for the fundamental pitch to be heard more consistently in the ears of the performers, or something like that I don't really know, but that sounds right, right?

Anyway, it made for a great concert. I'm really glad that I got off my ass and was able to experience real music being made by real musicians, and actually enjoy it!! I forgot what it was like to just enjoy it. And maybe I'm the crazy one because I like to rock out with my Bach out but like COME ON "Ich will mein Jesu blarggggg" that's like total head bang-Baroque, idn't it?

The world continues to move even when I'm not in it. It's important to get up and enjoy the things that you say you enjoy, you know? How often do musicians enjoy music as a hobby and not as a part of their workday. I wonder when the last time Dr. Miller really enjoyed a concert was? I don't ever want to be the kind of musician who has lost the beauty, joy, and innocence of the art, which is what drew me to it in the first place. I became a musician because it was an escape from reality that made me feel fulfilled. I don't ever ever ever want to lose that. And I don't plan on it.

Happy Humpday, and toodles!!

"Music is an agreeable harmony for the honor of God and the permissible delights of the soul."

~Johannes Sebastian Bach :)

The Human Touch

Hello dear blog! I apologize for my absence lately but I just yesterday returned to dear old Princeton from CALIFORNIA where I enjoyed 11 fabulous days of tour with Westminster Choir. A detailed blog about that is soon to follow, but for now I shall instead like to talk about what I think is the skeleton of my belief: the human touch. Music is cooperation, and collaboration, and communication, but it is also contact. Philosophers can argue until the sun dies about music being the "universal language" and whether or not it speaks the same words to everyone, but I don't really give a crap about that. Music moves people. It makes people think, it can change people. Part of this change that can occur happens because of the contact that we have with each other. Sharing a moment in rehearsal or in performance that lasts a nanosecond can sustain one's soul for days. Scientists talk of the energy that is created within an atom, or from dark matter, from smashing things together that do not want to be together, yet no one ever talks of the real power of human contact. There is a positive energy in it that sustains people, that makes people stronger and makes us all more able to pay it forward and be kind to each other.

Take for example an incident that occurred during our first concert on tour, at San Jose State University. The choir began the second half with a piece by British-American composer Paul Crabtree which was written as a memorial for the ten-year anniversary of the Columbine Massacre (more on this piece in another blog), entitled Meanwhile. The piece is very complicated and this was the first time that we were performing it without music. About halfway through the piece at a crucial transition point Dr. Miller looked at the choir, breathed and gave us a downbeat. The result: complete silence. No one came in. With nothing less than a determined face Dr. Miller again gave the downbeat, the choir breathed and sang "Daffodils" perfectly in time. How did this happen? For one or two people to forget an entrance is a normal thing, but an entire choir? The audience could not have known it was a mistake, we felt each other and we all "forgot" together and "remembered" together. This is a connection that is strong and powerful and for the rest of the concert I could almost see the energy hovering above us. We never forgot again, not for the next 11 days. Everytime we got to that part each night, there was a surge of energy that propelled us forward and refocused us. All this energy from a mistake we made?! A mistake, yes...but more importantly it was a mistake we made together, as one living organism. This is a pretty badass feat, no? Yeah, we're pretty much the best choir in the world (lol :))

But I digress, I shall now continue.

I have a graduate recital coming up. I've been planning it for months, it's going to be a Cabaret and basically badass, so I'm pretty pumped. But what I'm most excited about is a piece that I commissioned for the recital. I approached a composer friend of mine early in the semester and requested that he set one of my favorite poems to music for soprano and mezzo solo and SATB a cappella choir. The text I chose is one that has been a part of my life since I was in college and I remember hearing the first line and being hooked: "You do not have to be good..." For those of you that are not familiar, this is the first line to a poem entitled Wild Geese by American poet Mary Oliver. The basic message of the poem is that we are not perfect, but we grow better because of each other, and the more we do that the more the world will open itself up to us and welcome us into its family. Pretty powerful stuff, right? Yeah, I thought so, too. Unfortunately for me, when my friend told his teacher about the project he was informed that Ms. Oliver had refused to allow the text to be set before, and didn't think she had changed her mind. Alas, I could not have my piece written to the text I had been hoping for...but I quickly got over it when I realized that the reason why that poem was so important to me was because of another, more simple text that was one of the first poems Dr. Miller read to us at Western...

The Human Touch

Tis the human touch in this world that counts,
the touch of your hand and mine,
Which mean far more to the fainting heart
than shelter or bread or wine.
For shelter is gone when the night is o'er,
and bread lasts only a day,
but the touch of the hand and the sound of the voice
sing on in the soul alway.

This poem means the world to me, and I was ecstatic when I decided to have my friend set it. What I loved most about it was that I didn't have to explain it to anyone, everyone "grokked" it right from the get-go. I was pumped and I knew it was going to be great (this would be called foreshadowing) and it was going to be completed before the end of the semester.

...

So I told you that story to tell you this story:

After years and years of loving that poem, today was the day that I had to prove that I knew what it meant, or that I understood it. Because what I see first is that the most important thing is touch, and contact with each other. That no matter what, we will always have that. That one person can touch your life in a way that changes it forever (see: Joe Mack Miller), and that we are all connected with each other.

Remember how that piece was going to be bangin'? Well there were some speed bumps along the way. As he wrote the piece, my friend began making it bigger than it needed to be. He would say things to me like "it has to be perfect" and "I have to make sure it's right for you" which I really appreciated because it showed me how dedicated he was to this increasingly difficult project. After his computer lost the piece 3 times and he wrote 2 versions of it he finally admitted to me that he hated the pieces. When I asked him why he was quiet before telling me that he started thinking about all the people who were going to be at my recital, and making a fool out of himself by writing a bad piece, and making a fool out of me because I would be singing bad music. It was heartbreaking to hear but also a relief, because I felt like he had hit the nail right on...his troubles were coming from the outside, from trying to please people and make people content. He said something so profound when he told me that it's his job to convey the text properly and with the right intent, and make sure the audience hears it like that. I loved what he said because it allowed me to say to him that he can't do that, he cannot control perception past his own honest attempts. I used the Crabtree as an example: no matter how many times we do it there are people in the choir who are disgusted by it, and there are people who are moved to tears.  The intent of the composer was not to make us mad or sad or happy, he cannot control those emotions. The point is to move people, to make people think, to light a flame, something more interesting than nothing!

So we were talking about the piece and the poem and I realized that at the end of the day my thoughts are all about school, teachers, grades, repertoire, money, debt, problems, clean clothes, groceries, etc. My mind is cluttered with these physical things, but these things don't last forever. Good or bad, they always have a beginning and an end. But what never leaves my head is the vision of singing with my friends, or the last time I hugged Bethany, or the look on Dr. Miller's face at the end of "Fatise kolo". Don't you see?! "Shelter is gone when the night is o'er, and bread lasts only a day..." Why do we clutter our minds with perishable items when we know that the "touch of the hand and the sound of the voice" are basically immortal?! There's that energy again: imagine the problems we could solve in the world with the power of love, like it sounds totally corny but whatever, I think it's true. I feel invigorated and ready for action when I share something with the people I love, when I have that brief but ever-lasting moment of human contact. I saw it happen night after night on tour: 43 exhausted and wiped out college kids going on 5-6 hours of sleep a night and 4-5 hours of singing every day, not to mention a heavy amount of drinking...and yet each day we were happy and positive and awake and rejuvenated and fresh and we sang beautifully and we kept going until the bitter end. Even the dismount from the gay pride bus in rainy old Princeton was full of life.

So, now what? I told my friend to chuck the other two pieces, and write something from his heart, not to please anyone, not to be perfect for anyone, but just to say something. That's why we're here, right? We need to say something to the world. Hey, world!! Look what I can do with this thing called music!! It's famazing!!! What can you do? Would a package of choral music help people in Haiti? Yeah, I think it would. It definitely wouldn't hurt. What can I give him, poor as I am? We have to stop trying to fit ourselves somewhere, in a box or in a bowl or in anything. We are givers. That's what we do. We give to each other, and we give to the world and in return we get what we give. You know in Avatar when they're all connected to the ground and each other? That's some powerful shit. That's what choir is like. That's what the human touch should be like. And we shouldn't be afraid of being happy. Yes, the physical world is important, and we have to be responsible with money and school and homework and everything. My point is just that, maybe we spend too much time trying to be good at those things, and not enough time being good to each other, thus helping all of us grow.

One last thing: The Human Touch is the fundamental skeleton for leading this life. Accepting the idea that it's the most powerful thing in the world and that everything stems from it is a lot to think about. But, we cannot achieve anything if we do it alone. When I die, I want to have a brain full of memories of people I love, not of papers I wrote or grades I received. Those things don't last any longer than the paper on which they're written.

So, I believe wholeheartedly that this piece is going to be wonderful. I have total trust that it will come from an honest place. I'm really lucky to have someone in my life who is willing to put himself through this to do something that's important and is also going to be BADASS. Anyway, hats off to all composers out there, I can't imagine how difficult your lives must be.

out. :)

Live the life I want to live...

Ok! No more hiding, fine I've got it. The gods have been sending me some pretty blatantly obvious signs to me lately that I need to shape up or ship out, so that's what I'm going to do...as soon as I finish this blog entry :).

So this no more hiding thing...what am I hiding from, exactly? It's not failure, I'm not afraid to fail. in fact, I'd rather fail than not try at all. See, there you go...I don't like doing nothing so why have I been doing nothing? Maybe it's an overabundance of choice. But that can't be it either, I've never been one to care about choice. I've never had to make a choice, I've always just done. Ahhh...perhaps there is the rub? I've never had to choose before this, choose where my life is going to go. The choice has always been made for me: high school, college, masters...then what? Where am I supposed to go now? Perhaps this question started creeping into my sub-conscious around the summertime...that would explain my lack of ability to make any kind of choice whatsoever. So that must be what I'm hiding from.

People must experience this a lot. Structure is was disciplines us and makes us strong, so of course we have structure binding together the larger aspects of our lives, as well. While under the umbrella of "my education" I have felt free to make small decisions regarding my life that may or may not have a significant impact on my future. I've been lucky enough to have a number of positive experiences, but the negative ones I have sided in the "learning lessons" pile and really...when do we face the consequences of our actions? Of our poor choices? And how do we forgive ourselves for making those choices, especially in the case of it truly being the right decision at the time? Around and around in our heads we contemplate this, until we wake up one day and realize that there is one semester left in our structured lives. The whole world is open to us! But we are afraid. No more hiding!! Every decision made will have consequences. There is no master planner sitting in a room deciding where you fit in the world. You have to live the life you want to live. Just live it.

So that's my plan, live my life the way I want to live it. In order to do that I've come up with a list of things that must happen. These are constants. No matter what, these things must be in my life or I will not have my happiness support.

1. My "family": Bethany, Marcus, Cat, Dr. Miller: I will do whatever it takes to be living within 20 miles of any and all of these people for the rest of my life.

2. Choir: it is my faith, it is my strength, and with it I can do anything

Yeah, that's pretty much all I need to be happy.

So now that I'm not hiding anymore, I need to start being productive!!! Beginning with TODAY. Here is my to-do list...let's see if I can accomplish each task. My living room smells delicious like maple syrup. yum.

ok...

-clean kitchen
-clean room
-clean living room
-clean bathroom
-return library cds and books
-pay rent
-boosey and hawk check
-pay parking ticket
-mikey's invoice
-go to verizon
-go to store for snuggie
-email amy
-email uncles and friends in california
-laundry
-memorize recital
-make life to-do list
-eat?

Ok...so now I have to actually do these things. Now I have a really difficult decision to make...what kind of music do I want to listen to whilst cleaning?
...
I think the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack sounds great, too!!

Bye, loves! :)

The beginning of my family

So. New year, new possibilities, right? Call it fate or Karma or chance, call it what you will but the world is set for a change and the new decade is one big convenient platform for it. What do I want to do in my life? I want to move things. I want to change people. There is something magical about this day. We look at our lives and we have to face a whole year of accomplishments, of failures, of decisions and choices we have made and the subsequent consequence...or reward.

A new year's resolution can be a powerful thing, but only if it is believed in and committed to. I think we are all capable of changing the world, but in order to do that we have to change ourselves. I have to change myself. Waiting for the world to change is boring, and I'm sick of being bored. Someone once said to live the life you want to live. It sounds simple, a bit absurd and frustratingly complicated at the same time...but it is true. This is my own Journal of the Movement of the World. My world has been moved by the beauty and power that has been shown to me through words and music. My heart is changed because of the power of love, community, family, and loyalty. But, I cannot hope to change anything if I do not change it within myself first. And here is where I will do it. For one year I will document my movement so that the next time I lose my way I don't have to try so hard to find it again. This is the seed of the life, the world I want to call my own.

I cannot wait to start my journey and I hope you will join me and find some enjoyment in it.

Tchuss!