Category: music

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/ 

Review: American Symphony

Last night, B, T, and I watched American Symphony on Netflix, a documentary which followed the extraordinary musician Jon Batiste in 2022. It is also being shown in theaters.

I had loved watching Jon Batiste on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He and his band, Stay Human, were the house band on the show, beginning with its inaugural episode in 2015. I appreciated Jon’s talent, his ability to cross and blend musical genres, and his gentle, positive spirit. While his jazz roots were always in evidence, he would often use elements from classical music or indigenous/folk music in his compositions, arrangements, and improvisations. During the early part of the pandemic when the show was being produced remotely, Jon would often still have a segment with Stephen where they would talk from their respective homes and Jon would play a bit on his piano or sing. Even though things were very different, it was a comfort to hear Jon’s expressive, calming voice in a difficult time.

Jon always had multiple projects going on, including performing, recording, and composing. For example, he won an Oscar for best original score as one of the composers for Disney-Pixar’s Soul in 2021. 2022 was set to be another busy, productive year for Jon Batiste, which director Matthew Heineman set out to document on film.

Jon was preparing to premiere his “American Symphony” which would bring together elements of influence of his and American music on stage at Carnegie Hall for a one-time-only performance. He was about to be nominated for 11 Grammy awards across an array of genres. There was still his Late Show gig.

And then, his long-time partner and soon-to-be spouse, the writer/author Suleika Jaouad, had a recurrence of leukemia after ten years in remission and American Symphony transformed from being a documentary about a composer and his music into a film about love, life, living, and how art expresses that all, helps us to process, and propels us forward.

The openness of Jon and Suleika in showing us their pain, anxieties, and vulnerability, as well as their love, art, and joys, is incredibly brave and moving. It was upsetting to me to hear that Jon faced a lot of criticism and negative comments about his eleven Grammy nominations – and eventual five wins, announced while Suleika was beginning chemotherapy. It just seemed so mean-spirited to inflect on a gentle soul at such a vulnerable time. I had known that things were stressful for Jon because he needed to end his years as band leader at The Late Show, but I hadn’t realized the extent of the situation until watching American Symphony.

While being a musician or music-lover will add to your appreciation of this film, it is certainly recommended to all teens and adults who are open to honest expressions of the human condition. It is not for younger children, who might be upset by the intensity of the medical side of the story.

My best wishes to Jon and Suleika for many years of love and art to come. Thank you for sharing so much of yourselves with us.

Photo by Denise Jans on Unsplash

SoCS: concert update

Just back from a long day that featured the first of Madrigal Choir’s Lessons and Carols performances. It was in a small church to our north. Our audience was small but appreciative. It gives me confidence in our performance in our home county tomorrow, which will draw a larger number of listeners.

Now, I need to get some rest…
*****
This short and sweet post is part of Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday series. The prompt this week is “confidence.” You can find out more about SoCS here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/12/01/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-dec-2-2023/

One-Liner Wednesday: Lessons & Carols invitation

For those in the Binghamton/Norwich NY area, please join the Madrigal Choir of Binghamton for our annual Festival of Lessons and Carols this weekend!

This concert promotion message is brought to you as part of Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday series. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/11/29/one-liner-wednesday-sometimes-2/

SoCS: creativity

It’s important to me to create.

These days, I create poems. I create posts here at Top of JC’s Mind.

I also express myself creatively in less obvious ways. Through cooking. Through taking photos (on occasion. I’m not one to be constantly photographing.) In conversation. While singing. In correspondence. In my own thoughts as I’m puzzling through a complex situation and trying to find options.

I love my role in creating my family.

I also love being part of creating community, whether that is on a small, local level or something much broader, like the global community working on climate change. Even though I am a very, very tiny part of such a large community, I realize that my creativity and energy are adding to the effort.

An aspect of creativity that was very important to me as a young adult was writing music. That part of my creative life was lost to me in 2005 when we went through a crisis at my Catholic parish that fractured my relationship with it and my music ministry. Because I wrote music for them, my impetus to use my creativity to write music also broke. I think that rupture may be part of the reason I turned to poetry as a means of creative expression. That artistic energy needed somewhere to go.

Will I eventually return to writing music? At this point, I don’t anticipate that happening.

But creativity is often surprising and unpredictable and wondrous and glorious, so…
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “create.” Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/11/10/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-nov-11-2023/