Inviting Joy

Letting the Healing Power of Music In

Birds soaring together — Substack AI-generated

The world is so heavy now ... sometimes I feel like I'm not entitled to experience any happiness. How can I allow myself to experience joy when people are dying - starving - being blown up ... and when needy people are losing the meager benefits they have ... and when storied universities are being threatened with extinction ... and when people are being taken off the streets, questioned, and deported ... and when untrustworthy people are in charge of our government? (the list could go on, of course)

To me, it's quite a difficult question.

But last week, I did allow myself to experience an amazing week full of joy. And the good news is that that respite has given me renewed energy and commitment to deal with the tragedies around me.

If you've read some of my earlier essays, you are familiar with the growing body of evidence that music has medicinal powers.

(See links here to “Multivitamin Time: Music for the Soul” 3-25-25 and “Keep on Keepin‘ On” 11-4-24).

In order to partake of that medicine, I spent the better part of a week with 140 other choristers, making amazing music and sharing it with the public at the end.

For the second year, I participated in Berkshire Choral International's summer program at Tanglewood. We rehearsed intensely for 3 1/2 days and then offered the fruits of our work to an appreciative audience, in the beautiful setting of Ozawa Hall.

Here are some of the things I experienced, and why they matter deeply to me. See also my essay, "On Singing -- From 'Hallelujah' to 'Coraggio' " from 12-30-2024, for further discussion.

First, I experience singing as physical. It is a full-body experience, from the top of my head down to the toes, centered on the breath. This summer, our gifted director, Anthony Trecek-King, placed great emphasis on the importance of rhythm -- not only entrances and cut-offs, but also feeling the physical pulse of the music. We sang the Neue Liebeslieder (New Lovesongs) by Brahms, a suite of short pieces with definite rhythms that demanded to be honored. To illustrate the strength of the pulse in a waltz, he and his wife danced the waltz around the room while we sang one of the songs -- that simple act brought the piece to life in a new way for us. I highly recommend Daniel Levitin's 2024 book, "I Heard There Was a Secret Chord: Music as Medicine," which provides an accessible overview of the many ways in which listening to and producing music intimately involve the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems. It's all very physical.

Second, I experience singing in a group as relational. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. During one of the pieces we performed, I almost had an out-of-body experience --- feeling like I was soaring with a flock of birds, all precisely coordinated, moving together to an invisible beat - like a murmuration of starlings. The BCI community is also one to which people want to return year after year. The chorister with the longest history has been coming since the group's founding in 1982!! Even though this was only my second year, I reconnected with some folks I had met last time. I also had the great joy of sharing a lake rental with four other singers -- that will be the subject of its own future essay.

Third, I experience singing as intellectual. Some of the music we sang was relatively straightforward in its composition; whereas other pieces demanded that we be on our toes (more than usual) every moment. The most challenging piece, the one I grew to love the most, had time signatures of 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 5/8, 7/8, 8/8, and 10/8, with key signatures including 2, 3, and 5 flats. The accompaniment was piano - four hands. It still astounds me how the human brain decodes the blobs (notes) written on the page to allow musicians to produce the sounds that result in pieces that bring audiences to their feet and make them cry. It's all quite astonishing, when you think about it.

Fourth, I experience emotion in singing. Anthony led us in talking a lot about emotion. He really wanted us to FEEL what we were singing and to let the music touch us.

Anthony leading rehearsal in Ozawa Hall

The concert's theme was about songs of love -- all kinds of love: romantic, platonic, love of God, love of community, love of family... all of which evoke powerful feelings. In my essay of 5/12/25 ("Mothers, Fathers, Parents"), I introduced Joshua Shank's composition, "Your children (are not your children)," mentioning that the text was based on Kahlil Gibran's poem "On Children," from The Prophet. Anthony asked us what we thought about the piece, and people expressed strong opinions. Some people loved it, some hated it, many weren't quite sure what to think of it. Of course, our own experience in families colored our approach to the music as well. In our group of 140, there were many varied experiences of being a parent or being a child -- some good, some not so good, but all real. Heartfelt discussions within the choir as well as our zoom call with the composer allowed each member to come to terms with the piece well enough to understand its multiple layers and sing it convincingly. I have never had a conductor devote that much time to discussion of the emotion and meaning behind a piece that we'd be singing, and I am convinced that it was time well spent. In many ways, "Your Children..." was the centerpiece of our program. At the end of that piece, I was emotionally spent, as were Anthony and my fellow singers. After the applause died down, he turned to the audience, expressed his thanks, and asked for everyone to just take a moment and let the experience sink in before moving on. Brilliant move.

Here is the piece, recorded by the One Voice Chorus.

Fifth, singing can be both spiritual and inspirational, for both singers and listeners. A few of the pieces pulled in that direction, especially Elaine Hagenberg's "Oh Love." "Oh love, that will not let me go. Oh love, I rest my weary soul in Thee ..." It included several moments of pure bliss.

Sixth, I experience music-making as an opportunity to feel a sense of accomplishment and pride. In such a short time together, we were able to produce a very special program and offer it back to the world --- counteracting, in our own small way, some of the heaviness and tragedy all around us.

At our dress rehearsal, Anthony expressed a sentiment echoing that of last year's director, Frank Nemhauser .... who said something like the following (gently paraphrased): "As a group, you are all individuals who came together from all over North America to share an intensive experience to prepare an outstanding performance -- after which you will all return home, never to sing together again. I encourage you each to "pay it forward" as you return to your home choirs, enhanced by our experience together. And remember, as we sang today in 'Who is Sylvia?' Beauty lives with kindness."

Singing with BCI has intensified my desire to sing more and to sing better. My local chorus has a performance this Sunday, and I already know that I will participate in some of the "Summer Sings" offered in the Pioneer Valley (Brahms Requiem! Faure Requiem!) I'll be continuing voice lessons and maybe even working on a few solo or small ensemble pieces. As I stated elsewhere, music is my multivitamin.

It turns out that our BCI chorus has a great fan in the UK — in Barry, the sheltie belonging to my friends Beth and Richard. Barry loves to sing along with classical music, and this little video clip shows him joining in (heartily) to our singing of the conclusion to “Your Children…” Enjoy!!

This essay just touches on the musical aspects of the experience. My next essay will focus more on the deep friendships that the experience facilitated - a very important part of the whole story. Please stay tuned for that.

Linde Center for Music and Learning, Tanglewood, where we rehearsed