Music Notes – Sunday, June 14th:
This Sunday’s musician is UUCC Music Director Mike Carney
Centering Music: Love Is at the Center – Goldberg
Emily Joy Goldberg (b. 1978, she/her) is a composer, singer-songwriter, and speech-language pathologist based in Philadelphia. In 2019 she released Open Doors, an album of original songs based on UU principles, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, she produced a compilation of original songs from the Philadelphia songwriters: Songs from the Inside (2020). Emily Joy wrote “Love is at the Center” in 2023 during the year of discernment when Unitarian Universalists were “trying on” our new UU Values described in Article II. (from singoutlove.org)
Song: We Begin Again in Love – Kleen & Eller-Isaacs
#1037 in our Singing the Journey hymnbook, “We Begin Again in Love” is a responsorial hymn with both spoken and musical elements. The words are by Rev. Robert L. Eller-Isaacs (b. 1951), who is currently serving as co-minister of Unity Church–Unitarian in St. Paul, Minnesota, and the music is by Les Kleen (b. 1942), who served for more than 20 years as choir director at the First Unitarian Universalist church of Columbus, Ohio.
Joys and Concerns Music: Meditation – Ellington
Offertory: The Shepherd (Who Watches Over the Night Flock) – Ellington
One of the true legends of American music, composer and bandleader Duke Ellington (1899-1974) was best known as the composer of dozens of jazz standards, including “It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)”, “Mood Indigo”, and “Come Sunday”. Late in his career, Ellington composed three larger works (each titled Sacred Concert) that combined elements of jazz, classical music, choral music, spirituals, gospel, blues and dance and explored Ellington’s relationship with the spiritual world. Ellington called these compositions “the most important music I’ve ever written.” Both “Meditation” and “The Shepherd (Who Watches Over the Night Flock)” are from Sacred Concert No. 2, which premiered at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York on January 19, 1968.
Song: I Wish I Knew How – Taylor and Dallas
#151 in our Singing the Living Tradition hymnbook, “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free” is a jazz-gospel song written in 1963 by Billy Taylor (1921-2010) and Dick Dallas (1937-2004). The song became one of the anthems of the American Civil Rights Movement and has been covered by dozens of artists, most famously by Nina Simone in 1967.
Postlude: If There Ain’t Room – Jeter
Melissa Jeter (b. 1970, she/her) is a vocalist, songwriter, member/Seminarian/Student Minister at First Unitarian Church of Toledo, member of DRUUMM, board member of Sister Souurce, and our guest minister this Sunday. About “If There Ain’t Room”, Melissa says: “I composed this song thinking about how I wanted to take my beloved companion with me everywhere I went. But dogs are not allowed in some public spaces or hotels. However, as I continued to work on the song, I started to think about all the people in my life and whether they would be welcomed—just as they are—in the many places I go. Would my brother, a 6’1” tall Black man with dark skin and a very muscular body, be welcome to speak the truth of his life? Would he be treated with inherent worth and dignity or be patronized and tolerated? Would my friends who love each other be welcomed? Would women, artists, scholars, and so many more be welcomed to speak, to live, to enact policies and movements to organize their lives for their own benefit? I rooted these questions in Love.” (includes material from singoutlove.org)
-Mike Carney, UUCC Music Director