Favorite Patriotic Songs (especially for Election Day)

As we approach Election Day my thoughts turn to patriotism.  While I will not use this blog as a medium to share my personal political beliefs – since I am convinced there are intelligent and thoughtful people on both sides of the issues – I do want to use it to suggest how lucky we are to live in these United States of America.  There may have been a lively and even acrimonious debate taking place these past few months (it seems years), but no matter what the outcome of the election, our nation will not come to an end!  We will continue as a free society where the electorate is given the opportunity to choose how we will be governed.  The system may not be perfect, but I have yet to find one any better than ours.

So today I’m thinking of some of my favorite patriotic songs, especially in the choral genre.  There are, of course, the obvious choices – America, the Beautiful; My Country ‘tis of Thee; and The Star-Spangled Banner.  Still, there is another hymn that has become one I love to sing whenever the opportunity presents itself.  The name of it is This Is My Song and it is sung to the FINLANDIA hymn tune by Jean Sibelius.  In the realm of popular music, Irving Berlin’s God Bless America has been a hit since it was first sung by Kate Smith.

Moving on to actual choral selections brings me to Howard Hanson’s Song of Democracy, with text by Walt Whitman and Randall Thompson’s The Testament of Freedom, utilizing words by Thomas Jefferson.  These are pieces that stir utmost patriotism in my heart.  As we prepare to begin another four years, either with the same leaders or new leaders, may we remind ourselves that there are patriots on both sides of the issues, both in Washington, D.,C., and throughout this great land.

Understanding the Poetry We Sing

At the most recent rehearsal of The Michael O’Neal Summer Singers I brought up the subject of the meaning of Robert Frost’s poetry in Randall Thompson’s Frostiana.  Such well known pieces as Choose Something Like a Star and The Road Not Taken evoke in most thoughtful singers some very powerful emotions and I believe an appropriate introspection can result in more powerful musical experiences.  Still, what my singers heard from me that evening was an unwillingness to offer my personal interpretation of Frost’s poetry.  Rather, I encouraged them to engage in personal study and reflection in order to formulate their own “meanings” of the poems.  Keep in mind we’re talking about essentially a group of adults (with a handful of high school and college students).   If it had been a chorus made up primarily of young people I would probably have engaged in a group discussion of possible interpretations.  However, with adults I think they have experienced enough of life to encourage some personal reflection on these poems.

Still, I am always interested in hearing what others have to say about a text with which I have already formulated an opinion.   Often I will discover a new way of examining the poem and find my own interpretation enriched by what I hear from another person.  That leads me to the real purpose of today’s blog.  I’m interested in how you interpret the Robert Frost poems Randall Thompson selected for Frostiana.  Here are the songs, the poetry of which can easily be found online:  The Road Not Taken; The Pasture; Come In; The Telephone; A Girl’s Garden; Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening; and Choose Something Like a Star.  I would especially like to hear from my Summer Singers, but invite responses from anyone out there who knows and loves this poetry.

Summer Singers and the Five Ls

The Michael O’Neal Summer Singers are about to begin another summer of music making and I am very excited about the prospect.  Approximately 175 singers will gather on six Monday evenings spread throughout the summer, culminating in a concert of music by Randall Thompson.  I’ll be talking about Thompson’s music in future blogs, but today I want to say something about our Summer Singers chorus.  I find it always a joy to work with this non-auditioned group, ranging from enthusiastic amateurs to seasoned professionals.   One of the reasons we have such a wonderful time singing together is that we always try to achieve in each rehearsal something I call the Five Ls, which stand for Listen, Labor, Learn, Laugh and Love.   At the conclusion of a rehearsal, it is my goal that all participants (including myself) will have experienced each of those five actions to some degree.  We listen – to the music and to each other.  We labor – working together for a shared purpose brings enormous satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment.  We learn – listening and working together will almost always lead to learning something new.  We laugh – I believe a rehearsal without laughter is an opportunity lost.  And finally, we love – of course, we should certainly make every effort to love the music we are rehearsing, but I think it is also important to try to love and care for each other.

I think if we keep the Five Ls in our minds as we enter the rehearsal room, and recognize that each of these words is an action verb, we will depart the rehearsal with a recognition that the time we’ve spent together has been worthwhile and important and has even enhanced our lives in some small way.

A Summer Singers Success!

The Sixth Annual Michael O’Neal Summer Singers performed Salute to America to a large and enthusiastic audience yesterday afternoon.  The chorus of 150 non-auditioned, volunteer singers presented a polished, energetic, and completely captivating performance of The Testament of Freedom (Music: Randall Thompson; Words: Thomas Jefferson), Song of Democracy (Music: Howard Hanson; Words: Walt Whitman), and arrangements of America, the Beautiful, God Bless America, and Battle Hymn of the Republic.  Rounding out the concert was a two person version of Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever on the mighty Moller organ of Roswell UMC.  The two persons performing that showstopper were Tom Alderman and Allen Baston.  Tom also serves as the principal accompanist of MOS and provided phenomenal organ transcriptions of the Thompson and Hanson pieces.  If there is an organist anywhere who could have performed this music more magnificently, I have not met him or her!

Our Summer Singers chorus (MOSS) is always a joy to conduct, but this summer was a special treat.  I don’t think we’ve ever had a MOSS more dedicated and involved than this one.  With six Monday evening rehearsals spread out over two months, it was imperative that the singers work on their own between rehearsals if they expected to perform their best.  It was clear to me that these chorus members took their personal and collective responsibilities very seriously, for they sang a concert I will remember for years to come!  Thanks to all who sang and all who attended.  Aren’t we lucky to have choral music in our lives?

Learning a New Piece

I recently asked my readers to suggest some topics they would like to see discussed in this choral blog.  I’ve received many great ideas and will be including as many as I can in the next few weeks and months.  Today I’m going to talk about learning a new piece of choral music.  The question was whether it was best to learn the words and music at the same time or one at a time.  There is no easy answer to this and I think if you’re considering as an individual how to learn your music, you may just have to experiment to find what works best.  Still, I believe you’ll find most conductors have a specific approach to teaching a piece and therefore I’ll discuss mine.

First, however, I’ll mention that Robert Shaw, the single most important influence on my own musical life, would sometimes wait until very close to a performance to add text.  His successful “count singing” technique was so effective in rehearsals that his choruses would often sing with a precision that other choirs could only hope to achieve.  Mr. Shaw used to say that “God was not pleased with wrong notes” and his desire to make sure that the music was performed exactly as the composer had written it helped create those legendary Shaw performances.  This is not to say that Robert Shaw was not concerned about text.  He probably cared about words and their meanings more than any other musician with whom I have worked.  He did, however,  think it was important to have to have all pitches, rhythms, dynamics, etc., learned well before you start adding words.

While I follow many of Mr. Shaw’s practices (it’s hard to argue with success!), I don’t spend as much time on count singing as he did and I also believe in adding the text sooner rather than later.  I think the average singer in a community chorus or church choir rehearsing once a week needs to have more time for the words to become part of the music and, perhaps even more importantly, part of his soul.  That’s why I’ve spent so much time in our Summer Singers rehearsals talking about the texts of Randall Thompson’s The Testament of Freedom and Howard Hanson’s Song of Democracy. With the text of the former piece by Thomas Jefferson and of the latter piece by Walt Whitman, we have words which are most likely pretty important!  It is my belief that involving those texts early in our rehearsals helps them really “live” in performance.  Now getting to that performance must still involve many steps, and we will count sing, sing staccato with words, speak rhythmically with words, sing and tune chords without concern for meter, etc., etc., before we finally reach performance day.  All this to say, I think that in the learning process the sooner we can begin to understand the “gestalt” of the piece, the more complete will be the ultimate performance.

Words and Music

I love words. I also love music. It is perhaps the love for each which has drawn me so closely to choral music throughout my life. I can think of no other art form that provides such a beautiful blending of words and music. Over the years I have often been profoundly affected by the power of a meaningful text wedded to equally beautiful music. I’m writing this two days before our country’s July 4th celebration and find myself reflecting on the words a 78 year old Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to John Adams. I first heard these words as they were set by Randall Thompson in his The Testament of Freedom, composed during the midst of World War II. The text reads:

I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on steady advance…And even should the cloud of barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and liberties of Europe, this country remains to preserve and restore light and liberty to them…The flames kindled on the 4th of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.

Another text I remember well was also set to music by Randall Thompson. It was one of the Robert Frost poems Thompson selected to include in his collection entitled Frostiana. It became during my high school and college years a reminder that each step one takes in life carries with it certain opportunities as well as consequences. As poignant as the words were by themselves, I know they spoke more deeply to me through the music on which they were carried. You may remember The Road Not Taken, and the way it began: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both…

I’m sure there are words and music that have been important in your life. What are some of word/music combinations that have made a difference to you?

Summer and Singing!

We’ve just begun the sixth season of The Michael O’Neal Summer Singers and the first rehearsal was a blast!  One hundred and fifty voices came together to sing Randall Thompson’s The Testament of Freedom, Howard Hanson’s Song of Democracy, and arrangements of America, the Beautiful, God Bless America, and The Battle Hymn of the Republic.  In a program entitled (not surprisingly) Salute to America, this summer’s chorus should perform beautifully in our concert on August 15th. 

The Summer Singers (MOSS), unlike the regular season MOS,  is a completely non-auditioned chorus, and open to all interested singers.  The wide range of experience found exhibited in the individual singers in each summer’s chorus helps make the entire effort so gratifying to me.  I love taking people of various backgrounds and skill levels and assisting them in becoming a unified and sensitive musical ensemble.  That leads me to a question!  I’m interested in hearing the views of my readers on the pros and cons of non-auditioned vs. auditioned choruses.  Share your thoughts.