Melodious Accord Newsletter

November, 1999
Volume 13, No. 3

Contents:

Save the Date!

E-Melodious Accord!

Alice Parker at Innsbruck

The Alice Parker Recording Project

Letters from the Front

The Source: www.aliceparker.com

The View from Here

What's your favorite music station?

Editorial: What Makes People Sing Together?

Fellows: Summing Up

REUNION!

Spring in the Berkshires

Another Survey

Home page
The News Stand

Save the Date!

Surely you can recover from your Millennial celebrations by January 15th, 2000, in time to join us for the twelfth annual Spirituals Concert to be held at The Riverside Church on that Saturday evening at 7:30pm. Participating will be a gala line-up of some of our favorite groups: Nedra Neal's Riverside Inspirational Singers, Helen Cha-Pyo's Riverside Chamber Singers, our own Pamela Warrick-Smith, and of course the Musicians of Melodious Accord. A new component will be the Women's Choir of North High School, Appleton, WI, bringing some African folksongs, and we are also inviting local choirs to join us in singing a final group of spirituals. This will be an intercultural festival honoring the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King - do plan to prolong the celebration by joining us, and singing!

For ticket information call The Riverside Church Box Office (212) 870-6722. You may also purchase tickets online from CultureFinder.com.

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E-Melodious Accord!

While nothing can replace gathering together to sing and hear Alice Parker talk about music, Melodious Accord would like to be in touch in between letters, mailings, concerts, and workshops. During these "in between" times, we'll e-mail you with important information about our activities. To be added to our list, just submit the form below and you'll never miss an event!)

Name:

Address:

Email:

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Alice Parker at Innsbruck

Would you like to have your choir "Sing with Alice"? There will be an unprecedented opportunity June 24-27, 2000, when she will be conducting a massed choir in Innsbruck, Austria, under the auspices of the Innsbruck International Choral Festival 2000. Co-conductor will be Alan Heatherington, conductor of the Ars Viva Orchestra in Chicago, as well as the New Oratorio Singers; repertoire will consist of the Mozart Requiem and American folk-songs and spirituals. For more information, contact Music Celebrations International, L.L.C. at www.musiccelebrations.com; phone: 800-395-2036; fax: 602 894-5137; or e-mail: info@musiccelebrations.com.

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The Alice Parker Recording Project

By Timothy Riley, Chair Board of Trustees

One of our country's leading choral artists for nearly five decades, Alice Parker is Melodious Accord's founder, artistic director, and indefatigable leader. As an educator, she is both gifted and passionate; as a composer, she possesses an unparalleled sense of melody; and as a conductor, she takes pride in liberating music from the page each time she stands before a group of singers.

As regular readers of this newsletter know, the scope of Alice Parker compositions represents, in and of itself, a documented preservation of the American folk song tradition. From her legendary collaboration with Robert Shaw, through recent explorations of colonial hymns and 20th century African-American Spirituals, to original operas and cantatas, her work has touched generations of professional and amateur singers alike.

Yet only a relatively small portion of Alice Parker's work has been recorded. This is about to change.

The Alice Parker Recording Project is Melodious Accord's most ambitious project to date. In this extraordinary endeavor, we plan to produce and distribute a series of compact discs devoted exclusively to the work of Alice Parker.

Here is a sampling of what is in store. At the request of many Melodious Accord loyalists, the first title planned, A New Chorus of Love, is devoted entirely to the sonorous arrangements for men's voices by Alice Parker and the late Robert Shaw. An album of holiday classics featuring Parker and Parker/Shaw arrangements will follow together with recordings of two Alice Parker operas, new Spirituals, and her beautiful choral settings of texts by some of our nation's finest women's poets.

Each recording will feature our resident professional ensemble, The Musicians of Melodious Accord with special guests, all under the direction of the composer. Alice Parker often says that notes on a page constitutes only ten percent of her music. The other ninety percent comes when those notes are sung and shared. We intend to sing, and share, by making the music of Alice Parker -- by her own definition -- complete.

We have established The Alice Parker Project Recording Fund in order to complete this ambitious and important initiative. To finance this $150,000 project, Melodious Accord recently submitted a grant application to the National Endowment for the Arts and is vigorously seeking additional foundation, corporate, and individual support. The National Endowment of the Arts award, if granted, will constitute less than half of the funds needed. So we need your help.

Soon, each of you will be receiving additional information about The Alice Parker Project Recording Project. I hope you take the time to review this material with care and, if you agree that the music of Alice Parker is worth preserving, please make a generous pledge. In addition, if you know of a foundation, corporation, or individual who would be interested in helping us make these recordings a reality, do let us know. For additional or more detailed information about the project and its contents, write us at P.O. Box 20810. Park West Station, New York, New York 10025 or e-mail us at parkerproject@melodiousaccord.org.

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Letters from the Front

Charles Brown

Continuing our series of communications from a music class at Chelsea Vocational High School in New York City...

. . . I had intended to share with you some of my thoughts at the end of the school year past. However, as I write these lines we are into the first week of 1999-2000, and my focus is on the road ahead.
I have my usual five classes of Music Appreciation and a new batch of freshmen 9th graders. So far, they seem very bright and eager. None of the smirking blasŽ of upperclassmen, especially the repeaters. I'm trying to find ways to maintain their interest. The first day of school I inquired about their musical skills, and what music they listened to, etc. I asked them to describe a class project they would like to do. Answers, of course, were varied, and I will have to be on my toes to try to make a cohesive and stimulating class community of such disparate tastes. I think we'll have fun although limited resources make me sometimes feel like a master of ceremonies at the Apollo theater trying to warm up the audience, knowing that most of the acts have cancelled and gone home!
All the talk this year is of music/art and technology - computers, keyboards and the internet. I would be happy to have a working TV/VCR and a keyboard. A recently acquired grant is supposed to provide me with these - but more on that later.
I would like to have an afterschool music club which I would structure as some kind of vocal ensemble. I have to wait to see what the budget for this year will allow. Compared to other Vocational High Schools in the city, Chelsea students did very well last year. The graduating valedictorian from last year told me that he enjoyed my class. His junior and senior years he had done some kind of internship with one of the big Wall Street firms. He and his classmates looked so promising in their caps and gowns. I have allowed myself to think that maybe something I did or said in Room 214 had contributed to that moment.
More later,
Charles

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The Source: www.aliceparker.com

Roy is constantly updating the website, so look there for information about our activities past, present and future. And if you want to reach any of us by e-mail, all you have to do is address the first name @melodiousaccord.org - and we're there.

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The View from Here

The grass is emerald green, after recent rains - mums and asters and the spectacular hydrangea bush are in full bloom - the sky a brilliant, deep blue - and the brook is singing again, after many weeks of slow trickle. The nights are turning cool, and there's just a hint of color in the woods - one red leaf in the road, a bush yellowing.

It's been a fine summer. We escaped the worst of the drought (though local farmers had smaller harvests) and the grandchildren who flocked here for summer visits could be outside every day. There were picnics and visits, sight-seeing and feasts, with lots of remembering the 'olden days'. A high point for me was the trip to France with two eleven-year-old grand-daughters, under the auspices of Family Hostel. The tour is for 'grands' of both generations, and is a wonderful way to learn about - and live in - another culture, under expert leadership with a friendly, small group - and to enjoy each other's company in a way that's not possible with the rest of the family around! (For more information, try their website at www.learn.nh.edu).

Now it's time to focus on a challenging new season, with new initiatives on every side (see the rest of this issue). I'm not very good at cutting back my schedule - but I give thanks every day for work that I love, family, health and the incredible good fortune of living in this green and quiet spot.

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What's your favorite music station?

We'd like to know the call letters of your favorite good music radio station. Please fill out this quick form:

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What Makes People Sing Together?

Editorial

The July issue of the International Choral Bulletin crossed my desk with that provocative title on the cover. Inside, an article reprinted from the International Journal of Music Education #32, was subtitled 'Socio-psychological and cross-cultural perspectives on the choral phenomenon'; the co-authors were a British choral conductor and educator, and a Greek musician who claims that 'there is no sign of what is called choral music in Greece'. [I think one difficulty here is too narrow a definition of 'choral music' - i.e., regular rehearsals and performance, published music, grounding in the western tradition, etc. Is music in the Greek church only solo? Not from what I've heard. And how about those singers-and-dancers in the tavernas: doesn't the word 'choral', not to mention 'mousike' come from that culture?]

There are many citations from different studies, many of which were unfamiliar to me (I'm not a scholar) and some just plain fascinating. For instance, Herbert Spencer says that speech comes first, then melody. Darwin asserts the opposite - and I strongly agree with him. We are born into a world of sound, and take our cues from the natural world around us. Ears and voices are there to be used, and small children sing long before they can talk. The scientists quoted seem to believe that 'music is not obviously functional' - therefore, why do we humans take part in it? A. Storr says that it 'intensifies emotion' - that is surely true, but hardly an answer to the previous assertion. Hoffer (in Colwell, 1992) states that people learn to be human in terms of their culture (true); and Radocy & Boyle state that music can be "a vehicle for expressing patriotism, religion or fraternity". Oh, my! Dorothy Sayers would say (in The Mind of the Maker) that this is using art as manipulative propaganda, subverting its true function.

All this learned arguing begins, I think, from the wrong premise: trying to justify a human activity by its immediate advantage to the life of the species. I suggest that this is a problem of western civilization which does not arise elsewhere: we have managed to separate 'art' from daily life, and thus subverted it. If we start from the other end: "We are born with ears and voices - what are they for?" the question becomes much more fundamental. They are there because they are obviously 'functional'; they enable us to communicate in ways not possible by eye or speech or touch. We sing because birds do and we can - and we sing to and with each other, mutually enriching our lives by so doing. Take the family as a beginning point: mothers sing to babies all over the world (not 'boughten' lullabies), and babies respond by cooing and vocalizing - the beginnings of language (not the result). Children sing at play - are they not a chorus? People sang at work ÷ would sail-hoisters on a clipper ship not be considered a chorus? Groups joining in song at celebrations and mourning, at dances and worship, at family reunions and in classrooms - are these not choruses? Granted, those of us who live in Europe and the Americas are blest with many choral 'organizations', but do these not grow out of this soil? Are we so far from our folk-song roots that we reserve the word 'choral' for organized and formal activities?

And as for the advantages of singing together: music is inherently social. It is a potent means of affirming our human identity - spoken language may separate us, but song can over-ride this. I think that we sing precisely because this physical act unites both sides of the brain: our reasoning powers and our emotions are both brought into play. Can this be its principal function? That we are more 'whole' when we sing than at any other time?

And what is 'the true use of music'? "Honor and thanks and blessing', says Charles Wesley; but we don't need to limit ourselves to the theologians. One answer to the scientists might be: When we sing together, we physically align ourselves with inner vibrations of the universe; we find our true home within all of creation, and are thus healed and made healthy and whole.

The article quoted research (Hoffer, again) that affirms "the high quality of singing in all Hungarian schools and educators' comments on the fact that, for example, they never encounter a Korean child who cannot sing." Is it possible that the ills of our society - alienation, anger, addiction, depression, loneliness, and much mental and physical trauma, could be cured or at least alleviated by an immediate program encouraging choral singing? I happen to believe very strongly that a need for this expression is built into our very genes, and we ignore it at our peril. There are hundreds of ways that we can sing for our lives - let's take very seriously the responsibility of encouraging them all, right now, where we are, in our schools and communities and families and concerts. Our future may depend on it.

Alice Parker

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Fellows: Summing Up

At the end of the ten days, having received their informal 'diplomas', the 1999 Fellows tried to define what they had just experienced. These thoughts come from Barbara Durost, Carleen Gerber, Brian Malone, Kinley Lange and two anonymous participants.

"A course in listening, in hearing differently. Making music from the ear, not the page. Creativity: allowing individuals to bloom. A text-based view of score analysis. A holistic approach to the music. . .
"Looking at music through the eyes of the composer; exploring the significance of the text, and the development of melody and melodic response. . . Exploring hymn and folk tunes with the intention of both leading and arranging them. . . Setting-free the composer within each one of us. .
"Experience the joy of finding your own melodies and discovering what possibilities are contained in each one. Gain refreshment from the music in nature in this setting: it's just outside! Listen to the wind, rain, streams, birds, bugs!
"After twenty-five years in a profession, it feels very healthy to encounter concepts I 'can't quite get' - to be challenged to go beyond my current level of understanding and comfort. It is healthy to hear that intuition is valuable and worth listening to; that simple and clean is better than contrived and constructed. . .
"A marvelous setting for reflecting on one's career, musicianship, musical calling . . . a creative 'hot-house' where professional and collegial attitudes are reflected in non-threatening ways. . . an atmosphere of supportive fellowship."Music isn't copied here - it's re-created. You don't sing with mind - you sing with heart and soul. You become an extension of the song, the composer, the group of singers. . ."

Interested? Contact us for information about this season's class - see the 'ad'.

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REUNION!

All Fellows of Melodious Accord are invited to join Alice Parker for a reunion in New York City in January, 2000. The three-day gathering will precede the Melodious Accord Spirituals Concert on January 15th, meeting at St. Hilda's House from Wednesday evening (12) through Saturday noon (15). For more information, please contact Bill Roberts at robertsw@primenet.com, or the office.

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Spring in the Berkshires

The Melodious Accord Fellowship Program For Conductors, Composers, Singers, Instrumentalists,Teachers and Church Musicians

Study with Alice Parker
May 16 - 25, 2000
Hawley, Massachusetts

A time for mid-career professionals to meet, discuss their work, re-examine basics, re-define priorities, and become refreshed and re-invigorated in searching for their own relationship to the melodic arts. Limited to eight people with experience in the choral/vocal field. For more information and application materials, please contact Melodious Accord, 96 Middle Road, Hawley, MA 01339; fax (413) 339-6609; e-mail beth@melodiousaccord.org

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Another Survey

As we make plans for our ongoing activities, it seems right to find out which offerings have been of the most value, what we could do to improve them, and what new initiatives we might begin. Use the form below to let us know how you feel. Be as brief or loquacious as you like!

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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:judy@aliceparker.com.