Notes from the Podium

• A Time For Choruses To Do What They Do Best

  November 21, 2024

  I am passing along an article written by the newly elected president and CEO of Chorus America. I think it is very appropriate to our current situation. His feeling is that we, as chorus members, have a mission in this world … — Mark

  Dear choral community,

  This week, an election cycle which permeated our public consciousness for the better part of two years finally drew to a close. For many Americans, the sheer weight of the lead-up to the election has been traumatic. In the outcome, some had their voices heard while others are feeling a sense of uncertainty and even fear over what is to come.

  It’s a remarkable time to take the reins of Chorus America as president & CEO, as it is against the backdrop of this contentious and divisive election that we see the work of our choruses — and of Chorus America — pop into vivid relief. Through this election cycle, it has become all the more apparent that, where so much of today’s discourse seems intent on dividing us, the act of singing together can be restorative and reparative.

  Now that the election has been decided, it is time for choruses to do what they do best: to serve as places of belonging for their members and to create something beautiful to replace the ugliness and division that has been front and center for these many months. I would urge us also, difficult as it may feel, to use this as an opportunity to humanize the people sitting to our left and right (literally and figuratively).

  As leaders of choral organizations, what is our role? First and foremost, we must keep doing what we’re doing, which is taking care of the members of our singing communities. In fact, I’d like to offer an amendment to the English language, which is to make the word ‘community’ a verb. In this post-election period, we’re going to community harder than ever before.

  Choral singing was here long before there were democrats and republicans, and it will be here long after we are all gone. It exists not in spite of our day-to-day trials but because of them. At Chorus America, this will be a year focused on the incredible value choral singing has on our mental and physical health: it is well known, for example, that those who have close-knit communities — like choruses — live better lives into old age than those without. Moreover, when we pursue shared artistic goals, the social bridging that occurs may be the most effective method we know of to create a more cohesive society.

  One of my aims as president and CEO of Chorus America is to be your biggest champion and a vocal advocate for the work that you are doing each day. I have been in the trenches with you as a choral conductor, administrator, and board member, and I know how little time there is to tell the stories of the impact you are making. If we do our jobs well at Chorus America, your jobs will be a little bit easier and more gratifying.

  Please keep up the fine and critical work that you do and let us know how we can help. Our collective success will be deeply felt by many.

  In solidarity,

  Christopher Eanes

  Post author

  Written by Mark Reppert

• Notes from the Podium: Gone, gone, real gone

  March 11, 2024

  Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha

  This is the text of Brian Tate’s dance-like piece which Siskiyou Singers will be performing at our concerts May 4 and 5 at SOU Music Recital Hall. The text is usually translated: “Gone, gone, real gone, completely gone, Alleluia!” The idea that we would celebrate being gone, or everything being gone, is very foreign to us! Why would we want to be gone? Where have we gone? This Buddhist text sounds very nihilistic to our ears. I must, at this point, do my disclaimer that my understanding of all this is decidedly with a “beginner’s mind.” It is also hard to sum up 2500 years of Buddhist teaching in a few paragraphs!

  Our text comes at the end of the Heart Sutra. The word “sutra” means “teaching” and it is the “Heart Sutra” because it is at the very heart of Buddhist thought. Although we have many different translations into English of this sutra, “gate gate…” is never translated from the original Sanskrit. It is intended as a mantra to be chanted which sums up the ideas in the sutra.

  The sutra explains the world as one unified whole. “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form” is a puzzling foundation of this teaching. But the word “emptiness” does not mean a dark hole of nothingness. It actually is a complete whole of everything. Stacy Waymire, a teacher at the Ashland Zen Center, muddies our traditional, rational understanding of reality by pointing out that it is impossible to separate each of us from all that is around us. “Your nose is not a nose without something to smell.” He goes on to explain that Buddhists name six senses, sight, smell, touch, hearing, taste, and mind. In a famous Zen story two monks argue (oops, discuss) a flag on a pole. One says “the flag is moving” the other says “the wind is moving.” At that point the teacher chimes in and says “mind is moving.”

  The other side of the same coin is the idea of “impermanence” which says that nothing stays the same. Our world is always changing. “You can never step in the same river twice.” We see this intellectually, but our gut tells us that we are a permanent being and we want ourselves and everything else to stay the way we want! We want to go on forever and have everything be just as it is right now. But that is not the truth, according to Buddhists.

  So we are not independent and we are always changing. According to the Heart Sutra, it is very freeing when the idea that we are a completely independent, unchanging self is “gone.” Alleluia!

• Notes from the Podium: Honoring Alice Parker

  February 24, 2024

  Alice Parker was a leading figure of the rise of choral music throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first in America. She was born in Boston in 1925 and received her education in music at the New England Conservatory. As a right-hand person to Robert Shaw, the “dean of American choral music” and director of the Robert Shaw Chorale, she collaborated on hundreds of choral arrangements. These arrangements are a main-stay of choral repertoires throughout the world. There are more arrangements in the Siskiyou Singers library by Alice Parker than by any other composer (except, perhaps, Reppert). Unfortunately, Alice Parker “passed across the Jordan River”, as she might have said, on Christmas Eve this past year.

  Alice Parker (Minneapolis Star Tribune)

  She has also contributed a vast amount to American choral music as a composer. She wrote 5 operas, 11 song cycles, 33 cantatas, 11 works for chorus and orchestra, 47 choral suites, and 40 original hymns according to Wikipedia. Many of her works are set to poetry by significant American poets. Among her favorites was Emily Dickinson. Alice Parker said,

  “I love lyric poetry and the kind of prose that approaches poetry (the King James Bible, for instance)…The lyric brevity of Emily Dickinson is music to my ears…”

  She received the Brock Commission from the American Choral Director’s Association in 2014. The result of that commission was The Definition of Beauty, set to the poetry of Emily Dickinson. The piece was debuted at the ACDA National Convention in 2015 and is the featured work of the Siskiyou Singers’ performances at Southern Oregon University Music Recital Hall May 4, 7:30 PM and May 5, 3:00 PM. It will also be a part of the tour repertoire when Siskiyou Singers participates in the International Choral Festival at Alta Pusteria, Italy in June of this year.

  Alice Parker was an educator and advocate for choral singing, especially community singing. She was the founder of Melodious Accord in 1984. This choral organization is committed to choral performance, but also to the education of choral singers and advocacy of the choral art.

  “Melodious Accord, Inc. 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.”

  I know from personal experience that she was always ready to encourage everyone in their choral pursuits.

  I was lucky enough to spend a bit of time with her at a conference. She helped me think about new approaches to choral arranging and composition.

  Alice Parker’s contribution to the choral community in America cannot be overstated. She was a compassionate leader and talented creator and she will be missed. Siskiyou Singers is thrilled to honor her this May with the performance of some of her brilliant music.