On Christmas Eve 1984, the State of New York received the certificate of incorporation for a fledgling not-for-profit organization to be known as Melodious Accord, Inc. Eight music enthusiasts including professional and amateur musicians, educators, a real estate executive, a doctor, and Alice Parker, were the initial directors. The name for the organization was taken from the second stanza of a James Montgomery setting of Psalm 100:

O enter his gates with thanksgiving and song,
Your vow in his temple proclaim.
His praise with melodious accordance prolong,
And bless his adorable Name...

In our first Newsletter, published in the Spring of 1985, Melodious Accord, Inc. was introduced as an organization "dedicated to bringing together composers, performers and listeners in the creation and re-creation of music." Its goal was to identify composers engaged in a creative dialogue with their communities, and to involve performers and audiences in music which is heard as an enriching process, not a product. To do this, Melodious Accord, Inc., proposed to sponsor private and public performances, lectures and workshops; and to encourage the composition, performance, recording and publication of music which is both functional and beautiful. As an inauguration, a concert, a master-class and a recording were planned for September of 1985, but Mother Nature sent Hurricane Gloria and the concert was cancelled. The recording session went forward and our first recording, Sacred Symphonies, resulted.

From these tumultuous beginnings, we progressed through a series of "firsts": an actual concert--Love Songs for Johannes in honor of Brahms' 153rd birthday; a managing director, and our first Composition Search in 1986. With 1987 came our Spirituals concerts in tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; open SINGS, and our first grant---from the New York State Council on the Arts. A Composers' Workshop and the announcement of our Fellowship Program came in 1988 and by 1989, we were planning toward the first of several Melodious Accord Symposia, Poems and Songs, which was held in 1990. We were "in stride" with the original goals: presenting concerts, open SINGS, workshops, composition searches, symposia and making recordings, a position we have tried to sustain in the ensuing years.

In 1990 we also welcomed our two songbirds as the logo for Melodious Accord. Designed by the noted artist, R. O. Blechman, the two bird-notes, singing to, for, and with each other, express our philosophy of joy in melody, and the sharing of it. Alice Parker, as our "traveling road show," has spread that joy across the country, and even though our center relocated with her to Massachusetts in 1995, MELODIOUS ACCORD continues.

As we look to the future we expect to maintain our connections to New York City with our annual Spirituals program, we persevere in our major project, The Alice Parker Recording Project, and we continue to develop our Fellowship Program with its center at Singing Brook Farm in Massachusetts. Alice continues "On the Move" and, although she has tried to reduce her traveling, you may still sing with her at a church, school, or college near you.

Editorial

Edges

I'm fascinated by the boundaries where one form, or style, or voice shades into another. Liminal states, my Parabola magazine calls them, where clear realities blur, and transformation can occur. What happens in these border zones? We can see where the field merges back into woodland, or the firm earth becomes wetland: life forms flourish here in these untidy acres. They can be difficult to explore, full of strange smells, unsteady footing and odd forms, but reward the curious naturalist with food for thought.

Perhaps my favorite is the edge between speech and song. I can read aloud a phrase of Shakespeare and listen to the subtleties of durations, stresses, pauses and 'flow' in my own voice. But the moment I move into song - even into a monotone intonation - something shifts. Try as hard as I may to keep the speech rhythms, the addition of pitch changes the equation. It's much easier to move from intonation to melody: tone is present in both. But I've never been able to analyze that difference between speech and song to my own satisfaction.

The words, in their incredible fluency, are somehow harnessed by the tones: not quite as free as they were when spoken. But there's a value in the trade: somehow the tones added to the speech are able to convey the sub-text, or a con-text, that adds immeasureably to their communicative power. The challenge, to a sensitive singer, is to keep all the language subtleties while adding the well-produced stream of song. The Lieder singers that we cherish are expert at this: I think of Fritz Wunderlich, or Victoria de los Angeles (I'm showing my age) - but also, now, a new counter-tenor, Andreas Scholl that I heard on Public Radio, or multi-faceted artists such as Dawn Upshaw.

Or, I have learned enormously from Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. There's another 'edge' that I enjoy pondering: that between popular music and classical, or folk-music and composed, or spirituals and contemporary gospel. I love listening to idiomatic American speech, and enjoy the differences between various regional accents, tones of voice and 'high' and 'low' cultures. The same song can sound very different when placed in another milieu, with seemingly tiny differences in vowels and pronunciation patterns. Bing's crooning is very different from Frankie's warmer voice, but both of them are making love both with and through the words. I'm even fond of Fred Astaire's singing: not much voice, but incredible styling.

Mahalia Jackson, the rich-voiced Gospel singer, was a boon to my household when the children were young. If we had guests coming, and the house needed a quick pick-up, I'd put on one of her unique recordings and the kids would work, laughing and singing along, till the music stopped. She taught me that in this colloquial Southern style of singing, one can breathe in the middle of a phrase, or a word, or even a syllable, and make it sound totally 'right'. In other words, much of what we learn about 'diction' or 'style' carefully avoids these gray areas where one style can meet another and burst forth into new life. My temperament pushes me to be adventurous here (but not with, say, down-hill skiing or roller-coasters).

I have a special fondness for composers who balance on these edges. How do the operas of Gilbert & Sullivan or Offenbach take the techniques of classical opera and turn it into pure froth? How about John Phillip Sousa? And look at the way that Mozart could move from high seriousness to delicious lightness. George Gershwin combined his genius for popular song with traditional operatic form to create Porgy and Bess, a genuinely American grand opera. And Leonard Bernstein was criticized from both sides during his lifetime for being fluent in several styles: he must have enjoyed living on the edge, too.

Let me turn back to another musing about where this speech-song dichotomy begins. Only here it's reversed: I believe that all babies sing before they speak. They can produce lovely clear vowel sounds long before they can say words. And even before that, when they are making their first wonderful efforts at responding to an adult's query or comment, what comes out is a phrase - pitch moving up and down in a clump of embryonic syllables, accompanied by twinkling eyes, visible diaphragmatic support, and waving arms. They've got conversational song nailed long before the first "Ma-ma". They have to learn those words.

As I teach choral conductors, composers and song leaders, I'm drawn back again and again to the mystery of what happens when we combine speech and song. It's clear to me that the challenge is to honor them both, always working for the fragile balance that can keep us steady on that particular tightrope 'edge'.

Welcome Aboard

The September annual meeting of the MELODIOUS ACCORD Board of Trustees is a transition time and we are delighted to welcome two new members to the Board.

Nedra Olds Neal is well known to followers of Melodious Accord as one of The Musicians of Melodious Accord, having sung in many of our concerts and recordings, and as conductor of the Riverside Church Inspirational Choir in its appearances with Melodious Accord. Also an accomplished pianist, Nedra has performed extensively as a recitalist and accompanist in addition to vocal performances with the New York Choral Artists. Nedra is an independent producer for Sony Music's Legacy Recordings where she is responsible for reissues of classic American music from Mahalia Jackson to Duke Ellington. She has also produced CDs for Arista Records, Motown Records and Sony Wonder.

William Bradley Roberts, is Director of Music Ministry at St. John's Parish, Lafayette Square, in Washington, DC, and has held similar positions in Tucson, AZ, Newport Beach, CA, and Louisville, KY. While in California, Bill sang with the Los Angeles Master Chorale. Active in the work of the Episcopal Church, he has served as Chair of the Standing Commission on Church Music and the Leadership Program for Musicians and has been a member of the Anglican Musicians Seminary Music Initiative. Bill is also a composer and has participated in the Melodious Accord Fellowship Program; he himself conducts workshops in choral techniques, children's choirs, and the spirituality of Taizé.

Jody Kerssenbrock and Priscilla Wilder are retiring from the Board at this time. Jody was on the "dreaming team" that created Melodious Accord in 1984, and since that time has been actively involved both on and off the Board. Her imagination, creativity, and dedication to the mission of Melodious Accord have been invaluable, and we are most grateful for all those years of service. Priscilla joined the Board in 2002 having been a "behind the scenes" supporter of Melodious Accord for many years. During her tenure she has provided a tremendous stimulus to our grant seeking efforts, and for that we thank her and promise to keep the ball rolling.

SING!

with ALICE PARKER

January 16, 2005
3:30 P.M.
ST. MICHAEL'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH
W. 99th ST. and AMSTERDAM, NEW YORK CITY

The MELODIOUS ACCORD Festival of Spirituals
in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. will be a
SING led by Alice Parker and Pamela Warrick-Smith.

Admission $10; $5 for students and seniors;
children under 12 free.
For more information call 212-665-4405

January in New York with Alice Parker

January 11-16, 2005

Spaces are still available for conductors, composers, teachers and church musicians interested in Choral Studies with Alice Parker. Days spent in relaxed but intensive score study and evenings free to explore NYC.

Accommodations and seminars at St. Hilda's House, West 113th Street near Broadway.

The View From Here

Our neighbor Tim has been brush-hogging the fields recently. It's a tough job: he has to see or remember where the odd rock outcrop is, or the treacherous hole, or where the slant of the hill demands a special angle for the mower. These were pasture- lands for a couple of centuries. Now the fencing is long gone, along with the sheep, horses, cows and pigs that once did all the clearing for us. The fields will quickly return to unattractive bushes and vines on its way back to forest - but that takes our view away, and the movement of air and light around our houses. Someone must work to keep them clear.

The cutting really should be done in late August, after the summer flowers have gone to seed and before the goldenrod takes over. But this year, it rained much of August, and no machines could venture into these tilted slopes. Then, farmers need to harvest their hay, and all the able-bodied men are active with late summer chores. So our cutting got postponed later and later - it didn't start until after the first hard frost. But finally we've had enough dry weather to allow Tim to cross the fords over the brook to the clearings on the other side, and to manage even the steepest slope. I never can bear to watch that: I saw a tractor tip over when I was about five (the driver was miraculously unhurt), and I have no stomach for that sort of risk.

But I can enjoy looking out over my own small field now, looking tidy and ready for winter. The leaves are about three- quarters fallen -- the sun still reflects brilliantly off the odd birches that retain their yellow glow - but the soft gray of the massed bare branches begins to take over the mountainside. Winter is coming, but for now we live in the midst of remembered glory. We won't see bright colors again until the first leaves of spring.

Planning your end-of-year giving?

Don't forget MELODIOUS ACCORD.

Your gifts have brought us to our 20th year of successful programming for MELODIOUS ACCORD. Help us start off our third decade with a financial bang!

As you plan your charitable giving for the end of 2004, remember MELODIOUS ACCORD. For those of you who haven't used that return addressed envelope we sent you this summer--now's the time to do so. To those who have already made your contribution, our sincere thanks.

Gifts of stock shares are welcome, and may be to your advantage for tax purposes. For information on how to make a transfer of stock shares contact Paula Talayco, at 212-665-4405 or ptalayco@melodiousaccord.org.

Please direct all gifts to:

MELODIOUS ACCORD, INC.
P. O. Box 20801
Park West Station
New York, NY 10025-1516

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

MELODIOUS ACCORD believes that melody is an unparalleled means of communication for human beings; that when we use our ears and voices we enrich our lives through creating communities of sound; and that singing together brings immediate benefits - physical, mental and spiritual - to those who join in this most participatory of all the arts.

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 Kay Holt, 34 Ashfield Lane, South Hadley, MA 01075; (413) 536-1753 phone and fax; e-mail:newsletter@melodiousaccord.org.

TWENTY YEARS AND COUNTING!