March, 2003
Volume 18, No. 2

Ascap-Chorus America Award

Love And Springtime

Editorial

From Lost Nation, By Jeffrey Lent

Thanks To Judy!

The View From Here

Home Page
The News Stand

ASCAP and Chorus America have established a new award, the Alice Parker-ASCAP-Chorus America Award, to honor Alice Parker's career that, for almost six decades, has been devoted to the creation of works for the human voice. According to the announcement in the Winter issue of The Voice of Chorus America, the award will be given annually to "recognize a chorus for programming significant recently composed music that expands the mission of the chorus and challenges the chorus's audience in a new way. The award is designed to recognize choruses that may not typically emphasize or include the performance of new music but have chosen to stretch themselves to present some of this repertoire."

This award recognizes Alice Parker's passionate commitment to, and involvement in, the choral arts; her achievements as a composer, arranger, and conductor; her leadership of Melodious Accord, Inc. which has sponsored a professional chorus, recordings, symposia, seminars, and appearances in the United States and abroad, at which she has conducted workshops, concerts, and SINGS.

This award is open to all choruses. For application details visit the Chorus America website, www.chorusamerica.org or phone 202-331-7577.

Table of Contents

Watch for the release of "My Love and I" , on the Gothic Records label late this spring. This recording features the Men of Melodious Accord singing the wonderful Alice Parker-Robert Shaw arrangements of such favorite love songs as: Drink to me Only, L'Amour de Moy, Down by the Sally Gardens, Vive L'Amour, and many others. Notice of the release will appear in the on-line catalog at: www.gothic-records.com

Table of Contents

At the conclusion of each Fellowship Program I ask the participants to write a short paragraph, describing their experience here and asking for comments or suggestions. It's difficult for me to define just what it is that I'm teaching, and often they have given me descriptions and phrases which help to bring others into the programs.

The crowning glory of these attempts appeared in the Fall 2002 issue of the periodical Early Childhood Connections: an extended article by Cathy Mathia entitled "Singing and Composing with Alice Parker: the Melodious Accord Fellowship Program". It goes far beyond other shorter attempts in catching the essence of what transpires in the ten days together. I'm grateful for her participation, and for the writing ability and patience it must have taken to weave these thoughts together.

I began with the title: 'singing and composing' is exactly what we do. But I've never dared put it in the title, because the program is not directed to singers or composers, but to teachers, choral conductors, church musicians and performers who wish to recapture their own enthusiasm for music-making. Frequently these people are living such demanding lives that they never get around to recharging their own batteries. So I give them a return to beginnings: only us, singing around this table; and only us, creating the music to sing - as well as exploring many other styles.

Let me quote:
"It was liberating to hear and experience this simple concept that music isn't a rehearsal of what can happen later -- music is what is happening now. We were transformed by the realization that numbers or groupings of people do not really matter and that we don't need to be searching constantly for three more tenors! By finding the sound of our group and listening carefully to one another, we can make beautiful music with whoever is singing with us at the moment."

Rather than depending upon people's reading abilities, or on putting together a carefully selected group of voices, I have learned to begin with single-line melody learned by ear -- just the way a small child starts out. We move over this phase much too quickly in our culture, thinking that singing in harmony, in 'parts' is the irreducible norm. But it is uncommonly enriching to discover the incredible subtleties within beautifully shaped melodies.

"Over the course of our days together, we began discovering different ways to listen to, look at, and sing countless melodies throughout history -- from ancient chant to folksongs and spirituals."

We don't need to stop at the single line, however, when group improvisation can create an instant, ever-changing sound-world around the melody.

"Our group's initial responses were tentative. We would fall into traps of simply echoing her melody instead of improvising; forgetting that we needed to listen first and then enter as if we were hearing the melody for the first time; and, most often, not allowing ourselves simply to let go and be taken over by the melody itself."

Each night there was an assignment to write a simple tune, or to create an answering line that supports and does not detract from the melody. The virtue is in the process rather than the product, since the discussion that followed these attempts led us into a deep consideration of the relationship of the page to the sound, and of the different ways any individual can respond to the page.

"Such simple sounding assignments, and yet such challenges! To put aside our preconceived notions... to dance to the text... to resist any thought of harmonizing... finally to write it down in the most concise and communicative way for others to read."

Simple indeed, yet the perfect counterpoint to the singing through of many choral works, trying always to look at the page with the eyes of the composer. What was in her head before she began writing? What kind of sound does the text ask for? If I were to set this text, what would I respond to? What hints are given about performance values?

"As a composer, I began to develop a deeper understanding of the challenges involved in putting down what I hear in my mind and being limited by a page that only contains a set of notes and markings. As a conductor, I found myself looking at the musical score with more perceptive eyes, and hearing with more responsive ears."

And the way we live together for this time, sharing meals and conversations, jokes and family stories, shows us the very clear center that music has in our lives. It's not just for performance, or for learning history or theory or even repertoire. It's a basic means of human communication that even the youngest and oldest among us can respond to.

"As an early childhood music educator, I thought about how we advocate for children and families to leave their visual worlds behind and join us in our world of sound and active music-making. As a musician, I understood even more fully how our concerns with the written page... have often limited our musicianship and made music less of an aural art and more of a visual art. For all of us, especially those of us who are already professional musicians, our efforts at being more learned may have taken us farther away from the true, active experience of music-making."

The 'true, active experience' is exactly what I'm after. I try to help each Fellow determine which part of the process gives the most satisfaction, and affirm the necessity of taking time each day to recapture this connection. This process is endlessly re-energizing, and makes us indeed as little children in our wonder at and delight in this sounding world.

"I left Singing Brook Farm a different person than when I arrived -- with different eyes and ears, a clearer sense of direction, and more sure of my calling... I arrived home with my thirst quenched, and yet yearning for more."

Thank you, Cathy. Come again! You and your colleagues make a very real difference in my life, too.

Alice Parker

Table of Contents

This wonderful novel about life in northern New England in the early years of our country contains a stunning description of rough frontiersmen responding to the sound of a squeezebox in the local tavern.

As Blood watched, he sensed as much as saw the men in
the room begin to loosen, not moving, not swaying,
certainly not dancing but some reassembling taking place
as the melancholic music completed its work upon them
and reduced them to essential men -- the dirge played
out was for each of them alone even as it sang of their
brothers, of their others, of all mankind around them
and all those come before and all following. And Blood
knew this was not his imagining, not something he was
electing to see in the subdued group of hard men but
some actual event he was witnessing. Was even in his
meager way participating in.

Jeffrey Lent
Lost Nation. 2002
Atlantic Monthly Press, NY

Table of Contents

One of our most dedicated volunteers has to be Judy Ellis, who for 8 years has formatted and prepared the Newsletter, maintained our mailing lists, and overseen the distribution of the Newsletter. As of this issue, Judy has stepped down from most of these responsibilities but will continue to oversee the Newsletter mailings from Indian Valley, ID.

Many, many thanks to Judy for all she has done, and continues to do, to make this Newsletter a reality.

Table of Contents

Well, it looks like an excess of spun sugar. Or perhaps the most thick, pillow-soft velvet-covered duvet you ever saw, softening all sharp edges beneath. Or even better, 7-minute icing spread on with a very liberal hand, imbedded with sparkles and casting blue shadows. Perhaps you get the picture! I've not seen my front walk in a month, and the driveway is surrounded by 7 foot walls of snow. Since I live at the end of a road, the snow stays wonderfully white here, covering fences, rocks, trees, bushes and houses with peaked caps.

And it's been cold. No temperature above freezing in January, with many days at or below zero Fahrenheit. That's when the old half of my house begins to creak, and the cold seeps in through walls and floors. Kitchen temperatures are 48 when I come down in the morning, and I need to light the woodstove in the evening before I can cook dinner or consider retiring to the unheated bedroom above. It must be good for the body as well as the spirit, though, as I've avoided the usual wandering local flu bugs. The new part of the house is my refuge, however, and I can work in comfort.

Right now I'm listening to Anonymous 4 on their new release La Bele Marie. Those warm voices bringing to life the old melodies seem an inside answer to the winterscape outside: entwining about the same curves, rising and falling in ancient patterns, gently swelling, cresting and disappearing into silence. Their concert in Northampton last week was a model of matching sound to place: a single voice could mesmerize the listeners, and the four voices together coaxed resonant echoes out of the carved recesses of the old church. It's almost enough to make you forget that spring is still a long way off.

Alice Parker

Table of Contents

Browse the catalog | The News Stand
E-mail to Alice Parker | Alice Parker's Home Page

© 2003 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 Accord Newsletter 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.