Amazing Grace
I guess this is a special week. Our madrigal was an Introit from a Requiem.
Today's chorale is more of a spiritual. Hard to say what shape Friday's motet will take.
Everybody knows 'Amazing Grace'. I first heard it via my mom's Joan Baez albums. Many have sung it in church. Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles and Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Judy Collins (and almost everyone else) have recorded it. Each of us has heard it on bagpipes (most recently for me and for many of you, at David Wattell's memorial service last year). The song is knitted into our culture, surely one of the most recognizable and beloved songs we have.
But today is not exactly about 'Amazing Grace'--it's about a particular singing of that great song. In June of 2015, Barack Obama went down to South Carolina for the memorial service for Reverend Clem Pinckney, one of the nine victims of the Charleston shootings. He delivered a eulogy of some 35 minutes; but some things can't be said in just words. Towards the end, as he mentioned the word 'grace'; he paused for what seemed like a long time; and then he began to sing.
I learned yesterday (from an op-ed in the NY Times by Thomas Friedman) that a folksinger named Zoe Mulford, moved as were so many by the president's eulogy and its musical conclusion, wrote a powerful song about this singing. It's called 'The President Sang Amazing Grace'. You can hear it, along with a little narrative, at this link.
But the thread doesn't stop there. Just recently, Stanford Live posted a remarkable performance of Mulford's song, recorded in Covid time, masked and distanced, by the Ethiopian-American singer Meklit and the Kronos Quartet. You can see and hear this version here.
And finally, I want to turn this back on each of you. What is your music for healing, for binding up wounds? What makes it so? Why do you return to certain pieces over and over again? How can we better recognize and share this power when we hear it, make it a part of our mutual lives, seek it out when we need it, share it with others?
For music--surely all of the arts--exists in part to provide this sort of solace. It's what we do. It's why we feel so bereft during these times when we can't join together and sing some of these songs together to ease our souls. We need to keep this always in mind, to listen and to remember and to stay in touch during these strange times, We need music, it's part of our souls; we need our songs, they're a lifeblood to each of us and to our community; we need each other, we're wrapped together by music.
I guess this is a special week. Our madrigal was an Introit from a Requiem.
Today's chorale is more of a spiritual. Hard to say what shape Friday's motet will take.
Everybody knows 'Amazing Grace'. I first heard it via my mom's Joan Baez albums. Many have sung it in church. Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles and Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Judy Collins (and almost everyone else) have recorded it. Each of us has heard it on bagpipes (most recently for me and for many of you, at David Wattell's memorial service last year). The song is knitted into our culture, surely one of the most recognizable and beloved songs we have.
But today is not exactly about 'Amazing Grace'--it's about a particular singing of that great song. In June of 2015, Barack Obama went down to South Carolina for the memorial service for Reverend Clem Pinckney, one of the nine victims of the Charleston shootings. He delivered a eulogy of some 35 minutes; but some things can't be said in just words. Towards the end, as he mentioned the word 'grace'; he paused for what seemed like a long time; and then he began to sing.
I learned yesterday (from an op-ed in the NY Times by Thomas Friedman) that a folksinger named Zoe Mulford, moved as were so many by the president's eulogy and its musical conclusion, wrote a powerful song about this singing. It's called 'The President Sang Amazing Grace'. You can hear it, along with a little narrative, at this link.
But the thread doesn't stop there. Just recently, Stanford Live posted a remarkable performance of Mulford's song, recorded in Covid time, masked and distanced, by the Ethiopian-American singer Meklit and the Kronos Quartet. You can see and hear this version here.
And finally, I want to turn this back on each of you. What is your music for healing, for binding up wounds? What makes it so? Why do you return to certain pieces over and over again? How can we better recognize and share this power when we hear it, make it a part of our mutual lives, seek it out when we need it, share it with others?
For music--surely all of the arts--exists in part to provide this sort of solace. It's what we do. It's why we feel so bereft during these times when we can't join together and sing some of these songs together to ease our souls. We need to keep this always in mind, to listen and to remember and to stay in touch during these strange times, We need music, it's part of our souls; we need our songs, they're a lifeblood to each of us and to our community; we need each other, we're wrapped together by music.