Sacred Miscellany

Wishing Everyone a Shana Tova!

Rosh Hashanah starts at sundown this evening and I want to wish all my Jewish friends a very joyful New Year!  Two days of reflection and feasting. Honey and apples, the shofar, the services! 

In a lighter vein, it's Rosh Hashanah girl:

 

What's Up, Pussycat?

Short Answer:  Lots!  But I'm still smiling.

Longer Answer:

1.  This blog is in a "redesign process," preparing to move to WordPress.  My website is also getting a make-over.  Who do I want to be in the "public eye"?

2. October 25th workshop on "Singing the Psalms" - basic chant for psalmody.  An evening of history, inspiration, and a lot of singing. This will be at Marywood Retreat Center from 6:30-8:30 in the evening.  A chance to draw more voices into a song that's been uninterrupted for over 2,000 years!

3.  November 13th Concert honoring the Sisters of St. Joseph is coming up over the horizon.  Research, scripting, music selections, practice tracks.  Harp and song from France to Florida. Very exciting! 

4. Planning how to finish doctoral coursework by the end of this calendar year.  Motivation madness!

5. Family visits - lots of fresh northeast Florida shrimp and catching up.  Fun - but definitely put items 1-3 behind schedule.

6. Finished Eric Metaxas' Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy.  A gripping tale and a very good restatement of Bonhoeffer's theology rescued from the "death of God" nonsense of the 1960s. Inspiring!

7. Kicking up the Celtic with new songs and instrumentals.  Best part of the day, but never enough time!

8. Mega-planning for 2012.  Trying not to generate endless scheduling conflicts by getting festivals, shape-note singings, and workshops on the calendar NOW.  Generating serious expectations!

9. Sharing the best in very old or very new music with my listeners every Friday from 1-3 pm on WFCF-FM, Flagler College Radio.  Streamed live at radio.flagler.edu.  Tune me in!

So, watch to see the changes in Sacred Miscellany and mjballou.com.  If you're in the northeast Florida area, plan for the October 25th workshop and the November 13th concert.

Whew!  I'm enjoying this all. 

Brian Boru 9/11 Tribute

Cynthia Cathcart made this recording of the rallying march, Brian Boru, shortly after the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks on the USA.  The instrument is a wire-strung harp. Here it is incorporated into a tribute and memory:

Even Bedbugs Look Cute in France

This image comes from the online store for the Tourist Office in Le Puy, France, one of the historic starting points for the Camino de Santiago.  Unfortunately, bedbugs have joined the pilgrimage in recent years. Ugh!

This is an advertisement for a powder guaranteed to eliminate your bloodthirsty little companions.   Notice the signature scallop shell in the background of the drawing.  Adorable, non?

Of course, the bedbugs were probably along for the ride in the Middle Ages, but vermin were just part of the landscape then.  Fleas, lice, bedbugs....

On Memory and Music in "Early Music America"

The Fall issue of Early Music America has a wonderful essay by Thomas Forrest Kelly from Harvard on "Our Memory of Music."  Worth searching out if you don't subscribe.  Here's the tantalizing opening from St. Basil the Great:

"Of the arts necessary to life which furnish a concrete result, there is carpentry, which produces the chair; architecture, the house; shipbuilding, the ship, tailoring, the garment; forging, the blade.  Of useless arts there is harp playing, dancing, flute playing, of which, when the operation ceases, the result disappears with it."

Rather discouraging words to a harpist, but one must remember that the early Church Fathers weren't exactly wild about instrumental music because of its pagan associations.  And in the age of "mechanical reproduction," as Walter Benjamin called it, we can make our music endure.

Or so we think.  How much of our performance is really "of the moment"?  How much is or isn't captured on a video or a CD?  Where's the real art? 

Good things to think about - check the essay.  Or join Early Music America and learn new things on a regular basis.