Thanks, Universe, for the medicine for my soul!

This past Sunday I was walking to go pick up my son who had an afternoon activity at the large Anglican church in town. As I was walking I was assaulted on a regular basis by the mega-thump of car stereos playing rap music, with of course the bass turned up to eleven. It was so ridiculously pervasive block after block that it pretty much sickened me and made me feel very depressed about the lack of interest by the general public in anything other than the crap put out by the rap and pop industry. It’s all about money, of course- if it's crap yet sells, that's all that matters, right? Well I guess classical music, jazz, authentic world music and many other styles don't matter, even though I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to prove the superiority, complexities, and rewards of so many other types of music over and beyond what is popular in the US today.

Anyway, this sadness I was feeling as I walked to the church really came over me- and to be honest, I have been a bit down lately anyway. I do suffer from periods of depression and I am not against letting people know that about me. So yeah, I was feeling pretty sucky!

But here is what happened next- I walked into the church and Aidan's activity was not quite done. And I also noticed that someone was playing the magnificent 1922 Casavant pipe organ there, so I wandered into the side of the sanctuary and listened for a bit. You might have though that this would cheer me up, but actually it was having the opposite effect. For as the organist finished playing a most epic piece there was no one there- I really didn’t count, since I had just wandered in to hear the last few minutes of this practice session. So the piece ended in a roaring forte and then-- silence. Nothing- no roar of an audience, just silence- reminding me of the proverbial tree falling in the forest. As the organist got up to leave, I said hi to him in the hallway. I didn’t even introduce myself as a composer like I usually do (who cares- does it matter all the time?) and asked him what he had been playing. He was very nice and told me it was a neglected piece by JS Bach. He then went on to tell me that he was practicing it because he was to be a part of a project by WFMT radio in Chicago to perform ALL of the JS Bach music for organ over a period of months in ten concerts. He also cheerfully told me that he had sort of volunteered to do the forgotten pieces that the other organists didn’t pick to play. I thanked him for his playing and wished him well. And all of a sudden my spirits were so much higher- for he had also gone on to tell me that WFMT had asked listeners if they would attend such a series of concerts and apparently the answer was a resounding yes. Would Miley Cyrus, Robin Thicke, or Kanye West or their followers be in the audience? Duh, no, but it least it made me feel like our classical art is not totally dying in front of our very eyes quite as much as I usually think it is. Here is info on the ten-concert series: http://www.wfmt.com/main.taf?erube_fh=wttw&wttw.submit.EventList=1#event673

The Dude

And then something more happened! I heard voices singing upstairs- not old, tired church choir voices but truly great professional voices AND a sound I even recognized. I wandered upstairs and lo and behold, the professional choir Chicago A Cappella was rehearsing. They have done a lot of my music over the last ten years, for which I am very thankful. This is not their usual rehearsal space but for today (hmm, interesting) they were there working on some chant and chant-based music for their first concert of the season. I said hi (I saw some new faces and a new face directing for this concert- John William Trotta) and was also happy to introduce myself to the new members, since the group will be singing my Christmas spiritual “Ain' dat-a Rockin' All Night” in December. I left them alone to continue rehearsing some men's parts and had a nice, quick conversation with longtime member Betsy Grizzell.

http://www.chicagoacappella.org/concerts

http://www.johnwilliamtrotter.com/

John William Trotter

So what was going on here? It's pretty amazing that the universe dropped these two incidents right into my lap in the space of 15 minutes, isn't it? It made me feel so good, so hopeful, and made me want to throw away the depressing thoughts that were invading my space on the walk over to the church. And in fact, I have been pretty down for bits and pieces of this whole summer- I have been trying to shake it off, but with only partial results. Maybe this was a message to me not only about the music that I love, but also about how I need to embrace the positive aspects of life and to more firmly take control of my psyche and put the negative inner-thought monster into the naughty corner!

So thank you to the universe, and also JS Bach (you crazy genius you), the dear and very talented organist, WFMT radio, and Chicago A Cappella for your gift to me Sunday!

BBC Radio features Chicago A Cappella and one of my spiritual arrangements

I was thrilled today to get an e-mail from Jonathan Miller, founder and artistic director of Chicago A Cappella. Jonathan let me know that a number of tracks from their early 2012 Spiritual Concert entitled "Wade in the Water" were featured on the BBC Three Radio show “The Choir” hosted by Aled Jones this past week and that for a few days more anyone can go and listen to the program online. One of the featured pieces is my arrangement of the very soulful spiritual ”Blind Man”.

Chicago A Cappella is one of the few Illinois-based choirs that has shown continued, strong interest in my music. I am always kind of surprised and I guess bemused by the lack of interest, in general, in my music from Chicago and Illinois groups and directors. At times I feel I am much more appreciated in Portland and Seattle, or South Korea, or Michigan or just about any place other than here where I live (oh well!). Anyway, I have always been thankful to Jonathan and CAC mover/shaker (and great baritone) Matt Greenberg as they have regularly embraced my spiritual arrangements and other pieces like “Play with your Food” (yum, mashed potatoes) over the last ten years.

These days I feel spirituals are being unfairly ignored. I suppose this is a reaction to the many years where the big honking loud ones were used as kneejerk concert-enders. Some directors apparently grew tired of seeing them used in such a cliched way and stopped programming them altogether. Yet today, all these (admittedly concert) arrangements of our special musical history should not be ignored. Please, choral folks- especially younger directors, listen to more of this music, embrace it, and start programming it again. It comes from the pain and suffering of real people, and then somehow, through the magic of music, transcends that pain- either in a radiant, quiet glory or shout out celebration. It's time for more people to get back to this amazing heritage- whether it is the arrangements from back in the day (Burleigh, et al), the more modern arrangements by Moses Hogan and Adolphus Hailstork, and also the very newest arrangements done right now by just a handful of dedicated composer/arrangers who don't mix in annoyingly inappropriate jazz or gospel threads into the form. By the way, you might want to read my review of The American Spiritual Ensemble's amazing spiritual concert in Memphis a couple years ago, for more thoughts and ideas on the spiritual tradition. This was one of the great choral concerts I have heard in my lifetime. You can read that here: 

http://www.paulcarey440.blogspot.com/search/label/American%20Spiritual%20Ensemble

But now please visit BBC Radio soon to hear Chicago A Cappella sing a number of spirituals. Their portion of the program, which originally aired May 20th (the title of the program “American Sardinians” is a reference to the lead story) begins at the 52:00 minute mark, and my piece begins at 1:01:15. I'm tickled that host Aled Jones singled out “Blind Man” with a few words of praise- describing it as “haunting” and then also taking the trouble to give the Biblical reference point for the story. Thanks, Aled- gotta love the Brits!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01hq27r/The_Choir_The_American_Sardinians/

PS Don't miss Cari Plachy Dinglasan's wonderful solo turn on Robert Morris' “Save Me, Lord”.

Guest blog by Chicago a cappella's Jonathan Miller

I am thrilled to have a guest blogger today-- Jonathan Miller, the founder and artistic director of the innovative nine-voice professional choir Chicago a cappella. They're performing an exciting program of spirituals in four performances over the next two weeekends, including the premiere of a commission by Chanticleer founder Joseph Jennings, who will be in town. Oh, yes, there's a piece of mine on the program too, by the way.

One of the things I like about Jonathan and Chicago a cappella is that the spiritual tradition has always been a big part of their repertoire and mission. In a day when many choirs are underprogramming this genre (perhaps a reaction to when it has at times been programmed in boring, predictable ways) Jonathan has kept it alive in very creative ways. CAC has performed the truly great standard spiritual arrangements but also seeks to present new ones by a number of excellent composer/arrangers.

Here is a short version of Jonathan's impressive bio and then I'll let him take it away as he speaks about the Jennings commission and also his own commissioned piece which will be premiered this weekend as well.

Since founding Chicago a cappella in 1993, Jonathan Miller has guided the ensemble through more than 130 concerts, seven commercial CD releases, and thirty choral-music demo CDs. His international accolades include the 2008 Louis Botto Award for Innovative Action and Entrepreneurial Zeal from Chorus America. He was a founding member of His Majestie’s Clerkes (now Bella Voce). Eager to learn research tools for repertoire, Jonathan pursued musicology, earning his doctorate at UNC-Chapel Hill. Since returning to the Chicago area, Jonathan has expanded his role as a conductor and composer. He has written more than fifty choral works; his music has been sung at venues including St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City and the Pentagon. He conducted his piece The Lincoln Memorial at the Lincoln Memorial on the 200^th anniversary weekend of Lincoln’s birth. Since 1998, Jonathan has taken a growing leadership role in Chicago-area Jewish music. He holds as a great honor his role as publisher of the late Max Janowski’s catalogue. Jonathan enjoys the blessings of family and neighbors in the woods of Downers Grove, where he loves helping to maintain two shared vegetable gardens.

JM: This weekend (Feb. 3-4) marks the first pair of 4 performances of “Wade in the Water,” a concert of spirituals by Chicago a cappella. On the concert are two premieres: a new setting commissioned from Joseph Jennings, “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen,” and a newly commissioned two-movement piece by yours truly called “Old Testament Spirituals.”

I have known Joe Jennings for more than twenty years. I was tempted to sing for Chanticleer in 1990, when I was just starting to dig in on my dissertation in musicology at UNC-Chapel Hill. I did not end up joining the ensemble, partly because I knew that joining the ensemble would mean I would never finish grad school. By the time my dissertation was done I was already back in the Midwest, and the birth of Chicago a cappella came not long after that. However, Joe and I have remained connected and friendly over the years, partly because CAC has championed his music literally from our very first concert. That show featured his “Steal Away,” which we eventually recorded on our “Go Down, Moses” album from the year 2000. We have regularly performed his two spiritual medleys, which always bring down the house. This year, it has been a thrill to actually commission a piece from Joe, one that is perfectly tailored to our voices and sound.

(Joseph Jennings)

Along with the new piece by Joe Jennings, we will also do his wonderful setting of “Way over in Beulah-Lan’,” which appears in the recent collection of spirituals for mixed voices from Oxford. The two pieces couldn’t be more different. “Nobody Knows” is slow, brooding, moaning, and has much alternation between “choirs” of men’s and women’s voices. The piece, as you might expect, has a total of nine voice parts, to fit our ensemble. There is also a glorious solo baritone line in the last chorus, over which a three-part women’s quasi-gospel chord line cascades in reply to the word “nobody.” The tempo ranges from quite slow to extremely slow; if you’ve ever sung at a quarter note = 33, you know it takes a great deal of breath control and emotional intensity to sustain a line at that tempo. By contrast, “Beulah-Lan’” is very fast, excited and exciting, and full of hope for a better life to come. The chords are likewise thickly layered, although more of the singing in “Beulah-Lan’” is in block chords for the whole group.

For my “Old Testament Spirituals” commission, I chose spirituals about characters of the Old Testament: King David, Daniel, Moses, and Joshua. The cycle is in two movements. The first, short movement is “Little David, Play On Your Harp,” which uses a pentatonic scale throughout – even all the chords use only the same five pitches that are in the melody! The much longer second movement – about six and a half minutes – is a layered combination of three tunes: “Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel”; “Go Down, Moses”; and “Joshua Fit De Battle of Jericho.” This piece uses a layering technique that I learned from the great Gunnar Eriksson (who works in Sweden). The layering owed much to the structural similarities of the three melodies. All three tunes—“Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel,” “Go “Down, Moses,” and “Joshua Fit De Battle of Jericho”—are often sung in the key of D minor. (This is sort of funny to me, because D minor is also a key often found in Jewish folksong, and these are Jewish characters in the songs.) The spirituals are usually associated with definite harmonies; the more I looked at them, the more it seemed in particular that the refrains to “Daniel” and “Joshua,” although they tell different stories, are in truth almost the same melody! As the action intensified, I threw in a reference to blowing the shofar at the end, just as the tenor soloist sings of Daniel commanding the “ram’ lam’ sheep-horns” to blow. It is one of my very best pieces, with an atmospheric, slow beginning and an powerful, driving energy at the end; in that sense it’s a nice kind of mirror for the energy of the two Jennings pieces.

Look forward to seeing you at the concerts!

-- Jonathan Miller

Chicago a cappella's performances will be at the following Chicago area venues on dates listed- for more detailed information visit this page of their excellent website

Chicago: Friday, February 3 (8 pm)
Naperville: Saturday, February 4 (8 pm)
Evanston: Saturday, February 11 (8 pm)
Oak Park: Sunday, February 12 (4 pm)

--Jonathan