Category: music

a tribute to Bruce Borton

On Sunday, the Madrigal Choir of Binghamton (MCOB) opened its 46th season with a tribute concert to our late director, Dr. Bruce Borton, who passed away in August. He was only the second artistic director of Madrigal Choir and had served on their board and sung with them before being chosen as artistic director when founder Anne Boyer Cotten retired.

For the first few years of his tenure as MCOB director, Bruce was finishing out his long career with Binghamton (NY) University where I had had the privilege of singing under his direction for 29 years as part of the University Chorus, which included singers from the community as well as staff and students from the university. After the closure phase of the pandemic, with Univeristy Chorus permanently disbanded and Madrigal Choir in need of some additional voices, Bruce welcomed me to the second soprano section and invited me to serve on the MCOB board.

In spring of ’23, Bruce developed a serious illness and was on medical leave for most of the ’23-’24 season. He was, though, able to return to conduct Randall Thompson’s Frostiana for our spring concert in April. I had had a feeling at the time that it would be our last opportunity to sing under his direction but had not expected his decline to advance so quickly. I was grateful to be able to join with members of the Madrigal Choir, the Trinity Memorial Episcopal choir, and some of his former students at the University to sing at his funeral.

Uncharacteristically for me who often writes about difficult things in the moment, I couldn’t bring myself to post about Bruce until now.

The Madrigal Choir concert on Sunday was named for the anthem that Bruce had composed in honor of the 25th anniversary of his friend and colleague, Peter Browne, as music director of their church, Trinity Memorial Episcopal. The text is 1 Corinithians 13, which centers on love and is often used at both weddings and funerals. The second half of the concert began with a tribute to Bruce by Alison Dura, long-time Madrigal Choir singer, officer, and board member, followed by the singing of “Love Never Ends.” It was especially poignant to be singing it at Trinity, accompanied by the organ Peter had played for so many years and where both Peter’s and Bruce’s funerals had been held. The meaningfulness of the text and the beauty of Bruce’s setting were able to help me sing it without breaking.

The concert concluded with Morten Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna, which re-interprets Latin texts and chant into more modern tonalities. It was a reflective way to remember Bruce as we sang, “Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.” Rest eternal grant to them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.

Alleluia. Amen.

One-Liner Wednesday: Madrigal Choir of Binghamton concert on Sunday

If you are in the Binghamton, NY area, please join the Madrigal Choir of Binghamton for this concert, which will include a tribute to our late director, Bruce Borton.

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2024/10/23/one-liner-wednesday-no-better-time/

losing Joan

(Photo by July on Unsplash)

I got news yesterday of the death of a college friend.

Joan and I met in Ron Perera‘s first-year music theory class. Like me, Joan was a western Massachusetts native and a Catholic with close ties to her family. She was a talented violinist. I remember her giving a demonstration to our theory class, showing us all the techniques used to create different sonorities for us to use in our compositions.

For junior year, Joan went to the University of Michigan and decided to transfer there to finish her education. However, “once a Smithie, always a Smithie,” Joan remained a member of the Smith College class of ’82.

Joan went on to a successful career playing in orchestras, concluding with a long tenure with the Kennedy Center Opera Orchestra in Washington, DC. Her performance schedule kept her busy but, two years ago, she was able to attend our 40th reunion in Northampton, visiting family in the area which hadn’t been possible during the height of the pandemic. While we had been keeping in touch over the years, it was the first time in decades that we had seen each other and it was great. We started speculating where we would each be living post-retirement when our 45th reunion rolled around.

Right after reunion, Joan developed COVID. Fortunately, she wasn’t very sick but she was bummed about missing some of her opera performances.

It was a shock when she was diagnosed with acute lymphoma that fall. She immediately began chemotherapy. Due to the intensity of the treatment and her weakened immune system, she had to stay at home, where her husband Paul was her loving and capable caregiver.

In summer of last year, Joan was able to resume performing while her treatment migrated to a maintenance regimen. This January, she was posting about the orchestra.

And, sometime since, her remission ended and the cancer came back with a vengeance.

I didn’t know.

Early this month, I had emailed her some new photos of my granddaughters and Joan sent a reply about how beautiful they are. Sending photos had been something I had done during her home-bound period and continued to do from time to time. I am grateful that I was unknowingly able to add a moment of love and beauty to her final weeks.

Hearing the news of Joan’s death from our Smith friends was a shock and brought waves of tears. It’s also brought to mind this recent Washington Post article, raising the disturbing prospect that SARS-CoV -2 infection may play a role in the development of cancer, particularly rare or unusual ones. It will take years of research to determine whether or not this is the case but the mystery of it all is disquieting.

The final commendation at Joan’s funeral will begin, “May the angels lead you into Paradise.” May there be a beautiful violin waiting for you there, Joan.

One-Liner Wednesday: AGO Members concert!

Binghamton area folks are cordially invited to attend the Members Recital of our local chapter of the American Guild of Organists on Sunday, June 2, 2024 at 4 PM at the United Presbyterian Church of Binghamton, 42 Chenango Street.

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2024/05/29/one-liner-wednesday-wisdom/

end of our 45th season

Yesterday, I sang with the Madrigal Choir of Binghamton as we closed out our 45th anniversary season, which had concentrated on American themes.

This final concert was called “America Speaks” and focused on American poets. In an interesting twist, the poems were read by members of S.T.A.R. (Southern Tier Actors Read) before we sang the settings based on the poems. As a poet, I’m accustomed to hearing poets read, but actors enunciate and emote much more than most poets. I especially love that this concert took place during National Poetry Month.

(As it happens, I will have the opportunity to hear “Some Time Else,” one of the poems from my chapbook Hearts, read by an actor affiliated with the Glimmer Globe Theatre at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown on Saturday as part of Write Out Loud 2024. Stay tuned for more information.)

The highlight of the concert for me was performing Frostiana, Randall Thompson’s setting of seven poems by Robert Frost, written to celebrate the bicentennial of Amherst, Massachusetts. We were accompanied by members of the Binghamton Community Orchestra, so we could appreciate Thompson’s skill as an orchestrator as well as a composer. I especially liked the flute’s imitation of thrush calls in “Come In.”

What was most special, though, was that our artistic director, Dr. Bruce Borton, was able to conduct Frostiana for the performance. He has been battling a serious illness and this was his only appearance at our concerts this season. I began singing under his direction in 1988, when he was at the local university as a professor and began conducting the Binghamton University Chorus, which I had joined in 1982. I first sang “Choose Something Like a Star,” the final piece in Frostiana, under his direction relatively early in his tenure, so it was especially poignant to sing it yesterday.

I managed not to cry.

I hope to sing for Much Ado in the Garden this summer and for our 46th season. I’ll post details as they become available.

One-Liner Wednesday: April concert invitation

Binghamton NY area folks are invited to celebrate music and American poets this National Poetry Month with the Madrigal Choir of Binghamton at St. Thomas Aquinas Church on Sunday, April 14, at 4 PM.

This promotional message brought to you via Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2024/04/10/one-liner-wednesday-nuh-uh/

Ronald Perera memorial concert

Earlier this month, I was privileged to attend a memorial concert for Ron Perera, composer and professor emeritus of music at Smith College. The concert took place in Sweeney Concert Hall in Sage Hall, the long-time center of musical life on campus. I had taken five semesters of theory and composition with Mr. Perera and he had been my major advisor. We had been in touch variously over the decades and we had enjoyed a wonderful lunch together last spring when I was back on campus to sing with the Smith College Alumnae Chorus.

All the pieces at the concert were Ron Perera’s compositions, some of which were performed by the musicians for whom they were written. I especially appreciated seeing pianist Professor Emerita Monica Jakuc Leverett perform Out of Shadow almost 36 years after its premiere. Another piano piece that I loved was Three Waltzes for Four Hands, written for Ron’s three daughters, and performed by Professor Emeritus Kenneth Fearn and his daughter, Kaeza. I’m looking forward to ordering a copy for daughter E and son-in-law L to play for our granddaughters ABC and JG.

As a writer and choral singer, I was especially drawn to the choral pieces that opened and closed the concert. The opening was “Hold Out Your Hands Over the Earth” from The Outermost House, text by Henry Beston. The work was commissioned by the Chatham Chorale, on Cape Cod. The Perera family lived on the Cape during the summers and Ron loved to sail there. Some of the text in this movement is:

To all who love her, who open to her the doors of their veins, she gives strength, sustaining them with her own measureless tremor of dark life. Touch the earth, love the earth, honor the earth, her plains, her valleys, her hills, and her seas; rest your spirit in her solitary places.

It was a perfect reflection to begin.

Besides the music, there were four remembrances in the program. The first was from one of Ron’s daughters, Rosalind, which also served as a welcome. Two were from pastors of St. John’s Episcopal Church, located in the midst of Smith’s campus, where Ron was a long-time member and volunteer. The other was from Professor Emeritus Donald Wheelock, who was Ron’s composer-colleague for many years and who helped to organize the concert. It was beautiful to hear them speak about his kind, caring nature and the depth and breadth of his thoughts, talents, interests, and beliefs. Even as a college student, I could sense what a wonderful man he was and it was inspiring to hear how he sustained those qualities throughout his life and shared them with so many, most especially his family.

The concert closed with the Smith College Chamber Singers offering Ron’s setting of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Music, When Soft Voices Die” conducted by Jonathan Hirsh, who is a current faculty member, friend of Ron, and another concert organizer. He had graciously kept me apprised of the plans as the memorial came together so that I could arrange to attend. It was such a perfect, quiet, love-filled ending to the memorial. “And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,/ Love itself shall slumber on.”

At the reception after the concert, I was able to speak briefly with Don Wheelock and Jonathan Hirsh and at greater length with the third organizer, Professor Emerita Karen Smith Emerson. I am grateful for their work in putting the program together to celebrate a remarkable, generous, talented man who leaves a legacy of music and writings but, more importantly, of human connection and spiritual strength.

I’m also grateful to CK, Smith ’81, and her spouse who opened their lovely home near campus to B and me for the weekend. I appreciated their hospitality and their companionship at the concert and reception. I’m hoping CK will be able to sing with us the next time I’m back on campus for an event with the Smith College Alumnae Chorus.

It will be bittersweet, though, knowing that Ron will not be there to hear us. Maybe, we will perform a piece of his music in remembrance…

recording of the concert

One-Liner Wednesday: Seiji Ozawa

Western music is like the sun. All over the world, the sunset is different, but the beauty is the same.

Seiji Ozawa (1935-2024), former conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2024/02/14/one-liner-wednesday-and-chocolate/

(grand)childcare

(Photo: ABC’s bear wearing a Binghamton Rumble Ponies cap)

Spouse B, daughter T, and I are in London this week visiting daughter E, son-in-law L, and granddaughters ABC and JG for half-term break. This first half of the week, both E and L are working, so our main goal is taking care of ABC and JG so they can do that.

The last time we were together in person was April when they came to our home in the US. Although we do video calls, they can’t really capture the changes that happen. JG, now 3 and attending full-day nursery school is chatting up a storm! She loves making puzzles, zooming around our rental house near their home, and following the lead of 6-year-old ABC, who likes or tolerates it most of the time. ABC, now in year 2 at school, is reading well and a master of make-believe. She can make up songs and lyrics on the spot, taking after her musically-and-literary-accomplished parents. ABC also enjoys dance and art.

I love watching B being Grandpa, playing games, reading stories, preparing meals and snacks, and dozing off during naptime. T is an involved auntie, playing endless games of hide-and-seek and whatever make-believe ABC has invented and giving gentle hugs, in deference to her still-healing shoulder.

My favorite thing is just being here as family. With the ocean between us, it’s a rare gift to snuggle on the couch, especially with JG who was born during the early part of the pandemic and whom we didn’t get to meet in person until she was a year old. Such a different grandparenting experience than with ABC who lived with us in the US until she was two.

For JG, I’m just Nana. ABC, though, remembers her Great-Nana, who passed away in 2019.

I miss my parents and wish I could be as good a grandparent as they were with E and T.

One-Liner Wednesday: the purpose of practicing art

What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.

Kurt Vonnegut

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays and Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2024/01/10/one-liner-wednesday-jusjojan24-the-10th-so/