Music Notes – Sunday, October 18th:
This week’s musicians are The Chancel Choir, The Treble Ensemble, UUCC Pianist Karin Tooley, UUCC Music Director Mike Carney, and Rev. Randy Partain
Centering Music: Grow as We Go – Platt/Abraham
Ben Platt (b. 1993) is a Los Angeles-born actor, singer, and songwriter, perhaps best known for the title role in Dear Evan Hansen, both in the original 2015 Broadway production (for which he won a Tony Award) and the 2021 film adaptation of that musical. “Grow as We Go” was the third single released from Platt’s 2019 debut album Sing to Me Instead. Platt co-wrote the song with his then-romantic partner Ben Abraham as the couple were in the midst of breaking up. In a podcast interview with actor/comedian Anna Faris, Platt explained: “it ended with us writing a song together about what we both knew was happening – which was that he was asking me to go, that he needed space to go and become who he is – that he wasn’t really looking for this intense kind of partnership. [and] I was sort of saying to him, ‘why are those things mutually exclusive? why can’t we be together and you can still grow – I’ll give you space to be who you are and you give me space to be who I am and yet we’ll do it together’.
Song: When I Am Frightened – Denham
“When I Am Frightened” (#1012 in Singing the Journey), also titled “Then I May Learn”, was commissioned in 1999 by the First Unitarian Church of Dallas. Because of her lifelong commitment to working with and empowering youth, UU composer Shelley Jackson Denham (1950-2013) took the opportunity to write a piece based on children’s yearning for truth, respect, and engagement with adults. In keeping with a philosophy that “children are watching, what are they learning?”, the song is meant as a reminder that all children deserve and need compassion, acceptance, commitment…and that they often learn to both give and receive these essential elements of relationship through the simple act of observation. (includes material from uua.org)
Joys and Concerns Music: Fix You – Berryman, Buckland, Champion, & Martin
“Fix You” is a song by the British rock/pop band Coldplay, written primarily by the band’s frontman Chris Martin (b. 1977) but officially credited to all four members of Coldplay. Martin wrote the original draft of “Fix You” in 2002 for American actress Gwyneth Paltrow to help his friend (and eventual wife) deal with the grief of losing her father earlier that year. The song was eventually released as a single in 2005 from Coldplay’s third studio album X&Y, and “Fix You” became a critical and commercial success, reaching the top 5 in the United Kingdom and Canada and receiving significant airplay in other parts of the world as well.
Offertory: Spirit of Life – Aspaas/Cope
First published in 2013, “Spirit of Life” is a choral piece for treble voices and piano, written by Christopher Aspaas (b. 1973), an American composer and conductor who is primarily known for his choral works. Dr. Aspaas currently serves as Director of Choral Activities and Associate Professor of Music at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. Aside from sharing the same title, this piece is unrelated to the well-known UU hymn “Spirit of Life”, although it does have a UU connection: the words for Aspaas’s “Spirit of Life” come from J. Raymond Cope (1905-1988), a Unitarian/UU minister and educator who served congregations in Dayton, Ohio, Salt Lake City, Utah, and Berkeley, California. Cope’s text is:
Spirit of life, within and about us:
In each of us, there is despair and hope,
Some overtone of creation’s song;
In each of us the welling ache of life;
The being and the becoming;
The promise and the hunger;
The one resurgent moment that speaks to eternity,
That may pass from memory never forgotten.
In each of us there is some margin of discovery;
In each of us a truant shadow of tomorrow;
In each of us an untamed need,
A purpose brooding and uncertain,
Waiting to be realized.
Spirit of life, within and about us:
We rededicate ourselves to a higher purpose,
A more perfect life together nourished in wisdom and love.
Spirit of life, within and about us:
In each of us, creation’s song,
Being and becoming,
A nobler dream together.
Special Music: The Sky’s Reply – Blaine
Joshua Blaine is an American songleader, life coach, and healer who draws musical, spiritual, and philosophical inspiration from his Jewish heritage. Blaine wrote “The Sky’s Reply” in 2021, building it around the ancient Hebrew prayer “Ana el nal” (Please, O God, heal me). In the composer’s own words: “I wrote this song [in the spring of 2021] inspired by a prayer in the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute prayer book, ‘Min HaMetzar.’ It came at a time when I was personally experiencing so much contraction and constriction, and when the world at large seemed to be in a collective time of ‘narrowness’ as we were a few months into pandemic quarantine.
Song: Infinitely Whole – Fam/Lennox
“Infinitely Whole” was co-written by two young Unitarian Universalists: the music is by Alex Fam (b. 1989), a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist based in Boston, MA. Fam has released multiple albums and regularly performs her original music, which is imbued with a sense of wonder and joy in the world. She has been a long-time musician at The Sanctuary Boston, an innovative spiritual community grounded in Unitarian Universalism. “Infinitely Whole” is Fam’s setting of words from Rev. Bram Lennox (b. 1990), who began their journey to UU ministry when serving as Director of Music at First Parish in Malden, MA. Their love of music and creative worship has remained with them, shaping their ministry as they work to share messages of compassion and resilience. Today, they serve on the board of the Association for Unitarian Universalist Music Ministries (AUUMM), and serve with a fabulous worship team at the Unitarian Church of Harrisburg, PA. About “Infinitely Whole”, Lennox says: “The words to “Infinitely Whole” originated from a sermon written to challenge the narrative of brokenness which is often directed at and internalized by both the disability community and the trans community. Alex Fam felt a resonance with this passage in particular, and adapted it into a simple yet moving two-part song.” (includes material from singoutlove.org)
Postlude: I Believe – Miller
“I Believe” is a 2012 composition by American composer and educator Mark A. Miller (b. 1967), who serves as Assistant Professor of Church Music at Drew Theological School and is a Lecturer in the Practice of Sacred Music at Yale University. The lyrics for “I Believe” come from an anonymous poem which speaks of finding hope and faith even in the darkest of times. The poem is said to have been discovered on a cellar wall in the Müngersdorf concentration camp near Cologne, Germany:
I believe in the sun, even when it is not shining.
I believe in love, even when I don’t feel it.
I believe in God, even when God is silent.
This Sunday, “I Believe” will be led by our Chancel Choir with pianist Lucy Carney and vocal soloist Pam Schenk.
-Mike Carney, UUCC Music Director