Smith College – Page 5

Poem and Art by Lorrie Lane

Lorrie Sandel Lane and I met at Haven House at Smith College. She was the class following mine. She studied English and studio art, but has made her career as a painter.

We have some commonalities in our lives. Lorrie married a few weeks after I did and celebrated her 33rd wedding anniversary earlier this year, as B and I did. We both named our firstborn daughters Elizabeth. And we both turned rather unexpectedly to poetry in our fifties.

I want to share a painting and poem of Lorrie’s today. It was posted on her literary page on Facebook, which is available to “like” as well as her art page. (See, I engage in shameless promotion for other people, too.)

Enjoy!

Poem: Lessons from Mahler

I am thrilled to announce that Silver Birch Press has just published my poem “Lessons from Mahler” as part of their When I Hear That Song series. I am particularly pleased that they found a copy of the album cover and included a link to a youtube copy of the recording. The song about which I wrote the poem begins at about 12:40, although the whole recording is phenomenal! https://silverbirchpress.wordpress.com/2015/11/08/lessons-from-mahler-haibun-by-joanne-corey-when-i-hear-that-song-series/

Thank you to Silver Birch Press, to Heather Dorn of the Binghamton Poetry Project for teaching me about haibun during our summer session and for giving feedback on this poem, and to the Bunn Hill Poets who workshopped this with me and helped me to make it stronger.

Also, thanks to my friend and Smith roommate Mary who took the accompanying photo for our class of ’82 yearbook. A few people remember me from way back then!

SoCS: Singing

Singing has been a constant in my life. As a child I sang at school and at church. In high school, I sang in the mixed chorus and in my final year made the Girls’ Ensemble. I could sing, do (simple) choreography, and smile all at the same time! I also was in a few musicals, nearly always in the chorus.

I really learned to be a good choral singer in college. At Smith, I finally learned to sing classical music, everything from Gregorian chant up through newly composed work. Granted, in those days, we sang Western music only. Today, I would probably get to do some world music as well. I also got used to singing in different languages. While I had sang mostly in English, with a bit of Latin, before college, I sang frequently in Latin and German, with some Hebrew and French.

For the past 33 seasons, I have sung with the Binghamton University Chorus, which is a town-gown group, meaning we have students, faculty and staff from the university, and community members participating. Some of our members are in their 80s; I know of at least one who has reached her 90s!

I hope that I will still be singing, if I am blessed enough to reach that age.

As the hymn says, “How can I keep from singing?”
*****
This post is part of Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturdays. The prompt this week was to begin the post with a word ending in -ing. Please join us! Find out how here: http://lindaghill.com/2015/10/09/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-1015/

This month a year ago…

Warning: I haven’t been sleeping well, so rambling is upcoming.

I’ve done some posts about this being the tenth anniversary of some huge losses in my life, but today I am reflecting on a year ago.

Last September, I sang with the Smith College Alumnae Chorus for a choral homecoming weekend with Alice Parker. One of the posts I made afterward was about visiting the memorial tree for our friend Beth who died during our senior year and the chapel where I had spent so many hours. I had always intended to write another post about friendship and Smith women, but didn’t for reasons that will probably become clear later on in the post. I’m hoping to give a taste of that topic now…

I love to spend time with Smith women, especially back in Northampton. It is always special to me to see my roommate Mary with whom I share such a deep connection that we pick up conversation as though we weren’t a couple thousand miles apart the vast majority of the time.

I was blessed to renew ties with two women, each named Cathy, whom I had known during my Smith years, although they were in different class years so I didn’t know them as well. It may not come as a surprise that our best times for sharing revolved around food. Cathy R. invited us to a lovely farm-fresh al fresco lunch with her family who had travelled with her and we talked about farming and New England and family and medicine and art and photography and how some of us would have been at the Climate March in NYC that day if we hadn’t already committed to being at Smith for the weekend.

Cathy K. lives in the next town over from Northampton and invited us to her home after the concert for appetizers before going out to dinner. Her family owns a couple of local stores that sell specialty foods, wine, prepared foods, and more. Everything was so plentiful and delicious that we never did go on to dinner but spent hours eating, talking, laughing, and sharing. Family, education, politics, losses, music, career changes, hopes, the future, new directions. It is so seldom that one has an opportunity to discuss with such depth and breadth. I am profoundly grateful that being with Smith women so often leads to these heart-mind-and-soul-enriching conversations.

I was also grateful to have re-connected with Anne, who is a wonderful poet and who graciously accepted a copy of the chapbook I had assembled the prior year for a local contest, even though neither the individual poems nor my editing abilities were advanced enough to warrant doing so. She sent me valuable feedback and advice and has since looked over other poems for me. She is one of my poetry godmothers!

Now, a year later, the Alumnae Chorus is coming up on a deadline to sign up to tour in Cuba next July. And I can’t do it. Within this next year, both E and T plan to finish their master’s degrees and our travel time and resources need to go to supporting them. I also must admit that the thought of touring Cuba doesn’t really appeal to me, especially in the heat of late July. I am such a delicate flower that I would probably wilt!

And yesterday was Grandma’s (my mother-in-law) birthday. She has a problem with admitting her age so I won’t reveal it here, but this year was especially difficult for her because last year at this time we were in the throes of trying to determine what was wrong with her back. It turned out that an osteoporotic compression fracture in a vertebra led to its collapse and a long year of pain and complications and medications and therapy and ups and downs. Well, a lot more downs than ups.

Her elder son and his daughter came to visit for the weekend, which was nice, but it also was a reminder of how much she can’t do anymore. Grandma was trying to wish away the last year, which is painful to watch.

It’s also a reminder of how stressful the last year has been. Exhibit A: my outbreak of shingles last December. Lucky for you, I’m not going on to the rest of the exhibits. I am doing better with giving myself a bit more distance, but it is still sad and concerning and draining.

Especially in September.

I’m working on getting myself back into a better place. I actually managed to sleep a five hour stretch last night.

I’ll take all the progress I can get.

Dessert Is Not the End, poem by Anne Harding Woodworth (MY SWEET WORD Series)

I am so happy to share a wonderful poem from Anne Harding Woodworth. I met Anne when we were both singing with the Smith College Alumnae Chorus, touring in Sicily. When I started to write poetry, Anne generously shared advice and tips with me. I am so excited that she has a poem in this Silver Birch Press series because I will also have a poem of mine featured at some point in the coming weeks. I’m honored to be included with such an accomplished poet as Anne.

Silver Birch Press

Dessert Is Not the End
by Anne Harding Woodworth

The night we made s’mores
our lives slid into each other further,

closing the gap of our childhoods—
parallel lines distanced by miles

of prairieriversandgreatlakes over separate campfires,
separate hearths in those days. Yet there was a sharing

of chocolatemeltedmarshmallowandgrahamcrackers.
An uncomplicated recipe is not forgotten—

like the taste of coalescence, a sliding
of something into an opening, sweet, dark and light,

soft and heated and held within sturdy walls—
you and me, at last folding the child

into the story of all these years—
and wishing for s’more, just a few more.

PHOTO: Anne and Fred in the 1950s. They did not know each other as children.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Anne Harding Woodworth is the author of five books of poetry and three chapbooks. Her persona poems in the voice of a woman who dreads being confined in her old…

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Paul Goldstaub tribute concert

On January 31st, the Music Department of Binghamton (NY) University presented a concert of Professor Emeritus Paul Goldstaub’s music on the first anniversary of his death. It was wonderful to hear such an eclectic mix of Paul’s music, much of it performed by the musicians who had premiered it.

I found my mind going back to my own studies of theory and composition at Smith. At that time, we began our theory course sequence in a contemporary setting with the study of rhythm, timbre, and melody, before progressing in later semesters to common practice period harmony, counterpoint, and chromatic harmony. The concert opened with a fugue for 3 snare drums, which included some air drumming and left us wishing that we could have seen the score to see how Paul had notated it. The second half of the concert opened with Pastorale II for flute and digital delay, played by Georgetta Maiolo. I loved how it wedded wonderful melodic writing with contemporary technology, with the digital delay taking the place of what would probably have been done by tape in my student days.

I also appreciated that Paul wrote for so many different instruments and combinations. In the concert, there was a piece for trombone and piano and one for marimba and piano. Hindemith came to mind. The concert program included a full list of Goldstaub’s composition, arranged chronologically, which allowed us to appreciate the full scope of his range as a composer.

Paul’s inventiveness as a composer was on fullest display in the excerpts from Every Evening for baritone, a chorus of three sopranos, piano, and percussion duo. Before each movement was sung, the poem was read by Professor Emeritus Martin Bidney, who had translated them from Russian, into which they had been translated from the Spanish folk tradition. The settings that followed had an incredible richness of soundscape, including some pitched speech reminiscent of Sprechstimme, close harmony from the three sopranos, and dialogue between the baritone and varied combinations of the sopranos.

As a member of a chamber chorus drawn from the Binghamton University Chorus, it was my privilege to participate in the final piece on the program, the first movement of Shakespeare Mix, which Paul had written for us in 2002. Accompanied by two pianos and percussion, we sang from Twelfth Night, “If music be the food of love, play on.” As we finished, a photograph of Paul was projected on a screen beside the stage. As the ovation went on, it was good to know that we had all joined together that evening to make sure that Paul Goldstaub’s music does “play on.”

Visiting chapel and Beth’s tree

Mary, Tricia, and I with Beth's tree next to Helen Hills Hills Chapel, Smith College — Mary, Tricia, and I with Beth’s tree next to Helen Hills Hills Chapel, Smith College

After the Alice Parker concert at Sage Hall, Mary, Tricia and I proceeded up the hill near Paradise Pond to Helen Hills Hills Chapel.

Our first priority was to visit the winter-flowering cherry tree planted beside the chapel that is dedicated to the memory of Beth McBeath, another class of ’82 Glee Club member, who died as the result of an airplane fire during October break of our senior year. Her funeral was held at the chapel and Glee Club sang Bach’s setting of “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” through our tears during the service. Later, I attended the planting of the memorial tree, although the tree in the photo is not the original tree but a replacement for the one we planted that day, a weeping cherry that was unrecoverably damaged in an ice storm years later.

Beth was a light-filled, infectiously joyous person. She served the Ecumenical Christian Church (ECC) at Smith as a deacon and liturgist. She participated in the Smith choral program in all her years there, serving as an officer as well as lending her alto voice to our choirs. In the best tradition of the liberal arts, she studied with both breadth and depth, including taking a course in the art department on bookmaking. She was always friendly and interested in other people. Like me, as we entered our senior year, she was engaged to be married.

Her loss, along with another classmate who died from lung cancer later in our senior year, taught us not to take time for granted. Her memorial tree is something that I try to visit every time I get back to campus. I make donations to the Smith Fund in her memory, which puts me in touch with her mom, who still survives. Mary sent the photo, which we took with her phone, to Beth’s mom. I hope it made her smile.

After visiting the tree, we went into the chapel. None of us had seen it since the pews were removed, although we had seen a photo in the Smith Alumnae Quarterly. Despite that, it still was a bit of a shock to walk through the front doors of the chapel, which was modeled after a traditional New England Congregational style church, and not see the rows of white-painted wooden pews with the red center aisle carpet down which I had walked as a June bride a few weeks after our commencement. Instead, there were heavy, boxy wooden chairs, arranged in circles over a wood floor. Given that there are no longer regular worship services in the chapel, a fact that still makes me sad, I do understand the impetus to remove the pews to make the space more versatile for concerts and other events, but I wish that the wood floor had been a traditional New England hardwood and the chairs had been more elegant and in keeping the architecture.

Still it was better than the last time I had visited chapel in May 2012, when I wrote this poem that touches on both the chapel and Beth’s tree. chapel at reunion (Sorry for the pdf embedding, but I didn’t have time to fiddle with the editing settings to get the indents and spacing to work correctly.)

After walking through the main body of the chapel, we went upstairs to the gallery and visited the organ, which was a memorial gift in honor of Helen Hills Hills’ husband James. I spent so many hours on that bench, practicing, having lessons, accompanying for Choir Alpha, playing for Mass, prepping for my junior recital with Mary and Natalie, preparing for and playing preludes or postludes for ECC services, and additional hours standing beside the bench turning pages for other organists. It’s moments like this when it feels odd that I haven’t played for years…

We also walked to the basement where the offices are. Almost every room has a different occupant or purpose than when we were there. I thought about the series of Marc Chagall prints that used to hang in the hallway. I think the art museum took custody of them so that they are in a better protected environment, but it used to be so cool to have original artworks in an everyday space. The Bodman Lounge is still there, with shelves of spiritual and religious books and couches and comfy chairs. Mary had given me a bridal shower there and it was the room in which I dressed for my wedding.

I felt reluctant to leave. Even with all the changes, the richness of the memories will always draw me back.

Alice Parker

This is the first of what I hope will be several followups to the Smith College Alumnae Chorus celebration of Alice Parker ’47 which took place on September 21. I thought it best to begin with a post concentrating on Alice Parker and her music.

The Alumnae Chorus sang two sets of Miss Parker’s compositions, Three Seas, with three poems by Emily Dickinson as texts, and Incantations, with four poems by Elinor Wylie. We also sang a Parker arrangement of the spiritual “Come On Up.” Miss Parker conducted her pieces in the concert, although we were able to rehearse with her only on Friday afternoon and Sunday morning.

The music was challenging, especially under the circumstances, with each member of the chorus learning the pieces on her own before coming together to have everything performance ready in under 48 hours. (We also prepared three Ralph Vaughan Williams settings of English folk songs, which were conducted by Jonathan Hirsh, the current Smith Glee Club director.) I knew there would be mistakes in the concert, but the performance was successful because we were able to communicate the poetry, music, and mood to the audience. We were relieved to hear Miss Parker reminds us several times during rehearsal that there is no such thing as a perfect performance.

The best part of the experience of working with Miss Parker was hearing her talk about poetry, her process as a composer, and her life. She read the poems to us in rehearsal – and to the audience in the concert, relishing not only the meaning conveyed but also the sounds of the vowels and consonants tumbling along one after the other. She talked about how poems in English fall into rhythms in groups of twos and threes, which results in so much of her music being written in 5 or 7 (3+2 or 3+2+2) to follow the word rhythm. Miss Parker works only on commission, so she always has a specific group for which she is writing and a deadline to deliver the score. She explained that once she has chosen the texts, she reads them aloud over and over and, as she begins to compose the melody for the text, sings and dances the poems, filling in the harmony and counterpoint in her head. She wants the music to be fluid and alive as long as possible, only committing it to paper when the deadline is looming. She said, “The page is nothing but a prison for music.” I was so struck by that statement that I hurriedly wrote it down. It will always remind me that music is alive and not the static black-on-white notation that we struggle to replicate.

Miss Parker also told us stories from her life, especially her famous association with Robert Shaw, with whom she collaborated on many arrangements before taking on solo assignments from him. The director of the Binghamton University Chorus, with which I have sung for years, also worked with Mr. Shaw and loves to tell stories about him, so it was fun to hear stories about him from a different perspective.

What was most heartening was seeing a woman born in 1925, still engaged in creative work and still engaged with family, friends, community, and her alma mater. Should we all be so blessed.

Smith College Alumnae Chorus

Early tomorrow morning, I leave for Northampton to participate with the Smith College Alumnae Chorus (SCAC) and the Smith College Chorus and Glee Club in a tribute concert to fellow alumna Alice Parker ’47. We will be singing some of her compositions and arrangements and she will be conducting some of the performance herself, at the age of 89! Here is a link to the campus press article about it: http://www.smith.edu/news/the-power-of-womens-song-alumnae-chorus-to-honor-composer-alice-parker-47/

Because the members of the SCAC are spread out across the country, we have been learning our parts on our own and have an intensive rehearsal schedule from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning to be ready for the concert Sunday afternoon. Of course, I am looking forward to the music itself, because I love to sing. I have sung a number of Alice Parker’s works over the years, beginning when I was on campus as an student, including a premiere written for the 25th anniversary of Helen Hills Hills chapel during my sophomore year. (Yes, for those who aren’t familiar with Smith, Helen Hills Hills is correct; Ms. Hills married a cousin.)

Helen Hills Hills Chapel Smith College Northampton MA — Helen Hills Hills Chapel
Smith College
Northampton MA

I am also looking forward to being back on Smith’s beautiful campus as summer turns to fall. Paradise Pond and Island, the gardens, and the arboretum, which is located throughout campus, will be just beginning to show their fall colors.

I am very excited to see my SCAC friends, especially my college roommate Mary, with whom I will be sharing a hotel room. She lives a couple thousand miles away from me, so it is always an event when we can get together! I’m proud to say that our class of ’82 will have five members in the chorus this time around, among the other singers who will range from class of 1958 through class of 2011.

Besides the alumnae from my era that I know, I am also looking forward to seeing some of the women I met when SCAC did its first international tour to Sicily in 2011. We sang Mozart Requiem in three fabulous cathedrals and had amazing sightseeing tours and some of the most delicious food ever! It was my first – and so far only – trip to Europe and memorable in so many ways. Here are links to Facebook photo albums from that trip:
In and near Palermo: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1886246721373.2096968.1397554070&type=1&l=1cec6fc201
On the road and Agrigento: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1888024885826.2097042.1397554070&type=1&l=3750b71abbCatania/third concert: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1889498042654.2097145.1397554070&type=1&l=c4bb1ef847
Mount Etna: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1889812410513.2097161.1397554070&type=1&l=0fcd144dab
Taormina: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1902946218850.2097804.1397554070&type=1&l=7e109ce0b2
Giardini di Naxos and the first two concert churches: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1904778064645.2097873.1397554070&type=1&l=510431c641
Thankfully, there are no photos of the goose egg I got on my head after I walked full-tilt into a glass wall!

This shot is included in one of the albums, but I had to share it here, too, as I know it is a favorite of some friends. My luggage had gotten lost and it didn’t catch up to me until we were in our second destination. I was very happy to have it back! This is currently the photo posted on my Top of JC’s Mind Facebook page, which you are invited to visit and like. (Hint, hint.)

I had to miss the second tour, so this will be my first opportunity to re-connect with the SCAC members I met in Sicily. One of them, Anne Harding Woodworth ’65, is a poet, which I hadn’t realized when we were traipsing about in Sicily. We have communicated by email a bit and she has graciously agreed to look at my first attempt at assembling a chapbook.

So many threads coming together! I don’t know if I will get any posts in while I am gone, but wish everyone a fabulous weekend. I fully intend to be having one myself!

SoCS: The best years of my life

When I was in college, senior week/commencement happened at the same time as all the reunions. My house always hosted the 60th reunion, with alumnae staying in the rooms vacated by the undergrads. A few undergrads stayed to help out with the activities or because they were members of Glee Club and needed to stay to sing. Of course, all the seniors were there enjoying the campus for the last few days before graduating. I was always really taken by the vitality and zest for living of the alumnae there for their 60th – in their early 80s, they were excitedly meeting up to chat, climbing the stairs without seeming exertion, heading out to activities, and marching in the Ivy Day parade without any problems. My friends and I marvelled at their long-standing friendships, intelligence, wit, and wisdom and hoped that, in 60 years when it was our turn to be back there, we would be as gracious and engaged with life as they were.

The one comment that always gave me pause, though, was many of them saying that years at Smith are the best years of life.

We students had just all come through another hectic semester, filled with learning and friends and growth, but we were also often anxious, sleep-deprived, and overwhelmingly busy. I would think – please, no, tell me that this is not as good as life gets.

My mother-in-law would cite the years she was at home with her young sons as the best. I loved my own young daughters and was constantly amazed at their lives unfolding before me as I tried my best to care for them and help them learn about themselves and the world. But those years were also filled with lack of sleep, innumerable trips to the doctors’ office, budgetary wizardry, and mistakes – which, even though I tried to rectify them as quickly as I made them, still carry tiny twinges of regret. So, was that supposed to be the best?

Others nominate childhood or high school – no one seems to pick middle school – as the best years. They somehow remember those times as carefree, but they are often times when young people are being pressured to conform to being members of groups that may not suit them well at all and are confronted with adult-size problems which their child or teen selves are not equipped to handle – and somehow adults expect them to make decisions like adults, which they decidedly are not.

I agree with my (very wise) mother. There is no “best age.” Phases in life are certainly unique and have their own charms but they also have their own problems. I would not trade my years at Smith for anything. College was a unique experience. I learned so much about so many different topics but most of all I learned about myself. And I learned as much from my peers with whom I lived as I did from my professors. Being in a women’s college taught me so much respect and admiration for women’s capabilities and leadership. I don’t think I would be the same person were it not for those for years.

But that doesn’t make them “the best.” That time was often difficult and sometimes lonely. I missed my family and my boyfriend (now my spouse of 30+ years). The intellectual work was stimulating, but also exhausting as I always tried to do my very best. Even at Smith, there were instances of lack of respect for women’s autonomy, especially in having to deal with church issues, which, as a Catholic organist, I frequently did.

The same mix of positives and negatives applies to other times of my life. None of them ever could or should be seen as “the best.”

What I feel called to do is to give my best and try my best at all times of life. There will always be some good even in the midst of bad times and some struggle even in good times.

But never any one time as “the best years of my life.”

This post is part of Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturdays. This week’s prompt was: young, old, or anything to do with age. Please join us! Details are at the link below.

http://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/08/29/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-august-3014/

Badge by Doobster @Mindful Digressions

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