Presidential Music

Everyone is still talking about the inaugural festivities. Every four years it seems that our nation's ceremonial side comes out with great success. While watching the ceremony last week, I remarked to some friends that I was really surprised to see Yo-yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and the other players trying to play in such extreme temperatures. Most musicians would have known that their priceless instruments would not react well to the weather. So it wasn't surprising to hear that the music had been pre-recorded to ensure the beauty and tuning of the musical offering. I was grateful for their forethought, because I wouldn't have wanted the performance to be less than the stunning rendition we all heard.

I love to watch inaugurations partly because I enjoy following politics, and partly because I have great memories of attending and participating in the 1977 inauguration of our 39th president, Jimmy Carter. I grew up in Americus, Georgia, the county seat of Sumter County and neighbor of Plains, Georgia. Our family participated in the campaign, and enjoyed knowing many members of the Carter family.

Among my great early musical memories is being Drum Major of the Americus High School Band when we played for countless campaign rallies, and for the enormous crowd on election night. Sometime in the middle of the night I was approached by a campaign staffer and asked to come to the platform and prepare to play the piano while the crowd sang "God Bless America." I did as I was asked, which meant that when the Carters came to the podium to announce the electoral victory I was stationed at the piano right behind them. The crowd was so boisterous that we never even thought of asking them to sing, and I never sat down at the piano. But my "Forest Gump" moment came when the Carters arrived and I was standing right behind them on international television.

A few weeks later we led the inaugural parade as the home-state band of the Carters. My photographs from those experiences are among my most cherished posessions.

This weekend I am involved in a service of unity between several Baptist groups at which President Carter will be the keynote speaker, so I've been re-living some of those 30-year-old memories. I realize that being a musician tends to put you into unusual circumstances, and I'm grateful for the memories.

Encore!

On February 7 a group of interested choral directors and other music educators from all over the southeast are assembling for a summit meeting. They will be discussing a new vision for children that has been articulated by the new Executive Director of the American Choral Directors Association, Tim Sharp, which states a desire for all children to have the opportunity to sing in a choir.

The centerpiece of the discussion will be the description of a grass roots program initiated by a group of volunteers in Dothan, Alabama. The program was called "Encore", and was the brain-child of Terry Taylor, the Minister of Music at the First Baptist Church of Dothan.

Terry moved to Dothan in 2000, and had enjoyed success in several large churches. In addition, he had developed a reputation as an expert in children's music. When he discovered that the public schools in Dothan didn't provide Music Education to their elementary students, he began to volunteer in one of the schools, going once a week to sing with the children.

Soon he felt a desire to multiply his efforts, and developed the idea of establishing the people and resources to send volunteers into all the Dothan elementary school classrooms to sing with the students. After publicizing the plan and soliciting volunteers, 143 people came to his first organizational meeting. Songs were chosen, resources were printed and recorded, and the volunteers were given the training necessary to begin the program.

The schools were receptive and saw the benefits of singing reflected in improved behavior and parental involvement. Volunteers' lives were improved by this interaction with students and involvement in such a worthwhile enterprise. And after two years of the program, the school superintendent announced that funding would be provided for the hiring of music educators for the elementary schools.

This exciting program illustrates what can come from an interested and motivated volunteer's thinking and dreaming about the value of music. Terry Taylor is a hero, who took his passion for music and love of children and made a real difference in the lives of thousands of students and hundreds of adult volunteers.

Our summit meeting will be a platform for the telling of this great success story, and the sharing of ideas and resources so that similar stories can be written around the country. Surely every community has a person similar to Terry Taylor, someone committed to children and to what the arts can mean in their lives.

When the day finally comes that the arts are valued and appreciated in our society, it is more likely to be because of the grass roots appreciation developed through local efforts like "Encore" than because of the accomplishments of our greatest artists. But those accomplishments stand to finally be fully appreciated if our children learn from us that the arts are important and worthwhile.

My Country, 'Tis of Thee

I took today off so that I could watch the whole inauguration without feeling interrupted. I was prepared to watch alone, but a colleague called and invited me to watch with friends. It was a great day, full of so much symbolism, and I was glad that I didn't have to watch it by myself. Democrats celebrated and Republicans admired the moment, having run a campaign espousing their ideas, but not attacking the race of their opponent.

In the coverage of the election and inauguration of our first African-American President, there has been a lot of attention paid to the legacy of the heroes of the civil rights movement. People like John Lewis, Joseph Lowery and the Tuskegee Airmen, who were pictured today, and many who have passed away, have inspired a couple of generations, and today's events represented the fruition of their ideals.

I would like to mention another group of people. A battle like the civil rights movement has great heroes, but it requires a lot of foot-soldiers, too. Recently I've been trying to teach my children about my parents. They know their grandparents as typical retirees, and I am trying to help them know what it was like in the 1960's, when my parents were among those foot-soldiers. They had grown up in the deep south and were both the first in their families to attend college. They both became educators, and, somewhere along the way, began to believe in an America where people were treated fairly and given opportunities regardless of their race. My brothers and I were taught to ignore and disagree when our classmates expressed racism as we grew up in a small town in Georgia. When school integration caused the founding of an all-white private school, we continued to attend the public schools, and our parents attended all its events and supported its efforts to provide educational opportunity to students who hadn't received it before. And they helped form a new Baptist church that would be open to all, and would also offer women equal access to positions of leadership.

As I look back, I realize that they risked their jobs and their positions in the community when they took these stands. They, like many others, were the foot-soldiers, doing what was right because it was right.

I am spending my time working on the plans for an event next week at which white and black baptists will joyfully gather at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church to promote unity and collaboration as we try to help the poor among us. I'm enjoying meeting the music leaders and clergy of other churches in our area, and I am convicted that we remain mostly segregated at 11:00 on Sundays. But I am grateful that I had parents who, 40 years ago, saw what was right and stood for it, regardless of the cost that was evident in the tragic newsreels from Birmingham. And while they didn't risk life and limb like John Lewis or our other heroes, they made a great impact on a generation who helped elect the man who took the oath of office today.

But this blog is about musical meanings, so what does this have to do with music? It relates to music to the extent that you know the history of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. In addition to being the site of a terrible terrorist attack at which four little girls were killed while attending church, it also served for many years as the location where great Americans appeared in Birmingham to speak, or sing, or perform because they were denied access to the city's theatres due to the color of their skin.

When we join our brothers and sisters in our service next week, we will be singing in the same building where a young opera star named Marian Anderson once performed. She was denied the opportunity to perform in Birmingham's Alabama Theatre, just as she was denied the opportunity to perform in Constitution Hall in Washington by the Daughters of the American Revolution. Just as Eleanor Roosevelt intervened to get her performance approved in Washington, the good members of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church intervened to provide the stage for her performance in Birmingham. She sang on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, beginning the concert with "My Country, 'Tis of Thee."

Music matters on its own, because it is a beautiful expression of our humanity. But it matters more when it becomes the catalyst for societal improvement. Did you hear Aretha Franklin sing "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" today? The fact that it seemed natural and uncontroversial was due to people like those foot-soldiers in a Birmingham church and heroic figures like Eleanor Roosevelt. And to heroes of the civil rights movement and to foot-soldiers like my parents. They all helped to make today a day for singing.

Thanks to all.

MLK

I've spent the Martin Luther King Holiday at work. But the work has been appropriate and rewarding for this special day. I am working to coordinate a worship service for the New Baptist Covenant in Birmingham on January 31. It will feature former President Jimmy Carter as keynote speaker, and will take place at the historic Sixteenth Street Baptist Church eleven days after the inauguration of our first African-American president.

People are coming from all over the southeast, and the goal of the event is to begin a process of unity between churches from black and white traditions. It has been a pleasure to put the puzzle pieces together of various kinds of speech and music to celebrate this important time in our history. Turning this site of a terrorist bombing 45 years ago into the site of a new kind of energy and unity will be the sort of thing noone ever forgets.

I want to share a poem from the 13th century that will be the background for a dance interpretation during this special service. The dancers will come from Troy University, and they will lead us to consider the following words:

Move beyond any attachment to names.
Every war, every conflict between human beings
has happened because of some disagreement about names.
It’s such an unnecessary foolishness
because, just beyond the arguing,
there’s a long table of companionship
set
and waiting for us to sit down.
The differences are just illusions and vanity.
Sunlight looks slightly different on this wall
than it does on that wall
and a lot different on this other one,
but it is still one light.
Many jugs being poured into a huge basin –
all religions, all this singing – one song.
- mevlana jelaluddin rumi - 13th century

Best wishes for MLK day!

O Day Full of Grace

It is 4:00 on Saturday afternoon, and I've been at work in the choir room of the church since 8:00 this morning. And, quoting the hymn, I've observed a day full of grace.

We had a work day in the music library today, and choir volunteers came and spent the day processing music. And I'll bet you're still having a hard time imagining this as a day of grace. So here's the background that created the context in which this day of grace occurred.

I arrived in 2005 to become the full-time Minister of Music in a church that had spent many years with a part-time Music Director. That person was a giant of the choral and church music fields, Milburn Price, who is a past National President of the American Choral Directors Association. Needless to say, the choir had been in good hands! But since the program had been part-time, the budget for music was small and it was clear that it would take several years to incrementally increase it to the amount needed. So we have spent four years buying a small amount of music and borrowing a lot of music.

Recently the church from whom we had borrowed music decided to let us purchase a large number of titles from their music library. We made them an offer based upon memorial gifts that had recently been given to honor a beloved church member who had lost a long battle with cancer, and whose husband is a very faithful choir member. The other church accepted our offer and we have added around 125 anthems for the Sanctuary Choir, 13 major works, 25 instrumental titles and 25 children's titles to our library. This acquisition has dramatically increased the number of usable pieces we own. And since we used the memorial money, we sought to honor our dear friend by naming our music library after her.

So we now face the daunting challenge of putting a sticker designating the new name of the library on each old and new piece of music, and giving a catalog number and file box to the new ones.

Today around 20 people came and spent the day in the choir room, placing stickers on each piece of music. The bereaved husband worked with them as each person lovingly and carefully affixed his beloved wife's name. It was an act of love toward the choir and toward the suffering choir member, a mindless sort of task rendered into a sacrament.

And the grace didn't only exist in the honoring of our friend, but I watched as choir members whose tenures in the choir extend back as far as 30 or 40 years opened each piece and hummed a little. "Oh, I remember this one," they would say. "Remember ______ who directed us then? I wonder where they live now?" The collective memory of a musical organization began to unfold. And the lesson for me was that no comment was ever made about pitches and rhythms. The comments related to the people with whom they sang, and the directors they followed. They talked about what might have been going on in the church family around that time, and sighed to think of a singer who had passed on, or a member of the congregation who loved a particular piece. I was reminded through this lesson that we work hard on musical technique so that the grace can be evident, rather than as an end in itself.

When someone sings to you it is grace. When someone sings with you it is grace. Our work day became a day full of grace as memories unfolded, grief turned to honor, and the future was enabled.

Mr./Ms. _______________'s Opus

Any movie fan remembers a popular film a few years ago called "Mr. Holland's Opus." In the movie an aspiring composer takes a temporary (he thinks) "gig" teaching music in a public high school. The movie traces his life as the years go by and he is changed by the act of teaching music while his teaching changes the lives of his students. For those of us in music education and the broader world of arts presentation it became a "must-see." I remember attending a trade show for non-profit arts presenters in Nashville at which there was a booth for "Mr. Holland's Opus" souvenirs, teaching aids, and advocacy information. Arts presenters were encouraged to host events for their boards of directors and constituents at which the film would be shown.

While the film gave an enjoyable and emotional account of the impact of this music educator, its influence didn't just stir admiration for this fictional person. It also stirred memories among all music leaders of special people whose lives they have influenced in a positive way. And it reminded music professionals that, in all likelihood, a Mr. Holland lurked in their background, having taught unselfishly and changed the course of their lives.

Such is the joy of the artist. Art is inherently rewarding. We would enjoy it by ourselves, and grow to be better selves having encountered it. But solitude is rare among artists, because the art draws us together with other artists and appreciaters, and becomes a bond that also helps us to be better people. And it creates a bond between teacher and student that is lifelong.

In my current position I have the pleasure of administering a scholarship program for college students. They participate in the musical life of our church, and in return they are awarded a scholarship named for a legendary music educator, Betty Sue Shepherd, who was our church's organist until her death. It is wonderful to see bonds created between our congregation and these students who come to us from varied backgrounds. The bonds are inevitable because of the art that draws us together. And these students are beginning a life of music thanks to some choral director, piano teacher, band director, minister of music, or other musical mentor in their hometown. As they get to know us, they are inevitably asked to volunteer with children's choirs or youth choir, and they get a taste of what it's like to become the mentor. And because of the named scholarship, they extend the legacy of a musician who gave her life to her students over a career spanning 50 years.

One such student came to us with a story that perfectly illustrates this point. He was an accomplished high school athlete until he suffered a career-ending injury. With this loss of direction in his life his grades suffered, and he could have disappeared into the statistical figures of high school drop-outs. But the choral director of the school overheard his rich baritone speaking voice, and invited him to sing for her. In a turn of events worthy of a Hollywood screenplay, they discovered together that he had a great talent, a beautiful voice, and a deep love for choral music. He not only finished high school, but started college on a full music scholarship. And he aspires to be a choral teacher who seeks out students whose lives can be impacted by artistic endeavor.

As this young choral musician sits on the floor among a children's choir, sings to help the high schoolers in the bass section of the youth choir, and learns about church music among the dedicated volunteers of the adult choir, the cycle of art unfolds before our eyes. Where but in the world of the arts could such a thing happen? How, but for an aware and passionate educator could he have been rescued from listlessness, and set on a path of discovery that rewards every seeker?

Of course, there are great "mentor" stories in every discipline. But I think the presence of the musical arts in every part of life creates a unique laboratory in which this cycle can be replicated. Surely you know of people whose paths were altered by their formative musician. If you are reading this blog you are probably one of those people. And our daily challenge is to look for opportunities to offer such an impactful influence to the new generations of musicians-in-process we encounter.

Music Meanings

This is a blog about music, and what it can mean to us. Since this is an entirely subjective topic, the opinions expressed are meant to only be personal expressions. To the extent that they stimulate other, different personal expressions, the blog will have served its purpose.

Like most musicians, I function in a lot of musical ways. I serve as a Minister of Music to the Vestavia Hills Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. In that role I conduct adult, youth and children's choirs. I also work as a conductor in other settings. I serve as an Associate Conductor to Midamerica Productions, where I used to work full-time in their New York office. In my current role I travel around the country to conduct rehearsals with choirs just prior to their trips to New York to perform in the Carnegie Hall Concert Series. I also conduct concerts in that series from time to time. And I conduct the Birmingham Chamber Chorus, an ecumenical group of singers who perform in and around Birmingham under the sponsorship of the Vestavia Hills Baptist Church.

Most musicians I know have a similarly long list of jobs they pursue, and I am grateful for the opportunity to serve these groups in these ways.

The arts in general, and music in particular, are so important to our lives that we work for more than an income. We are passionate about our work, and hope to give our very best to our efforts. It is easy to document the fact that the arts reflect the highest accomplishments of human beings in every generation. There is so much about life that is of the highest importance, but that cannot be fully expressed through prosaic words alone. For that reason our world's civilizations have always had poets, composers, singers, players, dancers, actors, painters, sculptors; in every human place there have been those who gave their peers the greatest ability to leave their best behind for future generations while speaking with clarity and inspiration to their own.

Frequently, the greatest artistic efforts have come in times of societal or personal travail. Unmatched is the beauty of the African-American spiritual, inconceivable is the depth of emotion inherent in the stories of the performances of masterpieces like the Verdi "Requiem" by the imprisoned Jews in the Terezin Concentration Camp. And in our time, viewers around the world sat breathless as the New York Philharmonic played "Ahrirang" before the audience in North Korea, seen in an unprecedented, uninterrupted telecast on CNN. For ninety minutes the "Axis of Evil" was supplanted by the "Ties that Bind."

It is for this reason, I think, that Biblical descriptions of final judgment call for a musical act, the sounding of a trumpet, as the beginning of the end. Israel's great flawed king was a singer and poet, and the disciples left the upper room and went to their fate singing a hymn. Creativity lives for those times when words fail, whether lamenting "Absalom, my son," or looking evil in the eye while shouting/singing "Dies irae, dies illa..."

Artistic expression gives us the avenue we seek when we are bereft of the ability to fully express ourselves. While in graduate school at Florida State University, and for the years afterward until his death, I had the unmerited and singular privilege of being a friend, accompanist and sometimes apprentice to Robert Shaw. I remember so often the things he said in his unique way, reflecting his unique perception of the world. He frequently referred to the arts as "the flesh become word." He appropriated the metaphysical metaphor that begins the Gospel of John and reversed it to mean that the arts are our opportunity to do something that will last beyond our earthly lives. I think it's a way of realizing that we as creatures are at our best when we imitate our Creator by being creative.

I once worked in a church in rural south Alabama, where a well-meaning church member insisted that I would be pleased to have her son, visiting from another part of south Alabama, as a guest soloist. So I agreed to meet him and hear him sing. I asked him (using poor church musician vernacular) "what he sang," meaning what voice part he sang, tenor or baritone or bass. He answered, "I mostly sing songs that's got a meaning to 'em." While the comment was both funny and exasperating at the time, it has remained in my mind, and served as a goal for many years of church music since then. I like to think that all our music has "a meaning" or two, and that we wisely utilize our opportunity to create the context through which great art speaks to and for our generation.