Music Notes – Sunday, September 4th:
This week’s musician is UUCC Music Director Mike Carney
Opening Hymn: #1051 We Are… – Barnwell
#1051 in Singing the Journey, “We Are…” was composed by Ysaye Barnwell (b. 1946) for Sweet Honey in the Rock. “We Are…” was originally the last song in a suite that began with the lyric, “Lawd, it’s midnight. A dark and fear filled midnight. Lawd, it’s a midnight without stars.” Dr. Barnwell wanted to create a complete circle of experience, and so she wrote “for each child that’s born, a morning star rises…” This phrase is meant to establish hope, and it defines the uniqueness of each one of us. No matter what our race, culture or ethnicity, each one of us has been called into being and are the sum total of all who came before. In the composer’s words, “Each and every one of us stands atop a lineage that has had at its core, mothers and fathers and teachers and dreamers and shamans and healers and builders and warriors and thinkers and, and, and…so in spite of our uniqueness, we come from and share every experience that human kind has ever had. In this way, we are one. (from uua.org)
Centering Music: Meditation – 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.” “Meditation” is from Sacred Concert No. 2, which premiered at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York on January 19, 1968.
Sung Meditation: Meditation on Breathing – Jones
#1009 in our Singing the Journey hymnbook, “Meditation on Breathing” is more of an interactive mantra and centering than it is a hymn in the traditional sense. There are three written parts in the score, but participants are also encouraged to improvise and branch off to find their own way within the group meditation. UU musician and songwriter Sarah Dan Jones (b. 1962) composed “Meditation on Breathing” in 2001 in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Offertory Music: Breathe (Respira) – Miranda
“Breathe” (Respira) is a song by American composer, performer playwright, and filmmaker Lin-Manuel Miranda (b. 1980), who is famously known as the creative force behind Hamilton: An American Musical (2015) and the songwriter and composer for the Walt Disney animated film Encanto (2021). “Breathe” is from the Tony-Award winning 2005 musical In the Heights, which Miranda wrote along with librettist Quiara Alegría Hudes (b. 1977). In the Heights, which was adapted into a 2021 film of the same name, follows the lives of several characters over three summer days in the primarily Dominican-American neighborhood of Washington Heights in New York City. In the show, “Breathe” is performed by Nina, one of the lead characters, who is struggling to remain in college and feeling the weight of expectations from her family and neighborhood friends.
Closing Hymn: Heart Opening Song – Partain
“Heart Opening Song” is an original composition by UUCC Minister Rev. Randy Partain. In Randy’s own words: “In May of 2022, I attended the Spiritual Directors International conference in Santa Fe. Pat McCabe led a morning ceremony each day. One morning, she introduced a “heart-opening song” drawn from her Diné (Navajo) tradition. Participating in this beautiful communal song, the thought occurred to me that it would be wonderful to bring this song back to the congregation I serve. This thought was immediately followed by an awareness of how inappropriate this appropriation would be. So, in the open-hearted space of that morning’s plenary session, I conceived a more appropriate heart opening song in preparation for our summer series on Connection.”
Postlude: Born at the Right Time – Simon
“Born at the Right Time” was written by 16-time Grammy winner and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee Paul Simon (b. 1941). The song was included on Simon’s 1990 solo album The Rhythm of the Saints, in which Simon continued his journey into world music that he famously began with the hugely successful Graceland in 1986. Simon worked with a number of new collaborators on The Rhythm of the Saints, recording all of the album’s rhythm tracks in Brazil with local percussionists, then layering in additional guitar and percussion tracks with Vincent Nguini (1952-2017), a musician from Cameroon who would continue to record and tour with Simon for the rest of his life. Released as a single in 1991, “Born at the Right Time” achieved only modest commercial success, but was critically acclaimed, with Rolling Stone magazine describing the song as a “transcendent hymn of soaring beauty”.
-Mike Carney, UUCC Music Director