Preparing for Two World Premieres

James D. Hicks
IN CONCERT
Thursday, February 23, 2012, 12:30 p.m.
Princeton University Chapel, Princeton, NJ

featuring the World Premiere of ”Canticle of the Sun,” by Fredrik Sixten
with soprano soloists Virginia Hicks and Elise Figa
and the World Premiere of “Passacaglia,” by Fredrik Sixten

Broadcast LIVE on WWFM 89.1. Click here to listen!

Here are some pictures from rehearsal today:

Hope from New Providence

If you are looking for a hero, don’t look in the world of sports, entertainment, or, for heaven’s sake, the realm of public affairs.  I suggest you open your eyes to what’s happening right in your neighborhood.  That’s what I have been thinking about the past few weeks and today I want to celebrate two people who definitely fit my definition of a hero.

Enter Chris and Bill Ferdinand, owners of Ferdinand Jewelers. They are the long-time proprietors of the Ferdinand Jewelry store, located in the heart of New Providence, NJ. It is a wonderful store.  They sell a wide variety of great merchandise and they have recently worked miracles with a most elegant interior rebuild of their space.

(I interrupt this blog with a musical aside.  I met Bill during my former career in music ministry.  For several years he sang for me in a wide variety of groups. He brought a unique esprit to rehearsals and we developed a kind of repartee that certainly enlivened things for me, almost always concluding with my saying, “Bill, Shut Up and Sing.” But I digress.)

If you go to the Ferdinand’s establishment, you must first fortify yourself with a trip to the Avenue Deli.

(I interrupt this blog for a second time and I know Bill would approve. Before doing any kind of business, one must take care of the inner man (or woman). Whenever I visit Bill at his shop, we inevitably walk one block to the Avenue Deli, a monument to all that is good in the fine art in the construction of sandwiches.  Although everything is tasty, there are three specials that I would most whole-heartedly recommend to you.  None are for the faint of heart, individuals who are “watching their weight,” the unadventurous, or those who have no the time for the finer things in life.  These specialty sandwiches include a smooth tuna and egg club, a gargantuan turkey sloppy joe, and my personal favorite, the “New Providence,” itself a most fortuitous example of a roast beef sandwich that juxtaposes a rich mélange of flavors.  These are some examples of this fine cuisine which we always consume in Bill’s office, itself a most impressive space of machinery, tools, receipts, storage and the debris of decades of dedicated service. It is a perfect place to enjoy the undeniable flavors of Jersey cuisine while talking about just about anything under the sun.)

All of the above should be of compelling interest to any of you who are reading this even if you don’t live in central New Jersey, but if you are wondering why Bill and Chris are heroes to me, read on!

What I am discussing is the caring act of being “Blinged”.  Do you know of what I speak?  I invite you to visit www.operationbling.org for a superior description of this ministry (and I can think of no other way to describe it).

In the meantime, you’re stuck with me.

A few years ago, Chris Ferdinand got this wonderful idea to combine their professional experience with helping those who are undergoing a supreme crisis in their lives:  fighting cancer.  Working with many local hospitals, Operation Bling offers a wide variety of free sterling silver cubic zirconium jewelry to those being treated for various kinds of cancer.  Anyone who has battled such a formidable disease will know that having a positive attitude gives one the ability to fight right back.  Operation Bling Angels, volunteers who present the gifts, give a cancer patient the knowledge that they are not alone, that they are remembered.

Operation Bling has exceeded all expectations.  Supported by “bling parties” and large-scale fundraising events at local restaurants, all of the profits go directly to the giving of jewelry.  Bill and Chris are optimistic that Operation Bling will eventually go national so that one can purchase this “bling” online from anywhere in our country.

For further proof, that this idea is gaining momentum, NJ TV did an extended segment about Operation Bling. that just aired on December 8.  Check it out! The Ferdinands are naturals in front of the camera!

As Bill describes it, Operation Bling is “god-given and grace driven.”  Check their site www.operationbling.org for the next Operation Bling event.

Although I no longer get to tell Bill to “Shut Up And Sing,” I wish to encourage one and all to “Stand Up And Bling.”

Good on ya, Chris and Bill!

What source loyalty?

Tags

inspiration, loyalty

I read the following in the NY Times recently. It is a quote from a New Yorker who is a passionate fan of the football team, Minnesota Vikings.

“Many of us have no earthly connection to the Twin Cities, no coherent reason to point to the (Minnesota Vikings)…and proclaim “They’re my boys.”

Evidently this guy grew up in the seventies and became fascinated with the hard luck Vikings, the “purple people eaters” who had an astounding run, going to the Super Bowl four times and yet losing each time.  Now the team is better known for mediocrity but still evidently commands loyal devotion.  The fellow I have just quoted even inspired an English friend of his to share his passion.  Now both of them travel to Minneapolis a few times each year to catch the games.  Such intense interest in a distant franchise is more common than one might think:  yours truly is a native of Virginia, has lived in New Jersey for over twenty-six years and yet has been a rabid fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers since 1978 (that is a story for some future post, I am sure).

Gentle reader, you must be wondering where I am going with this, but it is by no means an uncommon thing for many of us to be utterly consumed with a passion for some other country or place.  Why is it that some of us feel a greater identification with aspects of some distant society than, perhaps, our own culture?

Whether it is the unlikely fascination with a team from afar or, in my case, musical life in northern Europe, some of us trade our present reality for what seems something more akin to our personal sense of belonging.

Speaking as a musician, there are two types of musical expression that particularly define my sense of self.  One is directly related to my career as an organist, the culture of Nordic lands.  The other, the music and history of the Border Lands of southern Scotland and northern England, stems from my more recent studies on varying types of bagpipes.

Let’s get a few things straight.  I have no family that I know of in any of these places.  There are relatively few relationships that I have with people living “over there” as well.  While it is true that we live in an age of globalization, with technology, in particular, enabling us to communicate and do business with the rest of the world, my inner life is, at least these days, preoccupied with the music, literature, art and contemporary culture of Scotland and Scandinavia.  I had the privilege of recording two discs of organ music in Sweden during January of 2010 and plan to go back for two or three more in 2013.  Give me a few spare minutes and you will find me working on my technique on the bagpipe practice chanter, memorizing new tunes on either the Scottish small pipes, border pipes or great pipes, or simply preparing for the next competition or concert.  How did I come to make this journey with loyalties directed to distant cultures, times and places?

As we have seen with those intrepid Vikings fans, this is probably a common thing for many of us.  While many folks don’t have much of an opinion about Nordic organ music or the traditional music of Scotland, I have the sneaking suspicion that there is an elemental need residing in the souls of many for the “other”, a craving for something more exotic, or, at least, different, from what we experience in our average routine-driven lives.  Indeed, I have always felt that routine is the death of creativity and in order for us to have thoughtful lives there often needs to be a sense of dreaming outside of ourselves, searching for that far-off idea, sound or creation.  Some people have the ability to be creative in the here and now and I will admit that being out in nature on a regular basis is a likely place to kindle creative thoughts.  But it is for me, the physical act of playing a musical instrument that transports my soul away from my small place in the world and into the zeitgeist of the ancient sagas, the border ballads and the ineffable spirituality that often resides in ancient monuments.  It is a journey to a better place that I can hardly ever hope to understand.

I suppose one could argue that those of an artistic orientation often live in their own narrow confines, but I wouldn’t trade this inner life for anything.  We are surrounded by the average, the mundane, the conventional. A quest for beauty, self-expression, and creation often takes us to better climes.

What is your source of loyalty?

On The Edge Of An Empire-A Walk Along Hadrian’s Wall

Tags

Great Britain, Hadrian's Wall, Hiking, Travel

Welcome to this blog!  I am honored you have connected with me.

Bowness-On-Solway, England, October 2, 2011

The view is timeless.  Sea gulls careen over sullen waves amidst a punishing breeze.  A northern sun is but a pale reflection of its relative strength found in more southerly, Mediterranean climes.   Scotland’s southwest shore looms through the mist.

This landscape, located at the most northwesterly corner of England, marks the furthest reach of the mightiest empire of ancient times:  The Roman Empire.  As I stood on these shores in the failing light of an October day, I couldn’t help but imagine the bleak sense of isolation that probably marked the lives of Roman soldiers posted at this site.   At what was the edge of an empire, I felt overwhelmed not just by the beauty of the place, but, more to the point of my journey,  the enormous impact of a once vigorous society, one now relegated to history.

Bowness-on-Solway was the last stop on a roughly ninety- mile journey on foot that had begun eight days earlier in an eastern suburb of Newcastle.  It was my privilege to walk the Hadrian’s Wall Path as a means of marking a transition in my life.  After thirty-eight years of full and part time work as a liturgical musician, a life that had been hitherto preoccupied with rehearsals, concerts, services and managing ministries, my reality was now distilled down to one of the most basic of humankind’s functions:  walking.  And walk we did!  From the gray, industrial age veneer of Wallsend, Newcastle, through suburbs, along rivers, streams and fords, through quintessentially English pastoral scenes (how many kinds of sheep are there, anyway?), into quaint towns, replete with ancient churches and almost equally ancient pubs, or so it seemed, the path led my walking companion, Matthew Gray and me through the heart of times long-forgotten.  Our walking brought us fearsome tales of Border Reivers (the word “blackmail” comes from the violence of their acts) and evocative views of long-decayed fortifications and abbeys as the land, itself, seem to still bear the scars of more turbulent times.  On the other hand, our walking also brought us into contact with the friendliest of all souls, fellow walkers, as well as hospitable innkeepers, heartbreaking natural beauty and enough memories to fill a lifetime.  An evening of traditional music on the last night at The King’s Arms in Bowness certainly crowned the whole experience.

But, in the end, it was all about The Wall.  No, not Pink Floyd, but HADRIAN’S WALL! This guy Hadrian really knew how to get something done (note to contemporary American politicians, you could learn a thing or two from him!).  Ruling the Roman Empire in its second century AD heyday, he personally visited all but two of the territories of the empire at its zenith.  This “hands-on” approach and attention to detail was evident in everything that he did.  Hadrian quickly realized that it was a losing proposition to expand his empire any further north into what is now known as Scotland.  In Hadrian’s time, this area was populated by a group of people known to us as the Picts.  On other travels, I have found myself quite fascinated by the Picts’ artwork on stones that one can still see in parts of Scotland.   It is my belief we have missed an interesting story with the Picts as their culture didn’t include the written word.  The Romans evidently didn’t have such a warm spot in their hearts for the Picts and thus Hadrian decided to build a wall from the east coast of England all the way to the Solway Firth, our modern day Bowness.  The wall was not really just a means of keeping a segment of the populace out, but a way of controlling the evidently extensive traffic that occurred on both sides of the wall.  Completed in just a few years, Hadrian’s Wall served its function for three centuries.

Returning to the twenty-first century, the contemporary historian can follow much of the story of Roman society in Britain in this walk.  Through the remains of a series of forts, towers, bathhouses and bridges, the Romans quickly command one’s respect at their technological adroitness.  They brought central heating, running water and sanitation facilities, wine and many other attributes of their culture.  They respected local religions and provided a sense of stability in an unstable age (more, later, about how the Scots now view them).  As we walked the path, we quickly gained a clear perspective of this fascinating culture amidst iconic views of the wall, particularly as it appears in central Northumberland County.

Matt and I visited the major sites:  Segedunum, Heddon-on-the-Wall, Chesters Fort, Broccolitia Fort (which contained an intriguing Mithraeum), Housesteads, Birdoswald, the Roman Army Museum, Carlisle and, finally, Bowness.  What’s left of the wall can be attributed to the efforts of nineteenth-century lawyer and, as they say in England, antiquarian, John Clayton.  He bought much of the acreage of the various sites, preserving them from final destruction at the hands of local farmers who valued the quality of the stone work.  Hadrian’ Wall Ltd., a company specializing in travel along the wall and located in a place called Twice Brewed (an appropriate name, somehow),  arranged our trip with the same no-nonsense competence that graced the style of the Emperor Hadrian.  Our expedition’s organizer, Gary of Hadrian’s Wall Ltd., set us up in the height of comfort after days that entailed up to eighteen miles of walking (that was the last day, we took a wrong turn….).  Besides providing elegant accommodations at B and B’s, pubs, small hotels and farms, Gary was quick to point out great delis, pubs and other historic places to visit that had nothing to do with the Romans.  Mapped out with the efficiency of a military operation, we slackpackers could concentrate on the task at hand, walking.

In the end, after all of this walking and shared experience, what is my most lasting impression?  After all of the ruins, music, laughter, ales, great times with like-minded people from around the world, I am left with the elusive nature of history.  For all of the superior attributes of their civilization previously extolled in this blog, the Roman Empire has not existed since the fifth century AD.  Reminders of their greatness gradually erode into the eternal earth.  As my face felt the unrelenting wind of Bowness,  surveying the eternal creation of the earth, one that is God’s alone, I was naturally drawn to the thought that the “achievements” of our mortal lives are transitory if anything at all.  Even the mighty empire of the Romans, like all empires, had its end.  If you go to the National Museum in Edinburgh, Scotland (and I suggest that you do so as it is a bravura presentation of the culture of that country), you will see a section devoted to the Romans.  Instead of praising them as I have just done, questions such as “Why were they here?”,  “Why couldn’t they simply mind their own business?” and comments along the lines of “They were afraid, we took advantage of them in their increasing weakness” can be seen in the exhibition.  It is an interesting take.  Were the Romans “bringers of civilization” or uninvited legions that stole from and repressed the populace?

What do you think?

This is what I think:  hike the Hadrian’s Wall Path and figure it out for yourself.