Hello All,
I am so looking forward to our rehearsal tomorrow evening. I wish us ALL the best as I know we are ready to have a productive, enjoyable, and exciting rehearsal. All of our guest musicians will be with us and we will be in our performance venue…all of our dedicated efforts coming together to create beautiful and compelling music with one another as we prepare to share with our family, friends, and community.
Below are the repertoire connections that were shared with me. If I missed yours in the email chains, – apologies! Send it to me and I will forward it on to everyone (let me know if you want to share with your name attached or prefer to share anonymously). If you still want to share after tomorrow evening’s rehearsal, that’s fine, too. I will keep collecting and keep sharing.
See you tomorrow. Three hours is a very long rehearsal so please know that I already appreciate the dedication you will bring. I hope that we will have so much fun that the time will fly…fly…fly away….
LJ
Repertoire Connections and Reflections:
There’s a small moment in Peace of the Wild Things that gets me every time. Page 12, measure 77-79 “for a time I rest”. This little spot seems to come out of nowhere and is so calm but fleeting. This is how I feel after being pulled in a thousand directions with work, my children, my marriage, and my battle with depression and anxiety. Every once in a while, I get this moment of complete calm and peace and it’s gone almost as soon as I notice it has arrived. I savor those moments and they’re beautiful. – Britt Kelly
There are several places in our music that touch me every time we sing them.
The first is at the top of page 9 in “1941,” when we sing “And when you take my hand, oh, take my hand at last, (When War is horror of the Past),” As the mother of four and grandmother of eight, this gets to me every time. Long before I had children, I bought a silkscreen that portrays a white dove on a red background, with an accompanying quote from Eve Merriam that says, “I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, ‘Mother, what was war?’ ” When one of my sons was deployed multiple times to Iraq and Afghanistan, I felt, perhaps, not as the mother in this song, but more the mother of all the people in those war-torn regions. I long for the day when we can all greet our children and rejoice that war is only in the past. I live in and work for that hope, as does my son, now a dedicated peace activist. Every time we sing the line I’ve quoted above, I feel hopeful.
A second place I love is in “The Peace of Wild Things.” I do like the line about the day-blind stars, but even better to me is the part that says, “I come into the peace of wild things, who do not tax their minds with forethought of grief.” There lies a way to real peace.
My very favorite spot in any of our songs is measures 21-26 in “The Valley.” I love singing about “the love of the light on the land,” and am sorry that we only sing it once. I feel full of joy, to bursting, every single time I sing that. – Nancy Donny
There are so many places in our current program that are meaningful to me but these are the two that jump out.
In The Valley the line “I love the best in you, you love the best in me though it’s not always easy” makes me think of my sister and how she has supported her husband during the past 5 years of their marriage. He has numerous unexpected health issues that have arisen, had a major spinal surgery for which he flew to St. Louis and then had a horrible fall and required a second surgery. Watching them love each other through such trying times has been such a gift to me as a wife and sister. She has always seen the person that he is and cared for him while avoiding the trap of becoming a caretaker entirely. Hard to explain, but beautiful to witness.
A few weeks ago, when we were singing 1941, I suddenly found myself thinking about my 14 year old son and what I would do if he was drafted. Needless to say, I have been tearful when singing it ever since. I don’t think the moms of my generation have had to think much of this… and given how I disagree so vehemently with the current administration, the idea of my perfect, kind, gentle, talented, funny spark plug of a son being sent to war makes me sad and angry… Cannot imagine what those moms have had to endure.
Anyway, there are lots of happy moments too… but those of some of the more striking ones… – Meg Berreth
I had trouble with the opening line of 1941, “There’ll be no separation, son.” Obviously, the mother and son would be separated physically and he might die. However, eventually I thought of the recurring line in a children’s book my husband (the primary childcare giver) used to read to my daughter, “As long as I’m living my baby you’ll be.” In that sense, the son cannot be separated from his mother.
In The Peace of Wild Things, the poet finds peace in wild things when worried about the state of the world. I didn’t relate directly to this. However, when I was diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time, what I wanted to do was to get out of doors into nature. We went down to Jordan Lake and spent an afternoon in the woods, and that helped. (By the way, I’m 21 years past the first cancer and almost six since the second one, and doing fine.)
My People Are Rising is the song that gets stuck in my head. It’s so sad that the Arab spring, which started so hopefully, led only to a long and unsuccessful rebellion in Syria. – Diane Wold
The Peace of Wild Things- ms. 77 “for a time, I rest in the grace of the world, and am free”
This whole piece reminds me of how crucial it is to get into nature to restore any kind of internal balance. When I walk the dog on the trail near my house, I can breathe again. Whenever I have students nearly hyperventilating with stress, I tell them to go outside and look at a tree for 5 minutes, and that it’ll make them feel better. I know it can’t fix everything, but it goes a long way. That song makes me think of how small we are, and how that can be both lonely and comforting (like this site makes me feel: https://scaleofuniverse.com/)
A Path to Each Other
I’ve been singing this to Leo to get him to relax, and plan to program it for my Advanced Women’s Chorus. As I sing it, I think about how I can help my girls learn to use their words to build paths after months of building walls. It also makes me think about the state of this country. I am FB friends with a former student, now a junior at Duke, who constantly amazes me with his ability to engage with opinions different from his in a respectful way. I often feel angry and eager to dismiss opinions that I feel are “wrong” and it makes me want to push those people away. This guy is always able to wish people well and agree to disagree, while still holding his moral ground but genuinely listening to people different from him. It gives me hope when I see my students growing into people that I’d feel proud to vote for in a local (or national!) election. For such a small text, it packs a punch. – Rachel Spencer
I am very moved by 1941, especially the end. My Father was sent to VietNam for one year (Jan 2, 1967 to Jan 1, 1968). He came back just before the Jan 30 1968 Tet offensive when many of his friends were killed. The piano ending—chords of dread followed by the one high tiny note of hope—summarizes the whole year for me as a 10-year-old who was very close to and loved her Dad! – Anonymous
My deepest connection I mentioned the other night- The Valley. It is pretty hard to pick one moment, so I’ll give you 2 to choose from.
P6.m56. – ‘sometimes you feel all that you wanted has been taken away’. It is sometimes, not always – first our kids were taken away- we are a close family in many ways, but they are scattered all over and so we don’t see them or the grandkids near as often as I would like. Then just your health slowly eroding – that has been very difficult to deal with – heart attacks in my husband and 42-year-old son (he ‘died’ 3 times when his heart stopped beating). Lots of aging stuff.
P7 @ F. ‘I love the best..’ on through G where it changes to ‘we will walk’. That’s it – this is our life to the end. – Anonymous
For reasons I cannot begin to explain except perhaps for the power of music, there is a phrase in “The Valley” that brings this old skeptic to tears nearly every time we sing it. It is at letter G where we shift from singing “you will walk in good company” to “we will walk in good company.” Maybe it’s the glorious soprano II line in that passage. – Patty Daniel
There are several places in our music to which I feel a special connection, but the most poignant are “1941” and “Faith is the Bird.” My dad served in WWII. He interrupted his medical residency to enlist in the army, refusing to marry my mom before being deployed overseas in case he returned with major injuries requiring her to care for him for the rest of his life. Dad was assigned to the MASH unit that accompanied Patton’s 3rd Army and was also among the first medical personnel to enter Dachau once the camp was liberated. He experienced horrors I can’t even imagine. He NEVER talked about the ugliness, but I know there were scars and tears. And yet, in my life, Dad was the bird who sang while it was still dark. He was the most optimistic, positive person I have ever known, and he taught me to always look for the goodness, the light in every situation. Dad died 35 years ago; he’s been gone for half of my life, leaving us much too soon and missing so very much. I experience things so often that make me think of and remember him. His life will always be a guiding light in mine, and I thank you for letting me share this with you. – Sharon Smith
As I was singing through all our music several times today, the one place I literally tear up & wonder if I can regain my composure is in The Tree of Peace mm 56-63. – Brenda Dunn
Early this fall I visited the War Museum in London and spent three hours in the World War 1 section. It was a remarkable exhibit including video footage of troops in the trenches, sometimes surrounded by dead, dying and severely injured comrades. So, I have had a very hard time getting through 1941 without picturing the reality of what “the son” may be experiencing in his foxhole bed. “There will be no separation, Son” is only in the parent’s mind and instead of “never being away” when war is over, the son will never be the same. It’s all I can do not to cry every time I sing it.
When I sing “The Peace of Wild Things,” the phrase about waking in the night fearing for your children’s future reminds me of a poem written by a local man named Drew Dellinger. The first stanzas are
“It’s 3:23 in the morning
and I’m awake
because my great great grandchildren
won’t let me sleep
ask me in dreams
what did you do while the planet was plundered?
what did you do when the earth was unraveling?surely you did something
when the seasons started failing?as the mammals, reptiles, birds were all dying?
did you fill the streets with protest
when democracy was stolen?”
– Diana Coble
I am sharing two pieces that bring me to tears (1941) and to joy (Faith is the Bird). I’ll start with 1941. Though I know that these are a mother’s parting words from a mom to her son on his departure to fighting in WWII, I connect with them because of the harrowing stories my dad tells of his experiences as a German boy growing up in Frankfurt during the war. His tales of starvation, bomb shelters, evacuations (on foot) of women and children, and the many, many other traumas he experienced as a child in a war-torn country make me connect strongly to the fact that there are no winners in a war. The populations of all countries at war experience lasting traumas that are part of that person forever.
Faith is the Bird feels like the razor’s edge of joy/sorrow—for me those two things ride very close together, and I easily can tip from laughing to crying inexplicably. We previously sang Abbie Bettini’s Be Like the Bird, and that song became my rallying cry when I went through cancer treatment, while also taking care of my mom who was dying of the same cancer. Even when I felt I was precariously perched on the slightest branch beneath me, I focused on the “wings” I had–my own, and those grown from the community around me that held me aloft. My lymphedema sleeve has birds on it, because I continue to connect to the words so strongly. And now, Faith is the Bird is a wonderful new piece to which I connect. Faith is the bird that FEELS the light, AND sings when the dawn is still dark. I love this because 1) birds! I love birds. and 2) it reminds me that faith is a discipline- you have to practice feeling the light, even the slightest glimmer, especially during the dark. I connect this line to a photo a friend of ours gave me–it shows a dark tunnel at an airport, with hundreds of small lights in it, and a bright light at the end. I’ve learned that the light at the end is not the thing that gives me faith or hope, rather it’s the little glimmers that line the darkness. I’ve had a lot of darkness these past couple of years, and my mom just died in September. I almost didn’t come to rehearsal, having missed the first two. I was very on the fence. And now I realize that I’m so glad I did come–it’s been a way for me to feel the light that’s helping me make it through the grief and the dark days of winter. I’m grateful that WVC makes me feel the light, and provides some of my wings. – Franzi Rokoske
… my first choice is 1941. I was a a young child during the war, but very conscious of the war efforts and the tragedy of war. My brother served as a medic in England experiencing the blitz raids. And, I remember counting the flags in the windows as I walked through my neighborhood. And, I was horrified when blue stars turned to gold—which they did. My soon to be brother-in law was a pilot of a B49, fulfilling his missions over western Europe. His plane was disabled during one mission and it was brought down in enemy territory. Luckily, he escaped unharmed physically. It took him years before he could talk about any of this.
So, war is horrifying to me and it helps to release this dark emotion through music.
(My People are Rising also brings very close the horrors of war. Thanks for balancing this heavy theme with hope and beauty (The Tree of Peace, Faith is a Bird, The peace of Wild things! – Anonymous
My favorite piece this session is The Peace of Wild Things, particularly mm 34-43. It is so flowing and peaceful. It makes me think of playing or sitting by the creek that flows near my childhood home. I’d take a Coke and let it cool in the water while I’d sit and ponder, skip stones and do nothing. Ahhh to be 12, maybe not. – Diane Kirkman
This was tough because there are so many, but the first few measures at F in The Valley stand out for me, I guess because I think that’s what we have to do, and musically because I love the way it pops out. I am by nature easily moved to tears by music and by poetry, so this concert will be a test of my ability not to think about what we are singing. – Elisabeth Curtis
Truly, there are so many heart-stopping words of poetry in this concert that truly strike at the heart of what we are presenting. Thank you for the opportunity to think more deeply about a passage of particular importance.
The melodic and text phrase I’ve chosen is from The Tree of Peace:
“Walk with rev’rence in the path of those who have come before,
where forgiveness and wisdom have stood.
So shall the wide earth become our temple,
each loving life a psalm of gratitude.”
As I’ve listened to the recording that moment has an opportunity to shimmer and glow. I feel those lyrics deeply as I sing my part throughout that passage. I personally connect to that sentiment daily as I recall not only my parents, but aunts, uncles, grandparents, and ancestors I’ve only heard of and never met. Their wisdom and forgiveness light the way for me and for my children, and I always feel indebted and grateful to their many sacrifices. – Amy Glass
In 1985, I arrived at the University of Kentucky to start my master’s degree in library science. As part of financial aid, I was awarded an internship at the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. KDLA put on regular author events, which is how I first came to hear about Wendell Berry. I still have his autographed copy of A Place on Earth and first became of fan of his novels, only later realizing he was also an amazing poet and dedicated environmentalist. “The Peace of Wild Things” found a place in my heart a long time ago. When I heard the recording that Karla posted for WVC in August, I knew right away it would be the piece that spoke to me. That composition and “1941” are the two that resonate with me the most in this singing season. – Doris Sigl
At an early rehearsal you asked us to think about the line “Then shall all shackles fall…” in particular (as I understood you) the shackles that bind us personally, and what it would feel like to be released from them.
When we sing that line—and I am surrounded by that roar of sound—I am overcome by the thought of what it might feel like to be released from the bonds of self-doubt and self-loathing.
Wouldn’t that be remarkable?
There are plenty other moments in our program that resonate, but I wanted to be sure to share this one with you.
There’s another moment, too, that speaks to me especially, in “The Peace of Wild Things.” There’s a meme that depicts a dog sitting by a man on a bench. Thought bubbles popping up around the latter show dollar bills, cars, airplanes, etc. The dog’s thought bubble contains only one image: a dog sitting by a man on a bench. The image is captioned: “Why Dogs Are Happier than People.” When we sing “I come into the presence of wild things… who do not tax their minds with forethoughts of grief” I think of my little dog (only semi-wild). Unlike him, I waste an extraordinary amount of time worrying and fretting and speculating and horriblizing. My dog spends—as far as I can tell—NO time doing that. He sniffs the air. He enjoys his treats. He goes for walks. And he sleeps, chasing rabbits in his dreams. He is my constant reminder to pay attention to the moment and to enjoy the right now. – Anonymous
I have many, many moments of deep connection during this concert program.
The one that comes most strongly to mind is in “1941”, the last piano notes at the end. First the piano at the beginning places you in the cosmos, the universe, the blackness punctuated by lights, the serene beauty of the planets orbiting in their exact schedule … then the text, which is heartbreaking. I cried. The unbearable pain of losing a son. Then the unbearable beauty of the idea of connecting with him in spirit, in the universe, in the time beyond time. My mother died two years ago and it also brings up that grief.
So that’s my moment. Thank you for asking. – Rah Bickley
There are sections of almost all the pieces that connect w/ me (and I wake up most mornings with one of them running through my head), but I’d have to say 1941 really hits home.
I can picture so many people I’ve known
My father in law who was an ambulance driver in WWII and was one of the first people into Dachau when it was liberated.
My mother in law who was a lieutenant/nurse in WWII and landed at Normandy 3 days after D-day.
An uncle who was in the Pacific Theater in WWII and wrote an incredibly moving Christmas letter to his family from there.
A former boss served in Viet Nam and died from the effects of being exposed to Agent Orange.
A fellow engineer I’ve worked with for 25 years who is retired from the Army Reserves – Special Mountaineering Forces and was deployed right after 9/11 to clear mines and ammunition reserves out of caves in the mountains of Afghanistan (and survived it and is back working with us!).
And so many more.
When war is horror of the past? Yes, that is our hope and prayer. – Karla Byrnes
The simple line that opens “Faith is the Bird” speaks to me literally every day. I don’t even sing it, since it’s a solo, but it’s the thing that sticks in my mind nonetheless. It speaks to me because I have been facing a lot of personal challenges and a few professional challenges. Those words and melody keep reminding me that, not only will I make it through, but that I can find joy in simple things amidst the struggle of larger things. It’s like a rock that I can hold in my hand that gives me comfort and reminds me of my strength. – Anonymous
The moment that makes me tear up is “Wherever voices are rising, my voice will sing” in “I sing that my voice will be heard.” I do nonprofit communications for a living, and I’ve worked closely with people affected by injustice who were speaking out to change things — farmers caught in debt, child farm workers, people experiencing food insecurity, people living with HIV, people facing environmental degradation. Often these folks are telling their story at great personal cost. I don’t think about my voice in that passage. I think about theirs, and the music captures their bravery, their determination, and the strength all of us get from being part of a community of truth-tellers. – Claire Hermann