SUMMER 2021 TRIAGE CONCERT PROGRAM:

“CRIES IN ISOLATION”

Denial: (Spiritual)

“Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen”

Composer: Traditional 

In an operatic aria, a singer expresses a singular intense thought or feeling about someone or something. Negro Spirituals are America’s arias. Each one is a narrative experience expounding on a single idea. Negro Spirituals are places where the brutality of racism, history and deep spirituality intersect. There are pleas for God to intervene in real time, and do something about the mental torment and physical pain the person is experiencing.

We are not sure what the song, “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” is about. Given the time that the song was written, we know that Black Americans were subject to the horrifying act of lynching. It has been suggested that this piece is a singing testimonial about seeing a lynching first hand. What horrors were reported at a lynching? Lynchings were accompanied by rape, genital mutiliation, burning of the body while the person is alive, and some reports included a fetus being stomped to death right before it could be a newborn. Actions like these and many others were done in public. In full view of crowds of men, women, and children that numbered into the tens of thousands collecting the crime scene evidence as souvenirs.

The twin horrors of the plague (global pandemic) and racial injustice have strong parallels to each other. In both, we experience a level of fear that is all consuming. A fear that is everywhere yet nowhere. A fear so strong that it triggers denial of our own fragile existence. Fragility at the hands of nature and fragility at the hands of each other. We do not know why some have been taken. We do not know why we have not been taken yet. We do not know when our turn will be. It is that terrifying encounter, causes the singer to tell  us, “I’m sometimes up. I’m sometimes down. Almost so low to the ground. Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen. Glory Hallelujah.”

Anger: (Classical)

“Lyric for Strings”

Composer: Dr. George Walker (1922 - 2018)

The composer Dr. George Walker was the grandson of slaves. He is the first Black graduate from the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music. He is also the first Black composer to win a Pulitzer prize, earning the award in 1996. The pianist and composer wrote nearly one hundred compositions. His music possesses a voice of individuality but you cannot discern his race from listening to his music. Dr. Walker does use Blues and Jazz elements in some of his compositions but in terms of style, Dr. Walker’s music is in line with other contemporary classical composers.

“Lyric for Strings” is the second movement from his first string quartet. The composer later arranged that section of the string quartet for a full string orchestra. It is his most famous composition. At the time it was written, Dr. Walker was a student at The Curtis Institute. It was written in memory of his grandmother. His grandmother had been enslaved in America. In speaking to her grandson, Dr. George Walker about slavery she said, “They did everything but eat us.” Those words resonated with Dr. Walker all of his life. 

The stunning beauty in this slightly dissonant piece of music is found in the range of colors of sound that slowly move and meander through the various instrumental groups. In this collection, it is a contemplative anger. Lower instruments and lower notes provide darker tones. Higher instruments and higher notes provide lighter colors and brighter textures. As the melody is passed back and forth from one section to another approaching the crescendo in the piece, the sound unfolds and grows like a ribbon being unspooled. This mastery in using the string orchestra locks the listener into an emotional roller coaster. From the first three bars of music, it is clear why this piece is so well loved. At the close we are finally met with a peaceful harmonic resolution that allows us to calm our stormy anger and ground all negative energy so that it does not wander freely.

Bargaining: (Jazz)

“Lush Life”

Composer: Billy Strayhorn (1915 - 1967)

The epic Jazz composer William “Billy” Thomas Strayhorn was a master storyteller and picture painter with music. Unlike his longtime friend and creative partner Duke Ellington, Billy was classically trained in piano and composition. Most of Duke’s most famous musical arrangements were done by Billy. The  members of Duke’s band called him Sweetpea and made him their chef. Billy had an unusual amount of courage for that era of American life. Like James Bladwin and Bayard Rustin, Billy Strayhorn, was an openly Black Gay man at a time when being and expressing  was exceptionally rare.

“Lush Life” is considered an American Art Song. Billy composed it when he was just 16 years old. It was the first song he showed to Duke upon meeting him. It is not an easy piece of music. Singers who have recorded it and musicians who have played it, have all taken a different approach to bringing this story to life. Some singers, like Frank Sinatra, found it too difficult. Some renditions are smokey and somber, others are somewhat lively with broadway-like flare. 

This extremely challenging piece of music speaks eloquently about a person who was going about their life relaxing, only to find it interrupted by a fleeting romance. The result of the romance leaves the person feeling betrayed. Picture it as someone spurned by love, sitting at the end of a long dark bar, having a drink alone, trying to come to grips with the world. The mature conversational nature of this piece has the singer/composer bargaining with himself. The hurt and the bitterness expressed at the end shows a particular kind of wrestling with self. Strayhorn closes it by saying, “I’ll live a lush life in some small dive. And there I’ll be while I rot with the rest of those whose lives are lonely too.”

Depression: (Tango)

“Adios Nonino”

Composer: Astor Piazzolla (1921 - 1992)

Astor Piazzolla was born in Argentina. His love of music was evident as a child. In his late teens, he joined a tango orchestra and started studying composition with Alberto Ginastera. Piazzolla fell in love with modern classical composers of the period like Stravinsky and studied the harmonies of Stravinksy and Ravel. Soon he began composing his own works and shortly thereafter, had his own tango orchestra which later disbanded. The hunger to be even more ambitious in his composing continued. Piazzolla continued to study classical music and started studying jazz. All of Piazzolla’s effort paid off. His musical innovations to tango music made him one of the most significant composers in the history of tango music.

When he was on tour in Central America 1959 Astor received a message that his father had died from a bicycle accident. This news came at a time when Astor was homesick and struggling financially. The tour itself was very unsuccessful. The death of his father coupled with an unsuccessful tour sent Piazzolla into a depression. Immediately after the tour was over, Piazzolla picked up his bandoneon and in 30 minutes composed “Adios Nonino”.

Although it was composed while in deep depression and in memory of the loss of his father, the title translates to “Goodbye Grandfather”. Astor’s father, Vicente, was a grandfather. The title links three generations of the family together in the musical portrait of one person. The structure of this piece moves from stormy frustration, to discontent, to a warm lyrical yet melancholy  sadness. With various repeating sections.

Acceptance: (Soul)

“Sunny”

Composer: Bobby Hebb (1938  - 2010)

Bobby Hebb was born into a world of music. He was born in Nashville, Tennessee. Both of his parents were musicians that were blind. At the age of three Bobby was a street performer tap dancing alongside his older brother in the Hebbs’ Kitchen Cabinet Orchestra, their family band.. By the time Bobby was a teenager, he transitioned his tap dancing over to playing the spoons as part of the all white country music band, Roy Acuff's Smoky Mountain Boys. In the Jazz and R & B Clubs of Nashville Bobby played the guitar and the trumpet, which he learned from his parents who also played those instruments as well as a number of other instruments.

Hebb composed a handful of songs before writing “Sunny” and composed several songs after “Sunny”. None of those songs ever gained the kind of attention that Sunny had.

“Sunny” was composed after the simultaneous deaths of President John F. Kennedy Jr. and Bobby’s brother, who died in a knife fight a day later. Bobby said he wrote it because at the time everything was so negative. In an interview in 2016, Bobby Hebb talked openly about his life and inspiration for writing the song “Sunny”. 

“It was dark when I started working on the song. The sun was rising. It was different. The sky was different colors. It  was like purple. I felt that the song was good and that it would help but I didn’t know how much. Everybody was feeling really negative at the time and I think we all needed a lift. You  go along with the tide. You can’t float but if the tide says you're going this way, you go with it. It’s tough to swim against it.”

In his own words Hebb makes it clear, part of acceptance is making an effort to look on the brighter side of really awful situations.

Faith: (Gospel)

“I Love the Lord”

Composer: Richard Smallwood (1948 - present)

Richard Smallwoood is one of America’s most celebrated gospel composers. Richard was born in Atlanta. His father Chester Smallwood was a preacher. When he was in the eighth grade, he had a young Roberta Flack as his music teacher and mentor. Smallwood is a graduate of Howard University where he studied piano, voice and ethnomusicology. Musicians and singers in gospel music compare his writing to that of another church musician from  a different era. Many say that Ricahrd’s writing is like a modern J. S. Bach, the Lutheran church musician from around 1700. 

In recent years, Smallwood has opened up about his life. Particularly his fights with depression and suicide. Personal battles were so intense, he had years where he could not compose a single note of music. Smallwood sees the pain from those personal battles as being the inspiration for his song writing. One of his most famous pieces, “I love the Lord”, was composed in 1976. When Whitney Houston was choosing the music for the soundtrack to the film The Preacher's Wife, she recalled singing I Love the Lord in the church she grew up in back in New Jersey. She loved the song so much she instantly wanted it on the album.

Smallwood’s “I Love the Lord'' is about the reclamation of faith hidden or lost. “I love the Lord. He heard my cry and pitied every groan. Long as I live and troubles rise I’ll hasten to His throne.” Faith is the substance of things hope for, the evidence of things not seen. In writing the text to “I Love the Lord”, Richard Smallwood has managed to write a piece of music that powerfully celebrates and uplifts the human capacity to believe in moments when it is not rational to do so.

SUMMER 2021 TRIAGE CONCERT PROGRAM:

“CRIES IN ISOLATION”

Denial: (Spiritual)

“Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen”

Composer: Traditional 

In an operatic aria, a singer expresses a singular intense thought or feeling about someone or something. Negro Spirituals are America’s arias. Each one is a narrative experience expounding on a single idea. Negro Spirituals are places where the brutality of racism, history and deep spirituality intersect. There are pleas for God to intervene in real time, and do something about the mental torment and physical pain the person is experiencing.

We are not sure what the song, “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” is about. Given the time that the song was written, we know that Black Americans were subject to the horrifying act of lynching. It has been suggested that this piece is a singing testimonial about seeing a lynching first hand. What horrors were reported at a lynching? Lynchings were accompanied by rape, genital mutiliation, burning of the body while the person is alive, and some reports included a fetus being stomped to death right before it could be a newborn. Actions like these and many others were done in public. In full view of crowds of men, women, and children that numbered into the tens of thousands collecting the crime scene evidence as souvenirs.

The twin horrors of the plague (global pandemic) and racial injustice have strong parallels to each other. In both, we experience a level of fear that is all consuming. A fear that is everywhere yet nowhere. A fear so strong that it triggers denial of our own fragile existence. Fragility at the hands of nature and fragility at the hands of each other. We do not know why some have been taken. We do not know why we have not been taken yet. We do not know when our turn will be. It is that terrifying encounter, causes the singer to tell  us, “I’m sometimes up. I’m sometimes down. Almost so low to the ground. Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen. Glory Hallelujah.”

Anger: (Classical)

“Lyric for Strings”

Composer: Dr. George Walker (1922 - 2018)

The composer Dr. George Walker was the grandson of slaves. He is the first Black graduate from the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music. He is also the first Black composer to win a Pulitzer prize, earning the award in 1996. The pianist and composer wrote nearly one hundred compositions. His music possesses a voice of individuality but you cannot discern his race from listening to his music. Dr. Walker does use Blues and Jazz elements in some of his compositions but in terms of style, Dr. Walker’s music is in line with other contemporary classical composers.

“Lyric for Strings” is the second movement from his first string quartet. The composer later arranged that section of the string quartet for a full string orchestra. It is his most famous composition. At the time it was written, Dr. Walker was a student at The Curtis Institute. It was written in memory of his grandmother. His grandmother had been enslaved in America. In speaking to her grandson, Dr. George Walker about slavery she said, “They did everything but eat us.” Those words resonated with Dr. Walker all of his life. 

The stunning beauty in this slightly dissonant piece of music is found in the range of colors of sound that slowly move and meander through the various instrumental groups. In this collection, it is a contemplative anger. Lower instruments and lower notes provide darker tones. Higher instruments and higher notes provide lighter colors and brighter textures. As the melody is passed back and forth from one section to another approaching the crescendo in the piece, the sound unfolds and grows like a ribbon being unspooled. This mastery in using the string orchestra locks the listener into an emotional roller coaster. From the first three bars of music, it is clear why this piece is so well loved. At the close we are finally met with a peaceful harmonic resolution that allows us to calm our stormy anger and ground all negative energy so that it does not wander freely.

Bargaining: (Jazz)

“Lush Life”

Composer: Billy Strayhorn (1915 - 1967)

The epic Jazz composer William “Billy” Thomas Strayhorn was a master storyteller and picture painter with music. Unlike his longtime friend and creative partner Duke Ellington, Billy was classically trained in piano and composition. Most of Duke’s most famous musical arrangements were done by Billy. The  members of Duke’s band called him Sweetpea and made him their chef. Billy had an unusual amount of courage for that era of American life. Like James Bladwin and Bayard Rustin, Billy Strayhorn, was an openly Black Gay man at a time when being and expressing  was exceptionally rare.

“Lush Life” is considered an American Art Song. Billy composed it when he was just 16 years old. It was the first song he showed to Duke upon meeting him. It is not an easy piece of music. Singers who have recorded it and musicians who have played it, have all taken a different approach to bringing this story to life. Some singers, like Frank Sinatra, found it too difficult. Some renditions are smokey and somber, others are somewhat lively with broadway-like flare. 

This extremely challenging piece of music speaks eloquently about a person who was going about their life relaxing, only to find it interrupted by a fleeting romance. The result of the romance leaves the person feeling betrayed. Picture it as someone spurned by love, sitting at the end of a long dark bar, having a drink alone, trying to come to grips with the world. The mature conversational nature of this piece has the singer/composer bargaining with himself. The hurt and the bitterness expressed at the end shows a particular kind of wrestling with self. Strayhorn closes it by saying, “I’ll live a lush life in some small dive. And there I’ll be while I rot with the rest of those whose lives are lonely too.”

Depression: (Tango)

“Adios Nonino”

Composer: Astor Piazzolla (1921 - 1992)

Astor Piazzolla was born in Argentina. His love of music was evident as a child. In his late teens, he joined a tango orchestra and started studying composition with Alberto Ginastera. Piazzolla fell in love with modern classical composers of the period like Stravinsky and studied the harmonies of Stravinksy and Ravel. Soon he began composing his own works and shortly thereafter, had his own tango orchestra which later disbanded. The hunger to be even more ambitious in his composing continued. Piazzolla continued to study classical music and started studying jazz. All of Piazzolla’s effort paid off. His musical innovations to tango music made him one of the most significant composers in the history of tango music.

When he was on tour in Central America 1959 Astor received a message that his father had died from a bicycle accident. This news came at a time when Astor was homesick and struggling financially. The tour itself was very unsuccessful. The death of his father coupled with an unsuccessful tour sent Piazzolla into a depression. Immediately after the tour was over, Piazzolla picked up his bandoneon and in 30 minutes composed “Adios Nonino”.

Although it was composed while in deep depression and in memory of the loss of his father, the title translates to “Goodbye Grandfather”. Astor’s father, Vicente, was a grandfather. The title links three generations of the family together in the musical portrait of one person. The structure of this piece moves from stormy frustration, to discontent, to a warm lyrical yet melancholy  sadness. With various repeating sections.

Acceptance: (Soul)

“Sunny”

Composer: Bobby Hebb (1938  - 2010)

Bobby Hebb was born into a world of music. He was born in Nashville, Tennessee. Both of his parents were musicians that were blind. At the age of three Bobby was a street performer tap dancing alongside his older brother in the Hebbs’ Kitchen Cabinet Orchestra, their family band.. By the time Bobby was a teenager, he transitioned his tap dancing over to playing the spoons as part of the all white country music band, Roy Acuff's Smoky Mountain Boys. In the Jazz and R & B Clubs of Nashville Bobby played the guitar and the trumpet, which he learned from his parents who also played those instruments as well as a number of other instruments.

Hebb composed a handful of songs before writing “Sunny” and composed several songs after “Sunny”. None of those songs ever gained the kind of attention that Sunny had.

“Sunny” was composed after the simultaneous deaths of President John F. Kennedy Jr. and Bobby’s brother, who died in a knife fight a day later. Bobby said he wrote it because at the time everything was so negative. In an interview in 2016, Bobby Hebb talked openly about his life and inspiration for writing the song “Sunny”. 

“It was dark when I started working on the song. The sun was rising. It was different. The sky was different colors. It  was like purple. I felt that the song was good and that it would help but I didn’t know how much. Everybody was feeling really negative at the time and I think we all needed a lift. You  go along with the tide. You can’t float but if the tide says you're going this way, you go with it. It’s tough to swim against it.”

In his own words Hebb makes it clear, part of acceptance is making an effort to look on the brighter side of really awful situations.

Faith: (Gospel)

“I Love the Lord”

Composer: Richard Smallwood (1948 - present)

Richard Smallwoood is one of America’s most celebrated gospel composers. Richard was born in Atlanta. His father Chester Smallwood was a preacher. When he was in the eighth grade, he had a young Roberta Flack as his music teacher and mentor. Smallwood is a graduate of Howard University where he studied piano, voice and ethnomusicology. Musicians and singers in gospel music compare his writing to that of another church musician from  a different era. Many say that Ricahrd’s writing is like a modern J. S. Bach, the Lutheran church musician from around 1700. 

In recent years, Smallwood has opened up about his life. Particularly his fights with depression and suicide. Personal battles were so intense, he had years where he could not compose a single note of music. Smallwood sees the pain from those personal battles as being the inspiration for his song writing. One of his most famous pieces, “I love the Lord”, was composed in 1976. When Whitney Houston was choosing the music for the soundtrack to the film The Preacher's Wife, she recalled singing I Love the Lord in the church she grew up in back in New Jersey. She loved the song so much she instantly wanted it on the album.

Smallwood’s “I Love the Lord'' is about the reclamation of faith hidden or lost. “I love the Lord. He heard my cry and pitied every groan. Long as I live and troubles rise I’ll hasten to His throne.” Faith is the substance of things hope for, the evidence of things not seen. In writing the text to “I Love the Lord”, Richard Smallwood has managed to write a piece of music that powerfully celebrates and uplifts the human capacity to believe in moments when it is not rational to do so.

SUMMER 2021 TRIAGE CONCERT PROGRAM:

“CRIES IN ISOLATION”

Denial: (Spiritual)

“Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen”

Composer: Traditional 

In an operatic aria, a singer expresses a singular intense thought or feeling about someone or something. Negro Spirituals are America’s arias. Each one is a narrative experience expounding on a single idea. Negro Spirituals are places where the brutality of racism, history and deep spirituality intersect. There are pleas for God to intervene in real time, and do something about the mental torment and physical pain the person is experiencing.

We are not sure what the song, “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” is about. Given the time that the song was written, we know that Black Americans were subject to the horrifying act of lynching. It has been suggested that this piece is a singing testimonial about seeing a lynching first hand. What horrors were reported at a lynching? Lynchings were accompanied by rape, genital mutiliation, burning of the body while the person is alive, and some reports included a fetus being stomped to death right before it could be a newborn. Actions like these and many others were done in public. In full view of crowds of men, women, and children that numbered into the tens of thousands collecting the crime scene evidence as souvenirs.

The twin horrors of the plague (global pandemic) and racial injustice have strong parallels to each other. In both, we experience a level of fear that is all consuming. A fear that is everywhere yet nowhere. A fear so strong that it triggers denial of our own fragile existence. Fragility at the hands of nature and fragility at the hands of each other. We do not know why some have been taken. We do not know why we have not been taken yet. We do not know when our turn will be. It is that terrifying encounter, causes the singer to tell  us, “I’m sometimes up. I’m sometimes down. Almost so low to the ground. Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen. Glory Hallelujah.”

Anger: (Classical)

“Lyric for Strings”

Composer: Dr. George Walker (1922 - 2018)

The composer Dr. George Walker was the grandson of slaves. He is the first Black graduate from the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music. He is also the first Black composer to win a Pulitzer prize, earning the award in 1996. The pianist and composer wrote nearly one hundred compositions. His music possesses a voice of individuality but you cannot discern his race from listening to his music. Dr. Walker does use Blues and Jazz elements in some of his compositions but in terms of style, Dr. Walker’s music is in line with other contemporary classical composers.

“Lyric for Strings” is the second movement from his first string quartet. The composer later arranged that section of the string quartet for a full string orchestra. It is his most famous composition. At the time it was written, Dr. Walker was a student at The Curtis Institute. It was written in memory of his grandmother. His grandmother had been enslaved in America. In speaking to her grandson, Dr. George Walker about slavery she said, “They did everything but eat us.” Those words resonated with Dr. Walker all of his life. 

The stunning beauty in this slightly dissonant piece of music is found in the range of colors of sound that slowly move and meander through the various instrumental groups. In this collection, it is a contemplative anger. Lower instruments and lower notes provide darker tones. Higher instruments and higher notes provide lighter colors and brighter textures. As the melody is passed back and forth from one section to another approaching the crescendo in the piece, the sound unfolds and grows like a ribbon being unspooled. This mastery in using the string orchestra locks the listener into an emotional roller coaster. From the first three bars of music, it is clear why this piece is so well loved. At the close we are finally met with a peaceful harmonic resolution that allows us to calm our stormy anger and ground all negative energy so that it does not wander freely.

Bargaining: (Jazz)

“Lush Life”

Composer: Billy Strayhorn (1915 - 1967)

The epic Jazz composer William “Billy” Thomas Strayhorn was a master storyteller and picture painter with music. Unlike his longtime friend and creative partner Duke Ellington, Billy was classically trained in piano and composition. Most of Duke’s most famous musical arrangements were done by Billy. The  members of Duke’s band called him Sweetpea and made him their chef. Billy had an unusual amount of courage for that era of American life. Like James Bladwin and Bayard Rustin, Billy Strayhorn, was an openly Black Gay man at a time when being and expressing  was exceptionally rare.

“Lush Life” is considered an American Art Song. Billy composed it when he was just 16 years old. It was the first song he showed to Duke upon meeting him. It is not an easy piece of music. Singers who have recorded it and musicians who have played it, have all taken a different approach to bringing this story to life. Some singers, like Frank Sinatra, found it too difficult. Some renditions are smokey and somber, others are somewhat lively with broadway-like flare. 

This extremely challenging piece of music speaks eloquently about a person who was going about their life relaxing, only to find it interrupted by a fleeting romance. The result of the romance leaves the person feeling betrayed. Picture it as someone spurned by love, sitting at the end of a long dark bar, having a drink alone, trying to come to grips with the world. The mature conversational nature of this piece has the singer/composer bargaining with himself. The hurt and the bitterness expressed at the end shows a particular kind of wrestling with self. Strayhorn closes it by saying, “I’ll live a lush life in some small dive. And there I’ll be while I rot with the rest of those whose lives are lonely too.”

Depression: (Tango)

“Adios Nonino”

Composer: Astor Piazzolla (1921 - 1992)

Astor Piazzolla was born in Argentina. His love of music was evident as a child. In his late teens, he joined a tango orchestra and started studying composition with Alberto Ginastera. Piazzolla fell in love with modern classical composers of the period like Stravinsky and studied the harmonies of Stravinksy and Ravel. Soon he began composing his own works and shortly thereafter, had his own tango orchestra which later disbanded. The hunger to be even more ambitious in his composing continued. Piazzolla continued to study classical music and started studying jazz. All of Piazzolla’s effort paid off. His musical innovations to tango music made him one of the most significant composers in the history of tango music.

When he was on tour in Central America 1959 Astor received a message that his father had died from a bicycle accident. This news came at a time when Astor was homesick and struggling financially. The tour itself was very unsuccessful. The death of his father coupled with an unsuccessful tour sent Piazzolla into a depression. Immediately after the tour was over, Piazzolla picked up his bandoneon and in 30 minutes composed “Adios Nonino”.

Although it was composed while in deep depression and in memory of the loss of his father, the title translates to “Goodbye Grandfather”. Astor’s father, Vicente, was a grandfather. The title links three generations of the family together in the musical portrait of one person. The structure of this piece moves from stormy frustration, to discontent, to a warm lyrical yet melancholy  sadness. With various repeating sections.

Acceptance: (Soul)

“Sunny”

Composer: Bobby Hebb (1938  - 2010)

Bobby Hebb was born into a world of music. He was born in Nashville, Tennessee. Both of his parents were musicians that were blind. At the age of three Bobby was a street performer tap dancing alongside his older brother in the Hebbs’ Kitchen Cabinet Orchestra, their family band.. By the time Bobby was a teenager, he transitioned his tap dancing over to playing the spoons as part of the all white country music band, Roy Acuff's Smoky Mountain Boys. In the Jazz and R & B Clubs of Nashville Bobby played the guitar and the trumpet, which he learned from his parents who also played those instruments as well as a number of other instruments.

Hebb composed a handful of songs before writing “Sunny” and composed several songs after “Sunny”. None of those songs ever gained the kind of attention that Sunny had.

“Sunny” was composed after the simultaneous deaths of President John F. Kennedy Jr. and Bobby’s brother, who died in a knife fight a day later. Bobby said he wrote it because at the time everything was so negative. In an interview in 2016, Bobby Hebb talked openly about his life and inspiration for writing the song “Sunny”. 

“It was dark when I started working on the song. The sun was rising. It was different. The sky was different colors. It  was like purple. I felt that the song was good and that it would help but I didn’t know how much. Everybody was feeling really negative at the time and I think we all needed a lift. You  go along with the tide. You can’t float but if the tide says you're going this way, you go with it. It’s tough to swim against it.”

In his own words Hebb makes it clear, part of acceptance is making an effort to look on the brighter side of really awful situations.

Faith: (Gospel)

“I Love the Lord”

Composer: Richard Smallwood (1948 - present)

Richard Smallwoood is one of America’s most celebrated gospel composers. Richard was born in Atlanta. His father Chester Smallwood was a preacher. When he was in the eighth grade, he had a young Roberta Flack as his music teacher and mentor. Smallwood is a graduate of Howard University where he studied piano, voice and ethnomusicology. Musicians and singers in gospel music compare his writing to that of another church musician from  a different era. Many say that Ricahrd’s writing is like a modern J. S. Bach, the Lutheran church musician from around 1700. 

In recent years, Smallwood has opened up about his life. Particularly his fights with depression and suicide. Personal battles were so intense, he had years where he could not compose a single note of music. Smallwood sees the pain from those personal battles as being the inspiration for his song writing. One of his most famous pieces, “I love the Lord”, was composed in 1976. When Whitney Houston was choosing the music for the soundtrack to the film The Preacher's Wife, she recalled singing I Love the Lord in the church she grew up in back in New Jersey. She loved the song so much she instantly wanted it on the album.

Smallwood’s “I Love the Lord'' is about the reclamation of faith hidden or lost. “I love the Lord. He heard my cry and pitied every groan. Long as I live and troubles rise I’ll hasten to His throne.” Faith is the substance of things hope for, the evidence of things not seen. In writing the text to “I Love the Lord”, Richard Smallwood has managed to write a piece of music that powerfully celebrates and uplifts the human capacity to believe in moments when it is not rational to do so.

Summer 2021 Triage Concert Program:

“Cries in Isolation”

Denial: (Spiritual)

“Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen”

Composer: Traditional 

In an operatic aria, a singer expresses a singular intense thought or feeling about someone or something. Negro Spirituals are America’s arias. Each one is a narrative experience expounding on a single idea. Negro Spirituals are places where the brutality of racism, history and deep spirituality intersect. There are pleas for God to intervene in real time, and do something about the mental torment and physical pain the person is experiencing.

We are not sure what the song, “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” is about. Given the time that the song was written, we know that Black Americans were subject to the horrifying act of lynching. It has been suggested that this piece is a singing testimonial about seeing a lynching first hand. What horrors were reported at a lynching? Lynchings were accompanied by rape, genital mutiliation, burning of the body while the person is alive, and some reports included a fetus being stomped to death right before it could be a newborn. Actions like these and many others were done in public. In full view of crowds of men, women, and children that numbered into the tens of thousands collecting the crime scene evidence as souvenirs.

The twin horrors of the plague (global pandemic) and racial injustice have strong parallels to each other. In both, we experience a level of fear that is all consuming. A fear that is everywhere yet nowhere. A fear so strong that it triggers denial of our own fragile existence. Fragility at the hands of nature and fragility at the hands of each other. We do not know why some have been taken. We do not know why we have not been taken yet. We do not know when our turn will be. It is that terrifying encounter, causes the singer to tell  us, “I’m sometimes up. I’m sometimes down. Almost so low to the ground. Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen. Glory Hallelujah.”

Anger: (Classical)

“Lyric for Strings”

Composer: Dr. George Walker (1922 - 2018)

The composer Dr. George Walker was the grandson of slaves. He is the first Black graduate from the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music. He is also the first Black composer to win a Pulitzer prize, earning the award in 1996. The pianist and composer wrote nearly one hundred compositions. His music possesses a voice of individuality but you cannot discern his race from listening to his music. Dr. Walker does use Blues and Jazz elements in some of his compositions but in terms of style, Dr. Walker’s music is in line with other contemporary classical composers.

“Lyric for Strings” is the second movement from his first string quartet. The composer later arranged that section of the string quartet for a full string orchestra. It is his most famous composition. At the time it was written, Dr. Walker was a student at The Curtis Institute. It was written in memory of his grandmother. His grandmother had been enslaved in America. In speaking to her grandson, Dr. George Walker about slavery she said, “They did everything but eat us.” Those words resonated with Dr. Walker all of his life. 

The stunning beauty in this slightly dissonant piece of music is found in the range of colors of sound that slowly move and meander through the various instrumental groups. In this collection, it is a contemplative anger. Lower instruments and lower notes provide darker tones. Higher instruments and higher notes provide lighter colors and brighter textures. As the melody is passed back and forth from one section to another approaching the crescendo in the piece, the sound unfolds and grows like a ribbon being unspooled. This mastery in using the string orchestra locks the listener into an emotional roller coaster. From the first three bars of music, it is clear why this piece is so well loved. At the close we are finally met with a peaceful harmonic resolution that allows us to calm our stormy anger and ground all negative energy so that it does not wander freely.

Bargaining: (Jazz)

“Lush Life”

Composer: Billy Strayhorn (1915 - 1967)

The epic Jazz composer William “Billy” Thomas Strayhorn was a master storyteller and picture painter with music. Unlike his longtime friend and creative partner Duke Ellington, Billy was classically trained in piano and composition. Most of Duke’s most famous musical arrangements were done by Billy. The  members of Duke’s band called him Sweetpea and made him their chef. Billy had an unusual amount of courage for that era of American life. Like James Bladwin and Bayard Rustin, Billy Strayhorn, was an openly Black Gay man at a time when being and expressing  was exceptionally rare.

“Lush Life” is considered an American Art Song. Billy composed it when he was just 16 years old. It was the first song he showed to Duke upon meeting him. It is not an easy piece of music. Singers who have recorded it and musicians who have played it, have all taken a different approach to bringing this story to life. Some singers, like Frank Sinatra, found it too difficult. Some renditions are smokey and somber, others are somewhat lively with broadway-like flare. 

This extremely challenging piece of music speaks eloquently about a person who was going about their life relaxing, only to find it interrupted by a fleeting romance. The result of the romance leaves the person feeling betrayed. Picture it as someone spurned by love, sitting at the end of a long dark bar, having a drink alone, trying to come to grips with the world. The mature conversational nature of this piece has the singer/composer bargaining with himself. The hurt and the bitterness expressed at the end shows a particular kind of wrestling with self. Strayhorn closes it by saying, “I’ll live a lush life in some small dive. And there I’ll be while I rot with the rest of those whose lives are lonely too.”

Depression: (Tango)

“Adios Nonino”

Composer: Astor Piazzolla (1921 - 1992)

Astor Piazzolla was born in Argentina. His love of music was evident as a child. In his late teens, he joined a tango orchestra and started studying composition with Alberto Ginastera. Piazzolla fell in love with modern classical composers of the period like Stravinsky and studied the harmonies of Stravinksy and Ravel. Soon he began composing his own works and shortly thereafter, had his own tango orchestra which later disbanded. The hunger to be even more ambitious in his composing continued. Piazzolla continued to study classical music and started studying jazz. All of Piazzolla’s effort paid off. His musical innovations to tango music made him one of the most significant composers in the history of tango music.

When he was on tour in Central America 1959 Astor received a message that his father had died from a bicycle accident. This news came at a time when Astor was homesick and struggling financially. The tour itself was very unsuccessful. The death of his father coupled with an unsuccessful tour sent Piazzolla into a depression. Immediately after the tour was over, Piazzolla picked up his bandoneon and in 30 minutes composed “Adios Nonino”.

Although it was composed while in deep depression and in memory of the loss of his father, the title translates to “Goodbye Grandfather”. Astor’s father, Vicente, was a grandfather. The title links three generations of the family together in the musical portrait of one person. The structure of this piece moves from stormy frustration, to discontent, to a warm lyrical yet melancholy  sadness. With various repeating sections.

Acceptance: (Soul)

“Sunny”

Composer: Bobby Hebb (1938  - 2010)

Bobby Hebb was born into a world of music. He was born in Nashville, Tennessee. Both of his parents were musicians that were blind. At the age of three Bobby was a street performer tap dancing alongside his older brother in the Hebbs’ Kitchen Cabinet Orchestra, their family band.. By the time Bobby was a teenager, he transitioned his tap dancing over to playing the spoons as part of the all white country music band, Roy Acuff's Smoky Mountain Boys. In the Jazz and R & B Clubs of Nashville Bobby played the guitar and the trumpet, which he learned from his parents who also played those instruments as well as a number of other instruments.

Hebb composed a handful of songs before writing “Sunny” and composed several songs after “Sunny”. None of those songs ever gained the kind of attention that Sunny had.

“Sunny” was composed after the simultaneous deaths of President John F. Kennedy Jr. and Bobby’s brother, who died in a knife fight a day later. Bobby said he wrote it because at the time everything was so negative. In an interview in 2016, Bobby Hebb talked openly about his life and inspiration for writing the song “Sunny”. 

“It was dark when I started working on the song. The sun was rising. It was different. The sky was different colors. It  was like purple. I felt that the song was good and that it would help but I didn’t know how much. Everybody was feeling really negative at the time and I think we all needed a lift. You  go along with the tide. You can’t float but if the tide says you're going this way, you go with it. It’s tough to swim against it.”

In his own words Hebb makes it clear, part of acceptance is making an effort to look on the brighter side of really awful situations.

Faith: (Gospel)

“I Love the Lord”

Composer: Richard Smallwood (1948 - present)

Richard Smallwoood is one of America’s most celebrated gospel composers. Richard was born in Atlanta. His father Chester Smallwood was a preacher. When he was in the eighth grade, he had a young Roberta Flack as his music teacher and mentor. Smallwood is a graduate of Howard University where he studied piano, voice and ethnomusicology. Musicians and singers in gospel music compare his writing to that of another church musician from  a different era. Many say that Ricahrd’s writing is like a modern J. S. Bach, the Lutheran church musician from around 1700. 

In recent years, Smallwood has opened up about his life. Particularly his fights with depression and suicide. Personal battles were so intense, he had years where he could not compose a single note of music. Smallwood sees the pain from those personal battles as being the inspiration for his song writing. One of his most famous pieces, “I love the Lord”, was composed in 1976. When Whitney Houston was choosing the music for the soundtrack to the film The Preacher's Wife, she recalled singing I Love the Lord in the church she grew up in back in New Jersey. She loved the song so much she instantly wanted it on the album.

Smallwood’s “I Love the Lord'' is about the reclamation of faith hidden or lost. “I love the Lord. He heard my cry and pitied every groan. Long as I live and troubles rise I’ll hasten to His throne.” Faith is the substance of things hope for, the evidence of things not seen. In writing the text to “I Love the Lord”, Richard Smallwood has managed to write a piece of music that powerfully celebrates and uplifts the human capacity to believe in moments when it is not rational to do so.

The Black String Triage Ensemble and Legion of the Soul

August 20th, 2020 Program Introduction:

Deliver Us From Evil

They told us as children that rather than be enslaved, some Africans jumped into the ocean. One child asked the elder why. The elder said, "because they saw what was on the other side." I have always wondered what that meant. What did they see? Maybe they saw what happened to Ahmad Arbury, George Floyd and Christian Cooper and decided death was a better option?

It has been said that if the United States of America did not have racism, it would be the most equitable and successful in the world. In a world of theoretical data that might perhaps be exciting. However our lived reality in the United States is one that says, the American identity requires the violent killing and economic exploitation of Black people. Without it, the nation does not know who it is.

Denial: (Patriotic Hymn) Lift Every Voice & Sing

Composer: James Weldon Johnson (1871 - 1938)

John Rosamond Johnson

(1873 - 1954)

Written in 1900 in Florida, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” was meant to be a Black American patriotic song for school assemblies, civic association meetings, church activities, political rallies, festivals and commemorations. “Lift Every Voice and Sing” has served that purpose very well. James and John could not foresee that their song would embrace and endure every form of Black political and economic thought the United States has ever had. As Black Americans participated in international gatherings and congresses, the song has been sung and embraced by people of African descent across the world. This might be the first international song written on the shores of America that the United States has.

Beginning this program with “Lift Every Voice and Sing” is a protest statement of dual denial. Part of the denial is a refusal to acknowledge that America needs a new national anthem. The beginning and founding identity of America is tied with slavery. The Star Spangled Banner is not a song that uplifts the Black experience in America. It celebrates enslavement. The fourth stanza in The Star Spangled Banner “No refuge could save the hireling or slave” is Francis Scott Key’s way of saying Black American slaves who joined the British to fight against America should be killed. The other part of the denial is the message within the song. It is a lesson about what it means to be a nation. This sense of America’s refusal to define nationhood from the point of departure of the Black experience is the internal salient struggle Colin Kapernick’s kneeling unearths.

Anger: (Classical) Meditation on Psalm 137

Composer: Dayvin M.A. Hallmon (1985 - Present)

Dayvin M.A. Hallmon is the musical grandchild of Jascha Heifetz, Dr. Thomas Dorsey and Dr. Mattie Moss Clark. Since the age of 9, Mr. Hallmon has been building ensembles in churches and helping congregations craft a strategic vision for their music ministry. Perfectly at home in both Gospel and Western Classical, Dayvin was Assistant Concertmaster of the Church of God In Christ International Orchestra for seven years. Mr. Hallmon has been studying music since the age of 5. He plays Violin, viola, clarinet, piano, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, flute, and pipe organ. Dayvin was born in Chicago, grew up in Racine, Wisconsin and is currently a resident of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Psalm 137 has resonated with many people throughout the history of the world. The psalm text is about being taken captive, mocked by those who have taken you, then your captors demand that you entertain them by singing joyful songs...all while they destroy you, your family and your culture. Psalm 137 is used for the Jewish day of mourning. This lament is so significant, it is the source material for Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s sermon “God Damn America”. It is the source text for Frederick Douglass’s most famous speech, “What to the Slave is the 4th of July?”. It is the text used for Verdi’s famous Hebrew slave chorus from Nabucco. That particular piece of music is so significant, it is the unofficial national anthem of Italy.

During Hurricane Katrina, someone in the media used the word refugee to describe the masses of mostly Black and Brown bodies rightfully expecting their government to come to their aid. Many people saw the Black and Brown bodies struggling to survive drown in water. With the most recent video of the Aurora Colorado Police Department forcing Black women and girls to the pavement and the killing of Elijah McClain, Black Americans are not refugees in their own country. However it can be hard to argue that Black Americans are not treated as refugees by the United States of America. Psalm 137 is a text about being a refugee. The most frightening part of the text is a lesson for us to internalize. When we treat others with extreme cruelty, someone else will come and do the same against us and when they do, they will kill our children eliminating any possibility for hope and a future.

“Before the musicians gave this a first sight reading, I said to them think of the Aurora Colorado Police Department. One of our violinists replied by saying he remembered the time his body was slammed on the hood of a car and asked if he spoke English.” - D. Hallmon

Rev's Comments: Associate Chaplain Rev. Molly Doreza

“I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind. . . Yet I do marvel at this curious thing: To make a poet black, and bid him sing!” (Countee Cullen) 

Slowly, they came out of their houses. As police roamed with dogs and set the yellow tape, the sound of soft strings wafted over the scene of a recent shooting. It was strange - this bizarre intersection of sweet sound and terrible violence. People began to surround the musicians, awed by a “concert” at such a time. What could it mean? “No one has ever done this for us” a man said, listening to the healing music. 

Front line health care workers strained to look out the second-story windows of Children’s Hospital - as a fellow worker filmed live video from her phone at the ER door. Quarantined and afraid for their lives, nurses and doctors, technicians and janitors watched and listened - amazed by the music of the Black Strings Triage Ensemble below. “No one has ever done this for us” said a masked nurse, eyes glistening with tears. 

“What are the words you do not yet have?” Writes philosopher and poet Audre Lorde. . .what are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you sicken and die of them, still in silence?” 

The Black String Triage Ensemble and the African American music they play, bows salvation’s voice into the broken hearts of neighbors affected by gun violence and into the ears of front line workers selflessly caring for others amidst of pandemic. It’s music gathers together the collective sense of suffering, and gives voice to the pain of people still oppressed, still afraid. Their music is not a postlude to the events of suffering, but a song sung in the midst of it - an astonishing testimony to the vision of Jerusalem Justice, even at the rivers of Babylon.

Bargaining: (Jazz) Come Sunday

Composer: Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (1899 - 1974)

Duke Ellington wrote three sacred masses. In this particular selection from one of those masses, the text asks God to come down to earth and save humanity. “Dear Lord above, God almighty, God of love, please look down and see my people through.” In making that request, the person acknowledges that there is some pain in life that they must endure. The text contains the line, “I don’t mind the gray skies cause they’re just clouds passing by and by.” Bargaining is always a conversation with God or the universe. It is a human questioning the trade off between how much suffering is necessary and when divine intervention begins.

Depression: (Blues) Wall Street Blues

Composer: W. C. Handy

(1873 - 1958)

W. C. Handy has been called the father of the blues due to the number of Blues pieces he wrote in his lifetime. Born in Florence, Alabama his family discouraged him from playing instruments. Handy’s grandfather was a African Methodist Episcopal pastor. Handy’s parents passed on that strict religious upbringing to their son. He was promised music lessons but only if he stuck to religious music. Handy started playing the organ and took lessons for a bit. As a teenager he joined a band and was able to purchase a cornet from one of his band mates and started practicing it. At 19 He was teaching music. Around the age of 30 Handy had settled himself and his wife in the Clarksdale, Mississippi/Helena,Arkansas area. It was there that Handy came in contact with the Blues. Ten years later Handy moves from playing the Blues, into composing and then into publishing. This allowed Handy to profit and distribute his music all over the United States.

The “Wall Street Blues'' was written in the wake of the 1929 wall street market crash. The lyrics speak to the depression of that reality. “I can sing the blues from the bottom of my heart, I can sing the blues from the bottom of my heart, All my profits gone 'fore I even got a start. Never had the blues like the blues I'm blue with now,Never had the blues like the blues I'm blue with now, Oh! what I recall of the street called Wall and how! Wailing Wall, Oh, Jerusalem! There's one in New York, too, Where I got a-whaling Now I'm ailin', Wailin' cause I'm blue. Margin callin' brokers, miles of ticker tape, Got a many poor old sap-head wearin' crepe, Wailin' Wall Street, I just can't enthuse, Boo-hoo-hoo-in', I've got the Wall Street Blues. More margin that's the broker's call, More margin, I can't meet his call, No more margin, Now he's got it all. No more margin, now he's got it all. Oh Wall Street you've got me depressed, Down-hearted, you can guess the rest, River's East end, graveyard's at the west.”

We are in the midst of a global pandemic. The idea of working and the ability to we may or may not have to work all become complicated because it is intertwined with our physical health. It is a healthcare problem and political problem that has caused an economic one. Nearly everyone is in some way concerned about jobs, finances, food, shelter, and water. Economic downturns are unique to the circumstances that give rise to them. Whether it is the stock market crash of 1929, the savings and loan crisis of 1980, the housing market crash in 2008, or the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, the depression that results from shattered life dreams, delayed plans and anticipations is very real.

Rev's Comments: Associate Chaplain Rev. Molly Doreza

Of the stages of grief, depression is the longest and most dangerous. Anger, bargaining, acceptance and faith are active responses - but depression is the place of helplessness and despair. St. John of the Cross,16th century Spanish mystic, referred to depression as the “dark night of the soul.” 

But It is also the place from which the miracle of the human spirit arises and becomes most brilliantly manifest. 

Paul Tillich, one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century tells a story which came to light during the Nuremberg Trials after WW II. During the Occupation of Poland, several Jews in the town of Wilma tried to escape the Nazis - by hiding in graves of a nearby cemetery. There, in that unlikely place, a young woman gave birth to a child. Analogous to this brutal narrative, Tillich explained that true faith and hope aren’t disembodied from despair - but born there. 

The blues is the sound of hope arising from the grave. From the depths of the black experience comes what Richard Wright calls “the endemic capacity to live.” The blues echoes a spirit stubbornly clinging to hope. It’s sultry sounds arise from despair, and insist that distress and mental anguish do not have the last word. 

It is curious that the blues have for so long been vanquished from religious gatherings and the so-called sacred community. Perhaps instead the “holy” and honest places have been the juke joints where despair’s hymns “confront the most unpromising circumstances and make the most of what little there is to go on, regardless of the odds.” (Albert Murray)

Acceptance: (Soul) A Change Is Gonna Come

Composer: Sam Cooke

(1931 - 1964)

Sam Cooke was also the son of a preacher. He was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi. At the age of 2 his family became part of the great migration to northern U.S. cities settling in Chicago. With Black Americans coming to Chicago from the east and south of the country, Chicago was quickly becoming a hub of American musical innovation. As a teenager Sam Cooke led a gospel group. Before he was twenty, Cooke instead of making the typical crossover in genres from Gospel to secular, blended the two styles. As a songwriter the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was impressed with Sam’s work. The Rev. Dr. King felt that Sam had a gift for writing songs with deep humanity.

One of the most iconic songs of the civil rights era of 1960, “A change is Gonna Come” is a song written by Sam Cooke after an incident at a hotel. Sam, his wife and members of his band had booked a reservation at a hotel in Shreveport Louisiana. When the hotel clerk found out they were Black, they were not allowed to stay at the hotel. Naturally, screaming and yelling occurred. When Sam and those accompanying him got to a hotel where they could stay, the police were waiting for them to take them to jail.

The only thing we can be sure of in life, other than death, is change. It is the one constant thing that we as humans can be sure of. It matters little if the change is bad or good. We almost never know the details of when that change will come, how it will come or what it will feel like. The challenge for us is to dwell in the tension that all those unknowns create. Living in that space requires some degree of acceptance. Acceptance does not mean settling. Cooke makes it clear our tomorrow does not have to be our today.

Faith: (Gospel) Redemption Song

Composer: Bob Marley (1945 - 1981)

Bob Marley was born in Jamaica. His father was a White man that was captain of a ship. Capt. Norval Marley was a superintendent of lands for the British government. Bob Marley’s mother, Cedella, was a descendant of the formerly enslaved Cromantee tribe. Capt Marley promised the young 17 year old that he would marry her. Once she became pregnant, Capt. Marley abandoned her and the child. Marley and his mother moved to Kingston in a neighborhood called Trench Town. It was there that a young Bob Marley found friends that were insistent on making music. American R&B and American Funk had become of interest in Jamaica. Locally, calypso and mento had been popular. Local people were starting to experiment with the sounds of those styles of music. Marley joined a popular local band called The Wailers. The outgrowth of this new sound became what we now call Ska and Reggae.

Some have described “Redemption Song” not as reggae, but as an acoustic spiritual. Marley’s body was in severe pain from cancer that had started in his toe and eventually spread throughout his body. At the time of writing “Redemption Song”, Bob was constantly reflecting on his mortality, upbringing, Jamaican history and colonization. “Old pirates, yes, they rob I. Sold I to the merchant ships. Minutes after they took I, from the bottomless pits. But my hand was made strong. By the hand of the Almighty. We forward in this generation, Triumphantly. Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourself can free our minds. Have no fear for atomic energy. 'Cause none of them can stop the time How long shall they kill our prophets, While we stand aside and look? Some say it's just a part of it. We've got to fulfill the book”

“Redemption Song” could be seen as Bob Marley’s ultimate prayer petition. By singing together we are collectively transported and taken to a different place where full freedom is possible. Song, as part of the human soul, comes from within us. The voice that we have is as ephemeral as life itself. Once our life force permanently leaves us, the voice that gives that life shape, color, texture and dimension, goes too. “Redemption Song” is an exhalation of the soul, seeking and inspiring unity as the sound rises and drifts above our heads, to the heavens like smoke. Setting that in motion as the sound leaves our bodies is an act of faith.

Rev's Comments: Lead Chaplain Rev. Ronald Ballew

It continues to be an honor and a privilege to serve as the lead chaplain for The Black String Triage Ensemble. On the other hand, I continue to be surprised the God has called me into this exciting Ministry.

The scripture that guides me is I live in to this call comes from 1st Samuel 3:1-12. When the Lord called Samuel, he did not recognize God's call the first or second time. With the third call, Samuel realize God was speaking to him. This summer I have had many opportunities to watch and listen to The Black String Triage Ensemble as they go about their work. One particular experience that comes to mind happened during the second taping session of the music video that The Black String Triage Ensemble has been working on, a family stopped to watch and listen to this outdoor event. The 6 year old African American Girl said she was excited because she had never before seen black ballet dancers nor heard black string musicians. This young lady said she wanted to be a dancer. Her family a firm her passion in her desire. It seemed as if The Black String Triage Ensemble gave her permission to dream her dream and hope that one day it would come true. In closing, The Black String Triage Ensemble is answering a call from God on so many fronts. Most impressive to me is the mission to educate the public they black and brown musicians can and do play and enjoy classical music. I hope and pray many more black and brown young people will catch the spirit.

Lead Chaplain

Reverend Ronald Ballew

Letter To A Sista String Player

(Clemency for Chrystul Kizer)

In the same way that words are used to give a poem color and texture, sound also has a dimension of color and texture. The pieces of music that make up this program are meant to be a poetic letter of musical texture and color. As a musical letter, the delivery has a lot in common with the spoken word. Words, when spoken, have a direct impact on us as individuals and collectively. Due to the nature of sound, a musical letter has an unmatched ambiance. Music carries with it all those impact dimensions. But music can permanently transform and re-shape the mood of any space in a way that words cannot.

Although the design of this music program is addressed to a singular person, by placing Nina Simone’s “Four Women” at the beginning, this musical letter takes on a much more expansive tone. The entire letter is by extension addressed directly to the plight of girls of color, women of color and transwomen of color. By including “Walk With Me” and “I Wish I Knew How it Feels to Be Free” both pieces of music, in their own way, speak to an intense solitary experience of a denied humanity locking a person into crisis.

What is most compelling about this collection of music, is the horrifying idea that we can simply be missing, absent, vacant, non-existent while our humanity is violently destroyed. At the moment we choose to assert whatever humanity we have left, we are suddenly at fault. For people of African descent in America, we are the spawn of the law. Our mother made us from the marrow of her technicalities. Even so we are still her spurned, repudiated and rejected children. The extent of that is clearly on display with this collection of music.

Denial: (Soul) Four Women

Composer: Dr. Nina Simone (1933 - 2003)

The High Priestess of Soul Dr. Nina Simone is both PhD musician & M.D. for the soul. In performance and persona she is the one who presides at mass when your soul needs direction. She is the medicine woman whose potions help uncloud your vision. She is the one at the altar preparing a sacrifice displaying herself without pretense.

Nina wrote this portrait of four Negro Women. Each one is a different age. Aunt Sarah, Saffronia, Sweet Thing, and Peaches have all had different experiences in life shaped by color and shaped by facets of the female experience. As a piece of music meant to be sung, the battles they have gone through are evident in the text and delivery as each narrates their own experience.

Only at the end, when Peaches screams her name does it become blatantly clear, Nina Simone's Four Women are different experiences linked by common circumstance. The scream emanating from within Peaches comes from a deep, gaping wound of torment. Given the history within her response, no one can blame her for her reaction to trauma. The scream of Peaches is an attempt to holler out a Hell No! of denial at forced subjugation.

Anger: (Spiritual) Walk With Me

Traditional African american Spiritual

This is another one of America’s arias.The focus in the text is on walking. The tone of the music and the pacing of the tempo of this are very heavy. It is a natural dirge. Sonically, in listening to it, we can feel the weight shackled to our own ankles. Sonically, it is like dragging a sleeping person or a dead body over long distances. Sonically, we can feel the struggle. It does not matter if it is played fast or slow. No matter what, “Walk With Me” still seems to drag. It is a piece both sad and angry burdened by circumstance. For that reason, in times of great difficulty this piece of music always seems to be an appropriate fit. Whether you are at the hands of someone else's mercy or at a crossroads about your own conduct or someone else's, this Spiritual is always relevant.

Bargaining: (Jazz) I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free

Composer: Dr. Billy Taylor

(1921 - 2010)

Dr. Billy Taylor loved his daughter. The jazz pianist wrote this piece of music in tribute to his daughter. Dr. Taylor was an educator, composer, arranger and bandleader. It should be no surprise that a man so active in various musical circles would meet Nina Simone. The High Priestess of Soul added words to this jazz tune and gave it added popularity.

As a central musical figure of the civil rights era and the 60’s and 70’s protest movements, Nina’s use of this song held great significance. In all her music Nina was an expert at acknowledging the unvarnished reality of what was happening to people. She did exactly that with this song while also projecting a hopeful possibility that all people could be reconciled to one another and live peaceably together.

The text of the second verse illustrates that duality. “I wish I could share all the love that's in my heart. Remove all the doubts that keep us apart.” The text makes it clear, the challenge in sharing love, means accepting its existence. Getting there, is an act of bargaining about what we are willing to lose so that we can gain more.

Depression: (Classical) Tears for A Burned Village

Composer: Dayvin M.A. Hallmon (1985 - Present)

Dayvin M.A. Hallmon is the musical grandchild of Jascha Heifetz, Dr. Thomas Dorsey and Dr. Mattie Moss Clark. Since the age of 9, Mr. Hallmon has been building ensembles in churches and helping congregations craft a strategic vision for their music ministry. Perfectly at home in both Gospel and Western Classical, Dayvin was Assistant Concertmaster of the Church of God In Christ International Orchestra for seven years. Mr. Hallmon has been studying music since the age of 5. He plays Violin, viola, clarinet, piano, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, flute, and pipe organ. Dayvin was born in Chicago, grew up in Racine, Wisconsin and is currently a resident of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The title of this composition comes from a conversation Mr. Dayvin had with a 5th Grade teacher. This particular 5th grade teacher is an old school Black grandma. Citing the historical nature of people in Black communities looking out for each other and assisting with the raising of children she said, “Mr. Dayvin, the village has been destroyed and we are all that is left.” The imagery embedded within her words forced the composer to confront a depressing scene. What do you say when you arrive home and your eyes are greeted with scorched, smoldering earth and burned out ruins scattered in the distance? What do you say when community leaders charged with custodial duties are complicit in the destruction of their own community? What do you say when others are taken captive, and some for one reason or another through no fault of their own, others are simply incapable of shouldering the burden? What do you say, when the soil that grew you and others cannot sustain life any longer?

“This is an odd piece. I don’t know if the end result was exactly what I had in my mind when I wrote it. It was raining outside. I turned off all the lights. I opened all the windows and just listened to the sound of the rain. I let my hand wander around the piano keyboard. In some ways this sounds more like a child’s music box partially buried in the dirt. As you take in and survey the landscape, This is the music that you hear in the background.”-D Hallmon

Acceptance: (Classical) Lyric For Strings

Composer: Dr. George Walker (1922 - 2018)

The composer Dr. George Walker was the grandson of slaves. He is the first Black graduate from the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music. He is also the first Black composer to win a Pulitzer prize, earning the award in 1996. The pianist and composer wrote nearly one hundred compositions. His music possesses a voice of individuality but you cannot discern his race from listening to his music. Dr. Walker does use Blues and Jazz elements in some of his compositions but in terms of style, Dr. Walker’s music is in line with other contemporary classical composers.

Lyric for Strings is the second movement from his first string quartet. The composer later arranged that section of the string quartet for full string orchestra. It is his most famous composition. He wrote this piece as a student at The Curtis Institute. It was written in memory of his grandmother. His grandmother had been enslaved in America. In speaking to her grandson Dr. George Walker about slavery, she said, “They did everything but eat us.” Those words resonated with Dr. Walker all of his life.

The stunning beauty in this slightly dissonant piece of music is found in the range of colors of sound that slowly move and meander through the various instrumental groups. Lower instruments and lower notes provide darker tones. Higher instruments and higher notes provide lighter colors and brighter textures. As the melody is passed back and forth from one section to another approaching the crescendo in the piece, the sound unfolds and grows like a ribbon being spooled. This mastery in using the string orchestra locks the listener into an emotional roller coaster. From the first three bars of music, it is clear why this piece is so well loved. At the close we are finally met with a peaceful harmonic resolution that allows us to accept finality in its fullest form as the music descends into contemplative silence.

Faith: (Gospel) Precious Lord-The Last Request

Composer: Dr. Thomas A Dorsey (1899 - 1993)

At the start of his musical career at age 11, Dr. Thomas Dorsey was primarily a blues pianist. He played in vaudeville theaters, brothels, and at after hours parties. His inspiration came from seeing Ma Rainey and The Empress of The Blues, Bessie Smith. He was the son of a preacher and a church organist. He suffered nervous breakdowns twice in his life that left him unable to play music. Each time he continued to press forward and try to confront the problem. His mother and a prominent Bishop both told him to turn away from the wickedness of The Blues and play gospel music.

Dr. Dorsey is known as the father of Gospel music. He wrote over 400 compositions. He merged some of the rhythms and musical figures from the Blues and infused them into Gospel. Many pastors did not like this. The Blues was considered the Devil’s music because of its association with alcohol, sex, drugs, and wallowing in sorrow. Dr. Dorsey was thrown out of some of the most well known churches in America. He went back to focusing on the Blues for awhile until life circumstance called him to write his most famous piece, “Precious Lord”

The inspiration for “Precious Lord” came to him after his wife and child both perished as his wife was giving birth. This should have been a moment of despair but instead it turned into an opportunity for hope. Dr. Dorsey lost a wife and child, but he gave birth to the song Precious Lord. This hymn is so well loved, it is the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s favorite hymn. The Rev. Dr. King loved it so much, it was played by his request at the end of nearly every sermon he gave. To further illustrate the song's significance and intensity, right before the assassin's bullet tore through Rev. Dr. King’s chest, he was on the balcony of The Lorraine Motel looking down into the parking lot talking to his music director Benjamin Branch asking him to play “Precious Lord”. This piece of music in the history of Black America and The Black Church is known as The Last Request.

“The Talk”- Lessons From Survival

Unlike mother's fearing the destruction of their children, this music has us looking on the other side in the opposite direction. Age teaches us that life lessons are only understood through our process of experiencing them. Sometimes at the conclusion of that "Ah-ha!" Or "Oh!..right." moment, the advice we get from mother figures and some father/uncle figures comes to the forefront of our mind. This advice is given to us as a tool and a lesson to aid in our survival. If by some miracle we have been blessed with the ability to look backwards down the path of life, what were the rocks of wisdom you clung to while dangling at the edge of life's cliff side?

Denial: (Spiritual) Give Me Jesus

Composer: Traditional American Spiritual

This Spiritual is another one of America's arias. Spirituals are songs that arise in response to the horrendous circumstances experienced in American chattel slavery. The text of spirituals is not just a response, but a narration locked into the present moment of that experience. Every time a spiritual is sung or played, our African ancestors immediately step forward to speak to us. The past behind us becomes the present before our eyes and ears.

“In the morning, when I rise, in the morning, when I rise, in the morning, when I rise, give me Jesus. Dark as midnight was my cry, dark as midnight was my cry, dark as midnight was my cry, give me Jesus. Oh, when I come to die, oh, when I come to die, oh, when I come to die, give me Jesus.”

At every turn the text speaks of a person yearning and requesting death and seeking companionship in that moment. There is a verse of the song that references motherly wisdom. In the quiet moment of unanticipated reflection, we hear her voice; faint yet clear.

" I heard my mother say give me Jesus. Give me Jesus. Give me Jesus!" Then when she said, "you can have all this world..." was she asking to die? “ These sentiments are echoed further as the last verse concludes by saying, “I heard the mourner say, I heard the mourner say, I heard the mourner say, give me Jesus.”

Whatever has happened, is a circumstance so tragic, even the mourner wants to join the deceased. Such feelings only happen when we wish to deny ourselves any further existence.

Bargaining: (Jazz) Round Midnight

Composer: Thelonious Monk

(1917 - 1982)

Thelonious Monk had a unique talent for making the piano speak in intense solitary colors and emotions. There is an album called Thelonious alone in San Francisco that is Monk playing solo piano. It is one of the best illustrations of how the piano can be used as a megaphone for an artist's soul. He once described his fingers as stubby and short. As a result, Monk would often strike piano keys nearby giving his music an extra funky kind of sound.

The lyrics for Round Midnight focus on a person who is missing the love in their life. We don’t know exactly what has happened. What we do know is that the person becomes sad and depressed around midnight and wishes that their love was still around. The somewhat accented block chords that seem to spiral downward, like heavy footsteps at points throughout the music, help paint emotions to match the text.

The piece “Round Midnight” is an interesting one. It is an exceptionally difficult piece of music. Even the most seasoned jazz musicians typically will not play it without practice. Like the musical lines of J.S. Bach, Round Midnight unfurls itself like a scarf, asks the listener a question, and then folds back up into itself. Monk does this in this piece over and over again as one line of music winds against the next one. Like bargaining, this is music that is in conversation. The music is in conversation with itself almost talking in circles. This tension of conversation does not resolve until the final chord offers us a tangible solution.

Rev's Comments: Associate Chaplain Rev. Molly Doreza

Midnight is the symbolic epicenter of cathartic existential reckoning. 

At midnight, the din has quieted, marred only by an occasional cricket chirp, quiet breeze and the snores of those who’ve left us alone with our thoughts. Unbidden, the hard questions of life come, their whispers belying their urgency. 

Others, still reveling at midnight, find themselves suddenly alone. The couples have paired off, leaving them in the wake of sad isolation. 

Midnight is a face-off, an intersection which brings with it the choice to dwell in the regret of yesterday, or move into the possibility and hope of today. 

At this intersection Jazz befriends us. She is a willing companion, accompanying us in either direction, intoning both the ache of the past and the hope of the future. She is a cantor in the liturgy of life, moving us into a self-transcending determination to not be defeated by pain and suffering (James H. Cone, “The Cross and the Lynching Tree”) - but instead inviting us into what James Baldwin calls the “ironic tenacity” of hope.

Depression: (Blues) Aunt Hagar’s Children’s Blues

Composer: W. C. Handy

(1873 - 1958)

W. C. Handy has been called the father of the blues due to the number of Blues pieces he wrote in his lifetime. Not all Blues music is sad. Some Blues is actually happy blues. Aunt Hagar’s Children might qualify as a happy blues. The name Aunt Hagar is an interesting choice by Handy. In this Blues piece Aunt Hagar is sitting in church, listening to the church deacon instruct them on proper living. Aunt Hagar draws the line at music. Her children have just come home from the war. Not only is she glad to see them, but she is excited to "dance to this new music on the radio”.

Hagar in the Bible is Sarah's servant. In a way Handy might be suggesting Aunt Hagar, like her Black religious kinfolk, are considered and treated as an equal child of lesser status due to race. Or possibly does her sinful love of blues music make her an outcast in a religious society that sees the Blues as improper? Or is it the fear of celebrating too loudly, bringing unwanted attention and possible violence to the community that marks her as an outcast?

The joy of Aunt Hagar's exuberant "razzin" because "her boys have just come home" might suggest more about loving all of who you are in challenging times than it does about the rejection of religious moral decency or societal conventions expected of a women. In the end, her "razzin" is a fight and victory over depression.

Rev's Comments: Associate Chaplain Rev. Molly Doreza

Life is tough enough without empty religiosity hanging around (or pressing) its neck. Blacks in the United States have always known this, literally. While forced to sit in the sterile sanctuaries of their white oppressors, they’ve formed their own vibrant churches, unmoored from the unholiness of white supremacy. No longer affixed in racist sorting, African American Christians have found a kinship with Jesus and the “terrible beauty” of his cross. His story echoes through their own experiences and brings to them something the white church could never bring - good news and hope. 

Celebration is the outward manifestation of hope, a visible response to good news. Celebration is the work of faith. In the sad story of Hagar - a woman trafficked for her fertility, encumbered by slavery and eventually driven away, we also see the birth of another tribe (through her son Ishmael) which will flourish as children of diaspora. 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, white theologian and martyr, found the Gospel in the streets of Harlem and the black Abyssinian Baptist Church. There, he met “Hagar’s people” and was able to return to Germany, strengthened by their theology of resistance, to confront the ravages of Nazism. 

Today, Hagar’s children may be able to redeem, for all of us, the true celebration of faith, which seems itself to have been in exile in our country, at least for the past four hundred years.

Acceptance (Soul) Young Gifted and Black

Composer: Dr. Nina Simone

(1933 - 2003)

The High Priestess of Soul Dr. Nina Simone is both PhD musician & M.D. for the soul. In performance and persona she is the one who presides at mass when your soul needs direction. She is the medicine woman whose potions help uncloud your vision. She is the one at the altar preparing a sacrifice displaying herself without pretense.

Dr. Simone's favorite composer was J.S. Bach. She said that all of western music started with him. Bach wrote an extensive amount of music. This might explain why this piece, written in a gospel hymn like style, is in the neutral key of C Major. In Western Classical Music an idea grew that certain keys evoke or accompany certain emotions. C Major is considered to be a key with "neutral" qualities.

There is hardly ever anything neutral about a hymn or an anthem. Both must come from a sincere place of believing in or about, someone or something. The title is the gift the High Priestess gives to us as her children. She is telling us true acceptance means stay calm; forgive ourselves; love ourselves; celebrate ourselves; commit to being warriors for one another; and be cleansed.

Faith: (Gospel) I Need You To Survive

Composer: David Frazier

(1970 - Present)

Gospel song writer David Frazier has been in church music for over twenty years. His work has won numerous awards. The Los Angeles Times called David Frazier “One of Gospel music’s most successful and consistent songwriters.” David has written over twenty-six songs for Bishop Hezekiah Walker’s Love Fellowship Choir over a span of eleven albums and twenty-two years. In particular, the church anthem “I Need You To Survive'' has garnered Bishop Walker three Grammy awards, 4 Dove awards and 4 Stellar awards.

If there were a modern day humanitarian anthem in gospel music, "I Need You to Survive" might be it. The opening lines say, "I need you. You need me. We're all a part of God's body. Stand with me. Agree with me. We are all a part of God's body. It is his will that every need be supplied. You are important to me. I need you to survive." Making this a reality is an act of faith. Faith is the substance of things hope for, the evidence of things not seen. Textually speaking, this is an excellent distillation of everything the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached about.

In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, America's preacher, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. states, "In a real sense all life is interrelated. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be...This is the inter-related structure of reality."

Rev's Comments: Associate Chaplain Rev. Molly Doreza

Survival is an act of will. Beyond mere existence, it is a fastidious commitment to reach for the better - even when we cannot see what that is. The Black String Triage Ensemble’s music and work is a tenacious resistance to the violent forces which would tear down - a musical “Yes” to survival, and a resolve that music can heal - even as the yellow tape is tied and the tears begin to fall. 

In every lifting of a baton and in every bow of a string - in each hour of practice and preparation - the Black String Triage ensemble turns another page of the score of hope. 

The paradox of the human heart is that it has, within it, the wonderful capacity to contain both grief and hope. In the music of African American composers, which The Black String Triage Ensemble brings to us, we hear this marvelous capacity - and begin to hope that there can be a “better” in life, for all of us. 

In the more than twenty seven years of my pastoral ministry, and as I near its end, I have never been so privileged to witness such an act of faith and hope that this Ensemble brings. It is my honor and joy to listen to their audible messages of love and hope, played for broken-hearted people. 

May the strains of their music break our own hearts - so that they can be opened again in hope and love, leading us to a collective celebration of the gift of life - in its healing and its joy.