Name:Jeshua Country:United States State:California
Interests:music, books, choral music, desktop publishing, flute music, Christian counseling, figuring out what to do when I grow up, singing, conducting, fluting, learning Occupation:Voice Teacher/Choir Director
Sara's extended family threw us a wedding shower this past weekend. We had a potluck brunch, spent some fun time with the family, and received some delightful gifts. I've never been so excited about things like a tea kettle or dishware before. It's great fun!
Opening yummy blackberry tea (small box) and a nice shiny tea kettle (big box)
I had to fight off getting "decorated" most of the morning.
I liked this picture of Sara's cousin Don and brother Chuck.
This past Sunday my community choir had their spring concert. The main feature of the program was Robert Ray's Gospel Mass, an English translation of the traditional mass texts set in a gospel/jazz/rock style. We collaborated with the choirs at the community college I teach at to form a choir of about 80 singers. In addition we hired a professional jazz trio to accompany us. The afternoon was a great success!
My choir opened the program with a handful of pieces. I'm so proud of the work they've done this semester. My choir is about 30 voices, mostly of older folks, and is essentially a glorified church choir. It is very gratifying as a conductor to hear improvement in the group over the course of the year. While our fall concert also went well, our spring performance had us sounding better in tune, better blended, clearer diction, and better musicality in the music. In addition our three a cappella pieces stayed dead center in tune...always a good feeling to have as a director!
Below are a few samples from the concert if you care to listen.
O Love Divine - Felix Mendelssohn Transcription of an orchestral work by Mendelssohn with a fabulous text by Oliver Wendell Holmes.
O Praise the Lord of Heaven - William Billings
"Gloria" from Gospel Mass - Robert Ray The soloists are my future mother-in-law (alto) and my fiancé (soprano).
The other day I was tuning into local Christian radio and heard Chuck Colson’s daily radio column “Breakpoint.” Chuck Colson is a man whom I respect a great deal. His personal testimony is powerful and his work with Prison Fellowship is outstanding. While his radio column sometimes veers into the political scene more than I would care for, he often has many good insights and thoughts and I enjoy listening to him.
I was intrigued by his column on this particular day because he was talking about Lent. Lent is a season of the church year leading up into the time of Easter. It is not typically practiced among Evangelical churches, so I was especially keen to hear what he had to say as I particularly love this season. His point was on fasting from idolatry as opposed to simply fasting from chocolate or some other simple indulgence. However, along the way he mentioned that several bishops in the Church of England have proposed a carbon fast and that he was quite “skeptical of the spiritual value of their proposal.”
I’ll admit that I was offended off the bat. My first thought upon hearing of a carbon fast was that it would be a great way to teach both spiritual discipline and an awareness of our energy consuming mentality. Upon reading further about the proposed carbon fast, the bishops have recognized that those most affected by our environmental unconsciousness (the poor) have the least control over doing anything about it. Besides some practical energy-conserving advice, the bishops proposed finding a prominent lighting fixture in your home and removing the light-bulb from it for the 40 days of Lent as a consistent reminder of how our energy choices may affect others.
Colson’s main critique is that turning off the lights, using less water, etc. have no actual impact on the poor around the world. The critique is valid, despite the fact that I believe that the first step towards building a solution to a problem is building awareness of it.
But my main offense was really taken because of the tone with which Colson took what seemed to be a cheap shot at these bishops in the Church of England. As a person raised in a conservative environment, Colson’s tone immediately infers to me “those liberals in the Church of England have no real grasp on Christian discipline and spirituality.” I’ll admit that’s reading between the lines, but in an age where there is so much division within the church, particularly between the more conservative and liberal branches, the comment hardly seems to help breed a desire for unity.
What was finally most ironic was Colson’s ideas about fasting from idolatry. He seemed to entirely miss the possibility that instant energy and its unlimited use could indeed be one area where we are guilty of idolatry. Rather than seeking a connection between the bishop’s proposals and his own, he chose to dismiss them as worthless and instead elevate his own concept of spiritual practice. Unfortunate, to say the least, and potentially antithetical to the work of God’s Kingdom, at most.
This Lent, whatever your own practice or lack of practice may be, perhaps we could choose to fast from our judgmental attitudes towards others within our faith and rather seek the common ground. Perhaps then, when Easter arrives, we can greater celebrate the significance of His resurrection, not only for our own eternal destination, but the power that it brings to those who together will seek first His Kingdom.
You can read more about the proposed fast here, and Chuck Colson's thoughts about it here and here.
I'm currently sitting in the terminal at the Oklahoma City airport, waiting to board my delayed flight to Chicago. What better time to update Xanga?
As I mentioned in my last post, life over the past month has been crazy. I'm just wrapping up the last event of that craziness. I've been in Oklahoma City for four days for the bi-annual ACDA (American Choral Director's Association) convention. This was my first time to an ACDA national convention, and it was tons of fun. Literally several dozen of the best choirs from around the nation and world, lots of seminars and interests sessions, a huge exhibit hall with everything choral, and networking with the choral world. Got to see my dear friends and colleagues Rich and Ginger Colla from Modesto as well a whole host of other folks I know. I think the performance by the American Boychoir may have been my favorite event.
Graduate school auditions went really well. I got accepted at all three schools I auditioned at: University of Illinois, University of Washington, and University of Arizona. I'm waiting until all the financial things are settled to "officially" announce my choice, but let's just say that the desert could be a fascinating place to live. I only got accepted at one school when I applied for master degree programs, so it's really nice to be able to choose a place rather than simply going to the only place I got accepted. No diss intented on where I went for my masters...it was a great school, it's just nice to have a choice!
My brother Cyrus got married in a beautiful ceremony. I had to hold back the tears as his bride started to walk down the aisle. I'm afraid I may be a complete mess when my own bride walks down the aisle in just over 100 days.
Life is still busy over the next month or so, but thankfully I think the biggest insanity of the semester is over. Sara and I are going to a Gaither Homecoming Concert on Saturday and my community choir's concert is the end of the month and then we move into the last few weeks of the semester. But I'll be very glad to be able to be in Indiana for more than 3 or 4 days at a time as it has been over the last month.
It's been quite some time since I've done any serious blogging. I would really love to be doing more of it, so we'll see how that goes this spring. I think there are several major reasons I haven't written much lately, the first being that a certain lady in my life definitely takes priority during spare time. Secondly, last year when I was choir directing at the Methodist church in Modesto, I wrote regular columns for their newsletter. I think that sucked up most of my serious writing energy. However, since that is long over, it would be nice to get back to writing more. I read several great books over Christmas break...perhaps I can review them a bit at some point.
Anyway, for those of you who don't know, I'm happily teaching in the Midwest currently. It's been interesting to be back in the Midwest at specifically at Bethel after being gone for several years. I miss my job at MJC, but things have worked out well here. And I have a delightful community choir which gives me a good weekly podium fix.
One of the highlights of being here is that I have also received the wonderful mentorship of my college voice teacher. He's a choir director as well and I'm singing in his semi-professional choir. We did a Holocaust Cantata last fall for the anniversary of Kristallnacht, did a sing-along Messiah with a full orchestra in December (I conducted the Hallelujah Chorus), we're doing a pops concert of sorts this weekend (I'm conducting a Manhattan Transfer piece), and we'll be doing several large choral/orchestral works later in the spring. Wishart (the conductor) and I get together each week to discuss repertoire, rehearsal/conducting techniques, score study, and anything else we feel like talking about. We did a workshop before our Messiah performance in December which I got to present in, so he helped me with doing research and preparation for that. And he's currently helping me prep my repertoire for my upcoming doctoral auditions (more on that in a moment). Aside from being able to be close to Sara, working with Wishart has been the biggest blessing of my time back here in Indiana.
The next month or so holds an abundance of craziness for me. I applied to four graduate schools last fall. Hopefully, I'll be starting work on my doctorate in choral conducting next fall. Of the four, three have invited me to audition. They are University of Illinois (Urbana/Champaign), University of Washington (Seattle), and University of Arizona (Tucson). I'll be traveling to all three over the next three or so weeks. People keep asking me which is my first choice, and I honestly don't know. I imagine after visiting and auditioning, I'll have a much better idea of which I like best and how well they might fit me. As far as location goes, I think Seattle is our first choice. But Tucson has been growing on us (Sara loves working with Hispanic students, and they'd be in abundance down there.) However, Illinois has a very strong and nationally recognized program. So, we'll see...
In addition to the auditions, Sara and I will be traveling to California in two weeks for my brother Cyrus' wedding, and then I'm going to Oklahoma City for five days the first week of March for the national convention of the American Choral Directors Association.
So, with all that busyness, I may not be on here blogging much over the next month, but I'll try to keep you posted as grad school things develop.
Wedding plans are going great....just bought wedding bands, picked up the bridesmaid's dresses, and an abundance of other small details are in the works!
