Do go on! Or perhaps not....

Quick! What do you do when you are in the middle of a concert and a note on the organ ciphers?

If you are lucky, you happen to be playing a passage for one hand, and you can use the other one to try to tease out the cipher by rapidly playing the affected note again and again until, miraculously, the slider closes, and the cipher goes away.

For those of you quite lost at the moment (which includes everyone except organ nerds), a cipher is a pipe that will not stop sounding when you take your finger off the key because the mechanism that blows the air through the pipe has gotten stuck in the open position. Sometimes the only thing you can do about it is to turn the organ completely off, and then, if the problem is still there when you reboot, try to find the ciphering pipe and stick a piece of paper in between the toe of the pipe (at the bottom) and the wind supply, which will disable the pipe, meaning it will not be able to play, but it will at least stop droning on and on. In the middle of a concert those last options aren't really available--not the last one, at least--but I did spend part of a sermon once crawling around a pipe room trying to fix a cipher. I got it, eventually.

That's part of the fun when you play the organ. Not that the piano can't have its challenges. I was once in the middle of a performance of Scriabin's Fifth Sonata, which is a tricky piece, and the F# above middle C just did not want to go down. I kept trying to unstick it whenever I had a hand free, which was only fleetingly, and required some serious acrobatics. Eventually I got it to cooperate. It must have taken the entire exposition and about half of the development to get there.

With the organ, though, there are all manner of intricate details in the way it is operated, and these vary from instrument to instrument, which is why it is such a useful opportunity to be asked to play concerts in different locations.

Yesterday, when I was at the cathedral, I noted with dismay that the trumpet I was going to use toward the end of the opening piece wouldn't sound at all. Given that an unfortunately large percentage of the organ is in disrepair at the moment, I assumed the stop had somehow given up just in time for the concert. I told the organist, and he was also dismayed, and assumed it was not working. Fortunately there was another trumpet on the same division that I employed instead. After the concert he realized that the rear gallery of the cathedral, generally known as "west" (whether a church faces east or not the altar is still considered to be on the east end of the church in liturgical parlance) had not been turned on. On this organ, each division (or at least three of them) have their own keys and must be turned on separately. It is something to file away for the next time something doesn't go according to plan. I've also come across three different locations for manual transfer switches recently.

I have written that the organ is a great instrument for problem solvers. And the more often I go "on location" the better I get. I can now register an entire concert pretty fast. If one stop isn't working, or the reed just doesn't sound right, or is too soft or too loud, I can find a synonym (alternate reigstration) quickly and move on.

Of course, one shouldn't discount the importance of dumb luck. This summer, at a large cathedral with lots of reverberation, I joked to some people who had missed my concert that if they went to the cathedral in the next few days, they might still be able to hear some of the previous week's concert before the sounds completely died away. Yesterday's cathedral was smaller and drier, and the long held soft reed was not at all intentional. But after a few desperate attempts to get it to stop, it did. Things could have been worse.

Of course, that wouldn't have been the end of the world, either. Maybe next time I'll take along some piano literature, just in case. Or improvise on a drone note for a while!

Now that could be interesting.
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It is the last week of September at www.pianonoise.com where you will soon be able to hear the music for the concert I gave at Trinity Cathedral on Wednesday. In the meantime, you can hear the Mel Bonis Toccata, the featured recording of the week, and....I forget what else.

The Second Heinz Chapel Recital

Heinz Memorial Chapel in Pittsburgh is a really nice place to play an organ recital. It is, as you will see, quite visually spectacular. Frank Kurtik, one of the docents there (and a super nice guy) takes spectacular pictures, and in this case the subject matter doesn't make that too difficult. Strangely enough, although I gave a recital there in May, none of the pictures Frank took this time around matched any of the angles from the last time.

Here are a few from the last concert to round out the perspective:

If you'd like to catch the music, for the next week (until Dec 7) it will be up at PianonoiseRadio. In addition to offsite recordings there is a link to  live concert video from my Facebook page. If you weren't quick enough to catch this program on Pianonoise Radio, I'm sure you can find something else nice to listen to on the same page (like the holiday program). It will come around again, eventually.

In the meantime, it still isn't quite Christmas at pianonoise--not for another week, but I'm getting pretty excited. It's nice not to be tired of Jingle Bells by the middle of October, don't you think?

ok, some of you clearly don't think so. That's your right. But in a week we'll both be chilling on the musical eggnog, and I've got a few new pieces for you again this year, so -- see you back here in a few days, and Merry nothing-just-yet!

Weekend Concerts

Christmases have been behaving a bit strangely lately. In my years in Illinois the month of December was one blast of musical obligations, one massive joy-spreading enterprise guaranteed to leave you gasping for breath when it was over. Last year, after cancer and a move to Pittsburgh my phone barely rang, and the few gigs I almost got had already been taken by the time I knew about them.

This year, as I've been making friends and contacts, I have re-begun the tradition of the Christmas Rush, even if it is in one short, intense burst. For example, this past weekend I had two concerts in two days (with a church service in between):

The first of these was a concert at  First United Methodist in Pittsburgh, about a mile from where I pull the stops regularly. Tim Coles, the music director, let me practice at his church back in February when I didn't have a musical home, and even offered me this gig which was the only one on the books for a while. This concert/worship service is an annual event, and this year it included a bell choir, a recorder ensemble, the chancel choir, and ensembles of strings and brass. I played the piano for a couple of selections with the strings and choir, and mostly the organ, with the strings for a movement of the Vivaldi Gloria, and with the brass for the evening's main course, the John Rutter Gloria. I also played a couple of organ solo pieces.

This concert was a bit of therapy, since I am not currently working with any choral organizations, and I have fond memories of the Craig Jessop festival extravaganzas with The Choral, frequently featuring works by John Rutter. I did not serve as the rehearsal pianist this time, so I missed the transition from vocal score to member of the ensemble and the chance to complain that all of my favorite notes got taken away. Although Mr. Rutter has written a nice organ part--the second movement is largely for choir and organ alone (and in some cases just organ) and there are a few bits where you can hear the organ during the outer movements. But the overall effect is what counts and it is a well written study in contrasts and climaxes.

One hallmark of those Illinois concerts was the terrible sight-lines between myself and the conductor. You should know that the choir was again between myself and the conductor such that it was completely impossible to even try to see him. I gave up and watched most of the concert on television.

Although closed-circuit Tim was only a couple of inches high and his baton was even smaller it was still visible and things worked out pretty well. Plus I could watch the Discovery channel during the parts I wasn't playing.

First Methodist is a lovely place. Here is a view from the organ bench of the high ceiling:

Here is the sanctuary itself as not seen from the organ bench (the organ console is actually under the wreath on the left:

I managed to sneak the picture below during the concert (when I wasn't watching Discovery Channel). If I am ever invited to give an organ concert in the great hall at Hogwarts, I think it will look something like this:

There are candles at the ends of the aisles which, from my vantage point, appear to be floating .

The second concert was on Sunday afternoon at a church in Tarentum (Central Presbyterian), which is about a half-hour away from Pittsburgh. It is a small town and the folks there seemed to really appreciate having a concert. The church has had one for a few years, and uses the radio station to promote their events, so one morning Lenny and Dave Rankin and I found ourselves in the basement of WQED talking into a DAT recorder with Jim Cunningham (the host of the morning show and Pittsburgh Symphony broadcasts) recording a podcast for the "voice of the arts" which is dedicated to promoting local events. It was pledge week so we all gave our best spiel about why YOU should SUPPORT THIS STATION! Apparently at some point last week I could be heard on the radio exhorting Pittsburghers to support classical radio. I hope I didn't drive too many of them away!

I don't have any pictures of this concert, which was given by my two colleagues at Third church and myself, Raquel Winnica Young, soprano, Lenny Young, oboe, and I on the 9-rank Wicks organ. It was a nice little instrument. Since I have been learning to tame the beast at Third all the organs I have visited lately have seemed a little smaller than they used to, but that doesn't mean they don't have their own challenges.

That's us when we gave a concert at Third church.

Our big knock down choral extravaganza at Third was in November so Lenny and I can relax a little bit as the holidays roll on. We have a children's pageant this Sunday in which we play minor roles, and then Christmas Eve is coming in a week with a guest ensemble and all of those carols we haven't been singing yet because we are liturgically aware. And also because I haven't been shopping yet.

Just a reminder, the holiday program is still up at pianonoise radio for the next 10 days. Enjoy the sounds of the season (for free!). See you next week.

A Brahmsian Ghost Story

One of the things that I learned before last week's mostly organ concert is that I can play the piano in very low light, including pieces with leaps and hand crossings. Hopefully the audience found out, if they didn't know it already, that they would like to hear more from that Brahms fellow.

The only piano piece on the program was a Brahms rhapsody, specifically the second one in g minor. I was practicing it a few years back and decided it might not be a bad selection for a Halloween concert. So with a little help from the resident Steinway and Mr. Brahms, I told them a ghost story.

Brahms's disciples would shriek that what he wrote was absolutely music and music alone, which meant it should be completely independent from any ideas or narrative. Making a ghost story out of it would certainly be sacrilege.

But as Schumann, who had to be considered in the anti-programmatic camp, complained, composers shouldn't provide programs for their pieces because the audience is robbed of the chance to determine one for themselves. This is hardly the same as saying there should be no such ideas inspired by the music, rather it is saying that the audience should be allowed the freedom to create it, rather than having the composer insist on one interpretation himself. This is an interesting proposition. Schumann's response to the person who asked what his etude meant, therefore, (which was to sit down and play it again) does not necessarily mean that the music meant only itself, but that he couldn't, or wouldn't, explain it in words. I would group his response with that of Aaron Copland, who said, if asked if the music meant anything, he would say yes, and if asked if he could explain what it was, he would say no. There is a deliberate vagueness there.

On Friday, I told the audience that I had a ghost story, but I didn't fill in any details (other than suggesting the Black Forest as a possible backdrop). This could have been a useful listening exercise.

Now in any piece of classical music, particularly one that is seven minutes long, the structure of the piece is very important. If you can't follow the musical argument for several minutes, you are likely at some point to get bored or confused. And yet it is unlikely that most members of my audience had such listening skills. Traditional analytical terms like exposition, transition, 2nd theme, development, recapitulation and all that only go so far anyway. I am conversant with them, but frankly, they make the musical process sound rather dull. I am also likely to zone out when program notes consist mainly of a musical blow-by-blow description of a piece, particularly when it is limited to musical procedures--the sort of thing 21st century composers often write about their own music ("it is based on a four-note motive which is then played backwards against a descending scale derived from the first three notes transposed up a third set against the remaining notes in the brass..." sheeesh.)

Using one's 'romantic' imagination can be a nice corrective (or rebellion) against that sort of thing, but it is also a way for the mind to attempt to find a coherent structure for the piece. The part where they are walking happily into the forest, the place where it grows dark, the part where they see a lonely house in the distance and make for it... as naïve as it might sound to an academic or a professional musician, making a "story" out of a piece of music takes the music out of passive sound absorption and into the realm of raw material out of which sense--and form--is derived. At least, that's the hope. And as story, there ought to be some narrative continuity, which is just what the audience needs to find. All the better if they find it themselves.

Framing the piece as a ghost story did something else, too. I had an interesting conversation with a pianist after the concert in which I pointed out that pianists of today tend to maintain consistent tempi and minimize dynamic contrast. We are still, it seems, in reaction against Romantic "excess." This is one case where the recent authenticity movement fails to be authentic at all. The irony is that we are so busy rescuing the Baroque and Classical periods against Romantic 'vandalism' that we fail utterly to realize that when we are playing Romantic music, that those very discards ARE authentic. Brahms's score is full of places where the music goes from piano to fortissimo in just a beat or two, and while the tempo fluctuations are not similarly marked, those pianists who survived into the early 20th century showed us that in the 19th tempo was much more fluid, and that the net effect was far more dramatic. Pianists of the time may have been more technically sloppy, but they played with far more emotional impact. Even if we find that embarrassing.


With any luck, telling my harrowing tale from the keyboard the other night made me approach the piece more like Brahms himself would have. Unfortunately, only one wax cylinder of his playing survives, and it is so distorted that it is hard to know how he played. But at the very least, I got to run an interesting experiment, which may have gone against the grain of many a modern pianistic approach, a good deal of which in the end is as much a reflection of fashion as authenticity.

And if that thought scares some of you, well, BOO!

Brahms: Rhapsody no. 2 in g minor, op. 79 n. 2

New Year's Eve at the Virginia (part five)

The annual New Year's Eve concert at the Virginia Theater in downtown Champaign, Illinois, isn't like anything else that happens all year. This year's concert packed itself into a trim two-and-a-half hours and contained choral and solo singing, instrumental solos and accompaniment, colorful commentary and jokes, audience participation, a pretty full house, and plenty of time to go celebrate the New Year afterward unless you just wanted to go home and sleep.

Before the show begins I play the Wurlitzer for 15-minutes. The Virginia is an old Vaudeville Theater which was built in the early 1920s and boasts a theater organ dating from the same time. Like the Theater itself, it had fallen into disrepair and been kept going on wings and prayers, or in the case of the organ, rubber bands and duct tape. The organ owes its continued existence to two gentlemen, the last of whom, Warren York, played the organ at this concert until the year before I started doing it. He was a beloved figure in our town, along with Dan Perino, who led the second half singalong into a couple of years ago. Both gentlemen have passed away. Warren York used to always wear red socks, which is why I wear them every year in tribute. Last year after he died the entire men's section of the Chorale wore them as well!

Unfortunately I can't seem to find any pictures of the Wurlitzer. I tried taking one myself--at the concert--you can imagine it didn't look like anything! The Wurlitzer has recently been restored by the Buzard Pipe Organ company of Champaign, Illinois, and looks and sounds great.

The concert is bookended by the 70-voice Chorale singing sets of a half-dozen pieces. In between, guest artists fill in with songs and instrumental music, and the audience gets to join in with the popular sing-along.

This year I was one of the guests. I played about half-an-hour of piano solo music of the lighter variety. In addition to the Grand Sonata in Rag which I've been discussing in other posts in this series, I played Gottschalk's "Union" and a little novelty piece called "Nola." One of our former college scholarship winners, Caitlin Caruso-Dobbs, returned to sing Irving Berlin's "Alexander's Ragtime Band," "My White Knight" from  The Music Man, and "The Girl in 14G." I was also the accompanist for her.. Since I double as The Chorale's regular accompanist as well, that meant that I was on the stage or in the pit for the entire concert, playing everything. Since the concert began at 7 and finished up at 9:30 (minus the 20-minute intermission plus 15 minutes before on the Wurlitzer and also 5 minute before the second half also at the Wurlitzer) I spent 2 and a half hours in concert. No wonder I'm still a little tired! I told someone backstage that I had set a new record that I wasn't planning to beat.

The Chorale usually goes "American" for this concert, and this year was no exception. We began with a very intriguing arrangement of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" by David Dusing, which was introduced by real-life radio man Jeff Bossert (who sings with us). We were then joined by a fellow named Josh on the harmonica, the first time either of us had collaborated with the other instrument. The occasion was Mark Hayes's arrangement of "Home on the Range." We then sang arrangements of "the Lonesome Dove" before concluding with a Gershwin pairing of "I've Got Rhythm" and "The Real American Folk Song is a Rag" which introduced Caitlin's rendition of the Berlin and the Rag Sonata. Fade to intermission, complete with a harmonica player strolling the lobby and later some more grand sounds from the Mighty Wurlitzer.

The sing-along always features music from the 30s and 40s, which was a little before my time, and the words are projected on glass slides that date back to the early days of the Theater. Sometimes they also have wisecracks on them.

Eve Harwood leading the singalong

I often have to go to Youtube to familiarize myself with these songs. This year I was at the airport waiting for my flight home from Dallas, listening to them through headphones from my Android and writing them down on a stray piece of staff paper. I notated the melody, hinted at the chord structure, and away we went on Tuesday night!

I should mention here that I had my second pleasant sing-along experience of the holidays season (the first was at the 7 o'clock Christmas Eve service) where a large gathering of people know the tunes well and are obviously enjoying singing them. The first thing you realize as organist is that you don't have to play the melody very much, and that you can even not play at all for a few beats here and there, creating a real accompaniment part under the congregants because they really don't need any help from the organ to sing out and even if you use a healthy selection of stops you are only going to be the junior partner in the proceedings, which allows for more creativity as you simply soak up the sounds and add a little pizazz at intervals. It was terrific! (I also remembered not to look down from the hydraulic lift!)

On the second half, after Caitlynn's singing and my other two numbers, the Chorale came back to sing more Stephen Foster--Oh! Susanna, attractively arranged by our friend Alice Parker. Then came a haunting version of "Poor Wayfaring Stranger" by Michael Richardson (I think he has Illinois ties). Ed Harris's arrangement of "Bound for the Promised Land" uses the original minor key version of the tune. Then we finished off with rousing renditions of "Who Are the Brave?" and "America, the Dream Goes On."

We finish the concert every year by holding hands (both out in the audience and on the stage) and singing "Auld Lang Syne." We sing it through once, then the organ modulates up a half-step (although this year I discovered a small cipher on the low f#--that's when a note won't stop sounding--so I went up a whole step instead. I hope Warren York's spirit won't mind!). This year the ceiling at the Virginia has been refurbished so there wasn't any "snow" as we got to the final chord. And yes, I managed to get a picture of the warm and fuzzy moment, even if I had to play 8 bars with one hand to get it:

It's not much of a picture, but the moment was pretty special.
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This year one of the funnier moments occurred when the Chorale had just finished singing their first set. The curtain came down quickly and our director, who was going to introduce the singer, was trapped on the wrong side of it. There I sat at the piano, alone in front of the curtain, while a pregnant pause threatened the production. So I played the moment a little, looking wistfully into the wings and giving signs of being very alone at the piano with nobody else on stage. The audience laughed and the show went on after a few seconds. Apparently it was convincing because I was asked later if that was part of the show! Somebody else told me they realized that I am really a ham!

onward to part six, which, I believe, is nearly the end. Thanks for reading this far. Seriously.

Some concert!

Wow.

If you're dialing in from Saskatoon or Zanzibar or any other place that isn't Champaign-Urban Illinois, and you weren't in the audience of about 300 who packed First Methodist Church in Urbana last night to hear The Chorale perform it's annual Celebration of Life concert, you missed an event.

The Chorale sang 15 hymns and spirituals largely from arrangements by Alice Parker and Robert Shaw. Tenor Davion Williams, a former Chorale scholarship winner, sang three lively pieces by African-American composers. I played a set of pieces you can hear by checking out Friday's blog. We were led for most of the evening by a man Artistic Director Julie Beyler referred to as "our Principal Guest Conductor" since he has been with us now five times in the last decade, Dr. Craig Jessop. Dr. Jessop was the director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir until 2008 and apparently doesn't mind conducting our "chamber ensemble" of a mere 70-80 members from time to time!

What can I say about this man? He has a pile of energy. I don't know where he gets it all, but it is certainly necessary when working with groups of that size. Even better, it radiates outward to the members of the ensemble and makes it seem we will never get tired and that there is no place we would rather be than right here right now making this glorious music. What a privilege!

Energy is all the more important because whenever we invite a guest clinician to work with us, which we do every 18-months, the group rehearses for a few hours on Friday night, all morning and afternoon on Saturday, then again Sunday afternoon for a couple hours, and the concert is in the evening. It is hard not to be exhausted by the time the concert begins, never mind when it is over, and those last two hours are of course when you'd like to be at your best. (By the way, I don't know what most folks do with their down time, but I usually have 4 church services to fit in there as well, and sometimes a wedding, too.) Until I actually see Dr. Jessop looking tired I'll not believe it.

This year's venture was a bit different than previous ones, and in some respects the load was lighter. We had no orchestra this year and all of our rehearsal time was spent directly with our guest. Not only was there no orchestra but most of the pieces were unaccompanied. I only played the organ for the final piece--the organ was actually positioned so I didn't have to cock my head at a funny angle to see the director or keep whispering to choir members to leave space so I could see the director. No, I had a straight ahead shot, which is a rarity. One of the two pieces with piano accompaniment was scored for piano duet so we invited a terrific accompanist from the university to join us. The rest of the evening was spent listening to the Chorale, seated at my usual premium position at the piano (although the sound is actually better in the back of the hall) and giving pitches. I remember after the first half being asked to take a bow and thinking I'd never actually taken applause for such a simple thing as giving pitches before.

Only it wasn't quite like that. I've been fortunate to work with several conductors who seem to worry about the boredom of their accompanist when the concert is filled with a cappella music and the accompanist's entire job is to play the opening chord for the choir a note at a time (bass, tenor, alto, soprano) and then sit and listen. On Friday night for some reason Dr. Jessop asked me to "noodle" a bit in the key of one of the pieces (and then to do it in the style of Aaron Copland). After that he would ask me occasionally to do some improvising to set the mood for the piece, and by the time of the concert I had a new function: to prelude every unaccompanied piece with a short improvised introduction on the piano.

It was an intriguing task. From the audience point of view the effect was to link the pieces together (Dr. Jessop asked for no applause between numbers) so that they sounded like an extended "meditation." From the choral point of view it not only set the mood, and the tempo (an important function of the conductor that Dr. Jessop graciously ceded to me), but as the final rehearsal minutes went past I started taking notes about what he told the choir to focus upon for each piece--when a particular rhythmic gesture was critical, when the piece needed to dance, or not drag, when the altos needed to sing a particular line with more force--and tried to include references to those musical moments in my "miniatures" as if to say to The Chorale, "now remember what needs to happen when we get to this part!" secretly, in music, so the audience need not be aware.

I started at the end of one of the pieces for this reason, and included parts of the chorus in another--one of the improvisations started with the aforementioned alto line. I second-guessed myself a couple of times when the results from The Chorale weren't what I'd hoped and I wondered if I didn't remind them of the right character. Although I suppose we are not all given to subtlety and those rapid reminders may not have always hit home. Also, we didn't actually tell them they should be listening for those things: they just sort of dawned on me as we got close to the concert. But as he says often, "music is 90 percent craft and 10 percent art." (That might be from Robert Shaw) So in addition to the interest the audience shares in just "playing whatever the spirit prompts at the moment" there is also attention to how to say it, and why.

Dr. Jessop and I had a system: I would look at him near the end of each improvisation so he could start his preparation beats. In at least one case the "passing of the baton" went so well that the choir starting promptly on the very next beat with all of the energy of the last chord of the piano.

There were some disappointments, certainly. The energy of our conductor was not always transferred to the singers, who may have been too engrossed in their music, or too rooted in each note to think in phrases and groups, and to get the spirit of the thing which really only comes in those moments when we are completely free of the page and its demands and can get to that next level and make art. But then there were the moments when it happened.

The Chorale is an amateur ensemble. It is not necessary to audition to get in. Anybody who loves to sing is welcome. Under those circumstances it is not likely the group will sound like a bunch of music majors who have devoted their professional lives to honing their craft, touring the world and recording masterworks of the repertoire with precision and skill. And they don't, much of the time. But here is what is amazing: sometimes, they actually do. There were a few moments during the all-day Saturday rehearsal when, at a suggestion form Dr. Jessop, suddenly the blend, the ensemble, the precision, the choral sound could have passed for that of a truly great choir. It is incredible that there are such moments--it isn't even fair to those of us who have spent thousands of hours and dollars and blood and sweat and tears to get there to have a non-professional group reach such heights.

But occasionally they do, even if only for a few measures. And it is really intriguing. That a group of basically regular folks can actually sound that good if they really focus, and spend enough time in practice with someone who not only knows how to get the sound out of them, but persists in trying. It happens. And it rocks me back every time, and I think...."Wow! That was The Chorale you just heard, folks!"

And it shouldn't be a mark against our regular leader, either. Artistic Director Julie Beyler is correct when she points out that she tells the choir most of the same things, but it seems to help to hear them from an exalted guest. Heck, I even had a moment when Dr. J. was reminded the fellas to hold their music at a certain angle so they could see him as well as their notes and I said to may piano duet partner, "I told them the same thing last week [in sectionals]!"

That can be naturally frustrating, of course, but like Dr. Jessop, I say that in love. It is hard to produce fine music. It takes extraordinary amounts of discipline, focus, and perseverance. I get frustrated with myself endlessly. (By the way, I wasn't satisfied with some portions of the pieces that I played during the concert, either.) But, in the end, that's the path you have to travel if you want to get there from here. Dr. Jessop proved that. A few times he had the choir drilling passages on rapid-fire repeat, going for an effect by singing the passage multiple times in order to make excellence a habit. Pianists, he reminded the group, do this sort of thing all the time. And he even practiced things like holding a pose as the last chord died away and not moving before the piece is really over.

In the process, I'd say he showed that it's really hard work, rather than native talent, that has the lion's share in making the pretty decent pretty wonderful. This was evident in the way the group sounded at times over the weekend. That's highly unfair to us professionals. But's its also pretty awesome.

Because I can hear it and say, "wow, that wasn't the St. Olaf Choir you just heard there, ladies and gentlemen. That was The Chorale!"

Fun weekend

It's going to be an interesting weekend. The bishop is coming for a visit at Faith UMC this Sunday. We are having a single service and inviting the entire church to it. Normally we have four weekend services, of which I play for them all, so, in a way, it is like getting three quarters of a week off. Sort of. Of course that one service will be more elaborate and stressful and call on more of my resources than a regular service would have, but it will certainly not be a snooze. Fortunately, that gives it a bit of luster for me.

The rest of the weekend will be spent in rehearsal with The Chorale, a community choral organization with about 70 members who sing at least three concerts annually, the first of which is always the first weekend in November. This time we are welcoming back Dr. Craig Jessop, former conductor of The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, for a fifth time! In an unusual twist, there will be no 20-piece orchestra this time around. Instead, Dr. Jessop will lead the group in mostly a cappella numbers. As the group's accompanist, I'll play the piano a couple of times and the organ once, and largely sit back and enjoy the concert. After about 8 or 9 hours of rehearsal Fri, Sat and Sunday, I won't mind the break. Normally I spend Sunday afternoon becoming the orchestral pianist and sight reading a new part in which most of my favorite notes have been farmed out to the other instruments.

But it doesn't quite end there. Tenor Davion Williams, a former scholarship winner, will sing a few solo numbers, to which I'll supply the accompaniment. And I'll also be playing a handful of short solo piano and organ pieces. I thought I'd let you listen in to some recordings I made on Tuesday as part of the learning process (this gives me a chance to see how well I can play the pieces while nervous).

Since the concert consists entirely of hymns and spirituals, I'm playing pieces based on hymns (Davion is singing spirituals; didn't that work out nicely?). Here they are, as well as some short remarks I'm planning to make as an introduction to each one:

[I probably won't say anything about this one, although it takes its name from a very interesting image in the book of Deuteronomy. I can just see a kid drawing of God with really really long arms.]

Leaning on the Everlasting Arms



This hymn tune bears the attractive name "Pisgah." The jury is out on where the name came from--possibly it's named after a mountain peak. I first heard this tune when The Chorale sang it a couple of years ago in an Alice Parker arrangement to the words of the 23rd Psalm. So if any of it sounds like verdant pastures and flowing water, that may be why.

Pisgah



Before every concert I've attended or played in for the last 10 or 15 years you hear the same announcement: please, turn off your cell phones! This might be what would happen if you didn't turn off your cell phone before a church service:

Jesus Calls Us



The year of Jubilee is come! That's the refrain to the following hymn. In order to announce this Year of Jubilee, it was time to sound the ceremonial trumpet.

Blow ye the trumpet, blow



When this tune was originally published, it was in a minor key. "On Jordan's Stormy Banks I Stand, and cast a watchful eye to Canaan's fair and happy land where my possessions lie." Only, a century later, as religious fashions came and went, people thought it sounded to solemn. So the tune was recast in a blithe, major key. Now just maybe it sounds as if we aren't standing on the stormy bank on the opposite side of the river at all, but we are already in the promised land. In any event, in this piece you'll hear both versions of the tune, alternately. I wonder which one will be left standing at the end....

Are We There yet?


If you happen to be in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, this weekend, perhaps I'll see you at 7 pm on Sunday at the First United Methodist Church in Urbana.