Building Bridges
Well beyond my Sunday school years—hearing murmurs of a "partner church" in the mysterious land of Transylvania—but well before I would ever travel as an MLUC pilgrim, Kaitlyn and I were visiting artists with the Csik Chamber Orchestra in the Szeklerland region of Transylvania in 2013. A chaotic period of my life, I had just finished my master's degree (that same week, actually), was looking for a job, we were planning our wedding; and at 4 a.m. the day our plane was to take off from Philadelphia, I completed the second commissioned composition that we would perform with the orchestra. On the plane, Kaitlyn and I studied my score, while she quietly discerned intervals and rhythms, and I wrote in fingerings and bowings. This was the most practice we would get before our first rehearsal at 8 a.m. (Bucharest time), following our 1 a.m. arrival at my friend's home in Csíkszereda. We arrived at the rehearsal venue, only for my friend to inform me that the conductor's train from Budapest was five hours late and, as the composer and guest concertmaster, I would have to lead the first rehearsal. And by the way, my friend was the only English speaker in the orchestra. How could I possibly bridge the language divide?
Delirious from anxiety and sleep deprivation, I tried hand gestures and my dubiously pronounced, approximately 40 Hungarian words, but nobody understood. I tried working through my friend, but the translation time was massively inefficient. Then, an orchestra member pointed to my violin case and mimed playing my instrument to give instructions. It was ingenious. We had an obvious common language right in front of us the whole time. Armed with my violin and some universal Italian, French, and German music terms, I led a successful first rehearsal of both of my new pieces, Copland's Appalachian Spring (an homage to our Pennsylvania/Transylvania collaboration), and Respighi's Il Tramonto. For a week—thankfully, under the guidance of our conductor—we rehearsed eight hours a day together, ate meals together, and performed successful concerts across the region. (Click here to watch a video of our performance of my piece "Impressions from Beyond the Forest" from our collaboration.) I'm not sure many of us exchanged more than a few actual words, but music easily bridged our language divide. In fact, music was such a powerful, effective bridge that we parted not only as collaborators but as friends.
And music is far more than a bridge across cultures and languages; music is a bridge to our past and future. There are enough bridges connecting, say, Bach to Beethoven or Joplin to Jazz, that an entire lineage could be traced from the music we hear Kerstin and Bob play as Pastimes to the music we hear from Schrodinger's Cats. Likewise, the music we create and cultivate today will be a bridge to the art of our future. It's a profound realization. This Sunday, the MLUC Choir extends the bridge metaphor to the support of one another in times of turbulence. We will sing Lloyd Larson's "Author of Justice," after the Irish tune behind "Wake Now My Senses" (also, "Be Thou My Vision"); Becki Slagle Mayo's popular "Candle of Hope"; and close with Mozart's jubilant "Dona Nobis Pacem," the manifestation of our work to build bridges of love in the endeavor of peace. As if I weren't psyched enough about the "bridge" analogy, Jodie and I will play the energetic third movement of Brahms's Sonata No. 3 in D minor for Violin and Piano to demonstrate how the composer bridges otherwise disparate harmonies. Together, we will sing hymns #1023: "Building Bridges” (Are you really surprised?) and #159: "This Is My Song."
See you Sunday!
David
Delirious from anxiety and sleep deprivation, I tried hand gestures and my dubiously pronounced, approximately 40 Hungarian words, but nobody understood. I tried working through my friend, but the translation time was massively inefficient. Then, an orchestra member pointed to my violin case and mimed playing my instrument to give instructions. It was ingenious. We had an obvious common language right in front of us the whole time. Armed with my violin and some universal Italian, French, and German music terms, I led a successful first rehearsal of both of my new pieces, Copland's Appalachian Spring (an homage to our Pennsylvania/Transylvania collaboration), and Respighi's Il Tramonto. For a week—thankfully, under the guidance of our conductor—we rehearsed eight hours a day together, ate meals together, and performed successful concerts across the region. (Click here to watch a video of our performance of my piece "Impressions from Beyond the Forest" from our collaboration.) I'm not sure many of us exchanged more than a few actual words, but music easily bridged our language divide. In fact, music was such a powerful, effective bridge that we parted not only as collaborators but as friends.
And music is far more than a bridge across cultures and languages; music is a bridge to our past and future. There are enough bridges connecting, say, Bach to Beethoven or Joplin to Jazz, that an entire lineage could be traced from the music we hear Kerstin and Bob play as Pastimes to the music we hear from Schrodinger's Cats. Likewise, the music we create and cultivate today will be a bridge to the art of our future. It's a profound realization. This Sunday, the MLUC Choir extends the bridge metaphor to the support of one another in times of turbulence. We will sing Lloyd Larson's "Author of Justice," after the Irish tune behind "Wake Now My Senses" (also, "Be Thou My Vision"); Becki Slagle Mayo's popular "Candle of Hope"; and close with Mozart's jubilant "Dona Nobis Pacem," the manifestation of our work to build bridges of love in the endeavor of peace. As if I weren't psyched enough about the "bridge" analogy, Jodie and I will play the energetic third movement of Brahms's Sonata No. 3 in D minor for Violin and Piano to demonstrate how the composer bridges otherwise disparate harmonies. Together, we will sing hymns #1023: "Building Bridges” (Are you really surprised?) and #159: "This Is My Song."
See you Sunday!
David
Posted in Music Notes