Contents:
Alice Parker Honored
Melodious Accord Awarded NEA Grant
Recording Project Update
Editorial: Daughter of the Muses
The View from Here
Home page
The News Stand
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Alice Parker Honored at
Chorus America Convention
Alice Parker was paid a magnificent tribute by her friends and professional colleagues at the Chorus America Convention held in Baltimore June 8 - 10. The occasion was an early celebration of her 75th Birthday. On hand to help Alice celebrate at the banquet Saturday night were all five of her children and their spouses, all 10 of her grandchildren, and MELODIOUS ACCORD Board members Tim Riley, Bruce and Gerri Wilson, Ellen Taylor Sisson, Kay Holt and Marilyn Pryor, as well as many dear friends, including Dan Bergfeld and Carol Hauptfuhrer.
Master of Ceremonies and host for the convention Tom Hall, conductor of the Baltimore Choral Arts Society, kicked off the evening by calling Alice to the stage to take a cellular phone call from a mystery caller (Alice's oldest granddaughter). Much to her surprise, in the middle of the call, her entire family (twenty souls, large and small) entered the room and joined her on stage to thunderous applause and more than a few tears.
During the evening, tributes followed from Tom Hall and Alice's singer-daughter Molly Stejskal. MELODIOUS ACCORD Board Chairman Tim Riley presented a photographic tribute to Alice shown to the accompaniment of the Robert Shaw Chorale recording of Foster's Thou art the Queen of my Song, as arranged by Alice and featuring a solo by her late husband, baritone Tom Pyle.
Don McCullough, one of Alice's MELODIOUS ACCORD Fellows, and current director of the Washington Master Chorale, led a SING a la Alice. Doraleen Davis and Frank Allbinder sang the verses to a humorous original composition lampooning Alice's unique singing and conducting style. Jerry Rubino tickled the ivories in such a way that they are still laughing. . . The assembled crowd (numbering nearly 400) joined in on the chorus. The evening ended with Tom Hall's presentation to Alice of a book signed by Chorus America members and the singing of Happy Birthday.
Chorus America is only the first of several organizations to honor Alice this year. The American Guild of Organists, and the Hymn Society will be honoring her at their annual meetings later this summer. And if you would like to join in the celebration, remember that the big day is December 16. Happy Birthday, dear Alice!
--Ellen Sisson
[Chorus America has posted several photos from the celebration on their website at http://www.chorusamerica.org/baltphot2.html.]
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Melodious Accord Awarded NEA Grant
MELODIOUS ACCORD is pleased to announce that the organization has been awarded at $25,000 grant for the Alice Parker Recording Project from the National Endowment for the Arts. This generous grant ensures that at least four albums of Alice Parker's music will be recorded by the Musicians of MELODIOUS ACCORD in the next two years. Many thanks to the staff, Board and many friends.
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Alice Parker
Recording Project Update
In March, the first volume of the Alice Parker Recording Project was recorded by the men of the Musicians of MELODIOUS ACCORD in New York City. Alice Parker conducted the chorus of sixteen as they sang some of the beloved songs arranged for men's voices by Robert Shaw and Alice Parker. Watch for its release later this year.
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Daughter of the Muses
Editorial
She first appeared to me years ago, looking like the cover of a late 19th century parlor song: a young woman with long unbound hair, leaning on a window-sill, looking out with a dreamy gaze - engraved, formal, proper. Her flowing gown was reminiscent of the Muses, but she was a bit too ethereal to carry much weight.
A later more helpful apparition seemed to be a close relative of the Good Witch Glinda in The Wizard of Oz. Remember how she floated over the hills in a magic bubble which would fade away as it landed, revealing the glowing presence within? Ah, much more useful. "She" was/is Lady Music, a magic presence indeed, who inhabits the upper air, materializing wherever true music is being made. She doesn't come if there's talk about music, or if unmusical sounds are being made, or if the music-making is perfunctory or dull. She lingers in the shadows until a clear, true phrase rings out, compelling the listener to hear, to become involved, until both are lost in the music. Then she slowly gains shape and form, becoming more and more radiant as phrase follows phrase, building arches of sound. She fades away as the sound-waves die, in the silence that follows such art. As Shakespeare wrote of Orpheus, in Henry VIII: "Everything that heard him play, Even the billows of the sea, Hung their heads, and then lay by. In sweet music is such art, Killing care and grief of heart Fall asleep, or hearing, die."
The truth is, we never can see her. We can't ask her to appear, or to wait until we've finished rehearsing this phrase, or even when she seems to be fully present. For the moment we remove ourselves enough from the music-making to look for her - - - she's gone. We, too, as conductor, teacher, performer or listener, are part of the whole experience, and it's the whole that she represents.
Fanciful? Oh, yes - but useful precisely as a measure for what we are doing in rehearsal, concert, service, classroom or studio. The question is: For how much of the class, lesson, service or rehearsal time are we making meaningful sound? Are we wood-shedding the notes? Telling stories? Teaching theory? Allowing unmusical sounds to be made and then scolding the makers? She scorns all such endeavors, because un-musical sounds are un-music, and any time that we sing or play without attention to the phrase, the style, the communication, the ear-values of vibrating columns of air - she is un-present. Yet she can be there as a family sings around the dinner table, or in the elementary school classroom or the choir rehearsal or church service or the exalted performance. She follows the physical laws of pitch and rhythm, of musical energy and expressivity, of the language of the heart. She is never fooled; she is always ready to appear. Are we ready for her? Do we invite her presence? How often?
- Alice Parker
Copyright 2000 MELODIOUS ACCORD, INC., All rights reserved
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send requests in writing to:
96 Middle Rd, Hawley, MA 01339
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The View from Here
. . . is green in every shade, from the black shadows in the evergreens, through the blatant call for attention from the hostas, to the tenderest pale shoots just emerging. Bright punctuation marks are supplied by the pinks of mountain laurel and rhododendron, the orange of marigolds, yellow of day lilies, and the incredible pink-to-lavender of the field of lupines nurtured by my Mother. . .
If I sound drunk on color - I am! After the long, cold, wet, gray spring, it's like a burst of enthusiasm - nature applauding itself. The monochromatic past is forgotten, and the deepening to dustier shades lies ahead - this is the moment to rejoice.
There has been so much rain that we're half-expecting to see the ark. Everything is soggy underfoot, and the brooks are roaring. We've had a couple of sunny days in the last month, but not enough to picnic outside or bring up the temperature enough to pack away the warm clothes.
I'm just home from the Chorus America Conference in Baltimore, where the heat and humidity were truly oppressive. (Give me Hawley in the rain, any day!) But that's not what I remember, of course: that wonderful party on Saturday night was something I'll never forget. Seeing all my children and grandchildren streaming into the banquet was a total surprise, and made for a lively and delightful evening. I've never heard of any group doing something so thoughtful and generous, and I love to tell people about it. (Except that many of these answer with a knowing smile "But we helped plan it!") My heartfelt thanks to you all.
Next week I'm off to Innsbruck, with a couple of days to rest and explore before rehearsals start. I'm looking forward to revisiting a place that I only dimly remember from the summer of 1951. Then back to Seattle, Edmonton and Boston, which will take up most of July, and I'll be truly ready for the hills of home in August. As they say, the best part of traveling is . . . you guessed it!
- Alice Parker
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© 1999 MELODIOUS ACCORD, INC.
All rights reserved. To obtain permission to reprint any part of this newsletter, send requests in writing to 96 Middle Rd, Hawley, MA 01339.
The Melodious AccordNewsletter is published three times a year, reaching 4000 musicians in the United States and Canada.
Send address changes, deletions, name changes, etc. to Judy Ellis, P.O. Box 27, Indian Valley, ID 83632, (208) 256-4440 (phone only); e-mail:newsletter@melodiousaccord.org.
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