Between concerts, excursions and talks, no time for blogging

I have been quite busy lately, as somebody noticed on Facebook "You've been off doing some pretty fun sounding stuff lately."

Two weeks ago I went to a Paul Winter solo concert at the Central Connecticut State University and it was quite wonderful and worth the long drive. They moved it to a smaller theater than planned and I was sitting right there in the front and listend not just to the wonderful music, but also his stories about making music in the pitch dark in some park out west or in the Grand Canyon. I was so fortunate to attend another concert a week later called ONE Earth featuring the Orchestra New England and the Paul Winter Consort in Woolsey Hall at Yale University. This was such a treat, the organist from St. John the devine was there playing that amazing organ and Paul Maccandles and Eugene Friesen (yeah :)!) were there as well. It was so neat to hear this music with a whole orchestra, how different and wonderful. I also got introduced to some music by Charles Ives, which I thought was very interesting. Of course we got to enjoy a lot of very lovely music at All Saints in Worcester, J had to sing a lot lately and she loves every moment of it (and so do we). My concert is coming up in just 2 weeks and I was finally able to pick up my voice lessons again.

But music has not been the only fun and interesting thing lately. We had two other meetings of Germans in Massachusetts and there are some really nice people in that group, I am happy I have met them. We are planning a picnic in May and maybe there is a slight chance some of us will meet in Germany this summer. A lot of them live in the northeast corner and so we seized the opportunity and spend a wonderful day at the beach in New Hampshire. Being at the beach makes all of us feel better and I wonder why we hardly ever go. When we moved here, I thought we would be making a run for the shore all the time. We are all looking forward to spend a whole week on the most beautiful island in the North Sea.

I have also been jumping into action with the process of getting help for the kids in school. It is a very difficult thing to have dual exceptions, meaning neurological problems while being gifted. It is hard for teachers to see that these children need help, they seem to do fine, but at to high a cost emotionally. I joined multiple organizations and online groups and I went to yet another whole day seminar on special education law and even though I went home with a head swimming in paragraphs and laws, I think I did learn a lot, espescially how to interpret test scores, which is not straightforward, but very important. Tonight I will attend a talk about Asperger Syndrome and the whole body, which is also a very important topic and just thinking about it reminded me how I need to put much more thought into S's sensory diet, which we have been neglected since we stopped occupational therapy. Almost everybody in this family is seeing some kind of therapist, so there are a lot of books to read, things to learn and new approaches to be tried. Sometimes it is hard for me to keep my sanity in all this, but I try.

The struggle to be happy has been with me all my life and that is not surprising if you know about my strange life. I hope to gain some insight this weekend, since I am going to see the Dalai Lama for two sessions at Foxborough. Yes a stadium is an awful spot for something so mentally important, but at least I got tickets right up front (not like the U2 concert in Septemer, which will be more a soaking up the atmosphere than really seeing the band itself). Work has always made me happy - go figure - and I have been working like crazy for our school TV show. If this would be paid, our 8 week Germany trip would be less scary, but it is not. Well, I am gaining more and more experience. We have been filming at school almost daily. I went on a fieldtrip this week to Concord/Lexington with the third graders and it was so much fun. Seeing children at my favorite spots while making it into a 30 minute stand alone show, how much fun. And we can put the stop motion stuff into this, because S will do some artwork and we will reenact Paul Revere's midnight ride with paper puppets!

I have also been working on a short film with fourth graders that will be shown at the fourth grade concert in May. Even though this was a tiny in the school production, it is still fun to shoot and edit and come up with a little fun 4 minute film. It seems that lately it has all been about photos and filming and editing and I still find no time at all to write my book. I am constantly working on it in the back of my head and I will have to put some time aside in the fall and winter. I should not even write this, I know that is so silly to write.

Can somebody just give me some more time please, pretty please?

post holiday paralysis and stop motion animation

Instead on writing about my connection to lent, I have been talking with a lot of people about it and have been way to busy to write something meaningful. Now I have this strange kind of after-the-holiday-paralysis, where I should be working on putting the house back in order, finish taxes and take care of things before this week crazy schedule takes off. Last week was nuts in regards to J's singing schedule and having 2 parties to prepare and this week will be equally nuts with me having to lug my cameras and tripods to school for 4 events, one being a real scripted little film I got myself involved in.

So how does this paralysis look like? I spend the better part of the morning hanging out with my visiting MIL talking about this and that and by the time she has to leave, it is past noon. Noon is my cut-off time, if I have not gotten anything accomplished by then, forget it, it ain't gonna happen. I blame this on the protestant work ethic that was hammered into me as a child. Also hammered into me was not to do anything on Sunday and I worked hard yesterday like any mom and hostess on a holiday - so I just consider this my day off, well half of it anyway.

Last night somebody posted a Playmobil stop motion animation on the Playmobil board. Even though the production was not that captivating, it got me interested in what equipment I would need to do this with the kids and so I got into researching it and finding all these cool little videos and since I have a Firewire DV camcorder, I might be all set outside of the software, which is quite cheap. We have so much Playmobil and the kids are very creative, I bet they would love a weekend project like that and I can teach thema bit about project planning, story boarding, camera angles, how film works etc... Maybe we can even work with blue screen (which is usually green nowadays).



This is somebody's first attempt and I think the motion is very well made.



So hopefully sometimes this year the G-Girls can make a fun little stop motion animation video using our plethora of Playmobil supplies. We just need to come up with a fun little story, I am convinced though that it will be something fantasy like.

Maundy Thursday

Sometimes a day just feels different than other days, like there is some significance to it, without being explicit. Today I had such a day. It is Maundy Thursday, the day of the last supper and J was singing at church. I am still wondering why I experienced lent so differently this year, actually experienced it at all. Maybe it is the music, or maybe it is because the full moon is shining while Passover and the holy week an Easter fall together. It feels as if my heart and soul are wide open.

I do not believe in god, I have tried, but I just don't, no matter how much I wish I would. I think it would be wonderful, there would be instant purpose and meaning and so much more hope. Instead I am a sort of existentialist, even if I do believe in more than the apparent world. Still though, going to the service tonight seemed so important and the words had so much meaning. I did not have the usual feeling of being an intruder, or an impostor, instead it felt right. The drama of tonight's service, the music, the movement, the stripping of the altar, the slamming of the cross while turning off all light, of course that all has an emotional impact. This was deepened by the choir singing Ave verum corpus by Mozart (KV618), which I sang in chorus as a teenager and it is very special to me.*

And while I was sitting there in church, listening so closely, it occurred to me why this felt so different. I might not believe in the divine, but I do believe in Jesus Christ, not necessarily as the son of god, but as a charismatic leader and reformer. It always has been strange, because I have always liked church, the rituals, the music, the meaning. I like the social structure it gives, the morals and ethics. I have met so many people who were believers, but wanted nothing to do with church, I also have met so many people that are deeply engrossed in the church and did not really live as very good Christians. For many years when this topic comes up, I have told people that I believe a person can be a good christian without actually believing in god and most people don't understand it. I suppose I see church from a sociological standpoint as a concept and as a way to build community. This probably stems from the way I grew up. I grew up in the parish, the church buildings were my home, the cantor and custodian people I saw daily. Since my mother worked for the church, our life was centered there, yet is was completely devoid of any religious deeper content or connotation. My whole family is as non religious as they get. As a young adult, I became very involved in another church (all Lutheran anyway) and found a wonderful community there, that I still miss. And when I left home for University, it was the university's church group that gave me the same 20 years ago.

When we became parents, we wanted to give our children the chance to find faith and decide on their own what they believe or not, but I got to a point where it did not seem to make much sense anymore. There was no presence of god in our lives, save for some prayers at mealtime and it felt truly wrong to me to participate in the communion and to say I believe in the trinity, which I know to be a man made concept from early church history. I cannot suspend disbelief and I had to stop going to church. There were a couple of other factors that contributed.

But tonight I did feel some sense of belonging, maybe it is because I spend so much time there bringing J to choir, maybe it is that it is not my church and they have no expectations or possibly it is because they welcome everybody with open arms. Whatever it might be, I think I have accepted to be without faith in god and I embrace the believes I do have. So therefore, it has been quite a meaningful day and of course, it was full of music :)

* My friends and me would sing it a lot when out and about - our other two favorites where the Marsaillaise and Ma na ma na from the Muppets and I admit it is a very eclectic mix.

Music and Lent part II: Arvo Pärt’s Kanon Pokajanen

A few years back, right after Christmas, we were driving from Connecticut back to our home in Pennsylvania and crossing the Tappan Zee Bridge late at night. Our radio picked up these deep and ethereal vocal harmonies transitioning between gradual elevation, abrupt changes and returns into complete calm while staying in a consistent mood. There was a tonal quality almost like bells or organ pipes, so pure, not in the sense of innocent, but in it’s perfection. The music transitions between quiet and full, high voices against the dark voices resonating on the bottom. Listening to the powerful and stirring music was an experience of meditation.

I was introduced to the mesmerizing, beautiful and cathartic Kanon Pokajanen by the estonian composer Arvo Pärt, which was commissioned for the 750th anniversary celebration of the Cologne Cathedral in ‘98 and was recorded in Tallinn/Estonia in Niguliste Church by the outstanding Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir. It took Pärt two years to write this very long piece that has tremendous meaning to him.

When the human voice transcends something higher, transforms into a pure instrument and the frequencies, the movement and synergy of the voices in a minimalist cacophony create an emotional state which spoke to something so deep within me, something no thoughts can reach. It was like an auditory epiphany. The music conveyed to me a point of connection between earth and heaven, between reality and spirituality, between dark and light and it touched me in a profound and unforgettable way.

Quite often I would listen to it, wallowing in the immense beauty and the feeling of it, but I never tried to analyze it. I had given the CDs to a friend who was interested and she returned them to me and since they were in the car, I started listening again and a lot (driving hours every day). It was as if the music allowed me to be inside it and at the same time was inside me, speaking from the composer’s to my innermost being and I recognized that this music symbolizes and expresses my feelings of repentance and lent. I decided to write about Kanon Pokajanen and started with reading the CD’s booklet, just to find out that the music had told me all along.

The text is based on the canon of repentance of the Russian Orthodox Church and is sung in the old Slavic language. The text was very important to Arvo Pärt, he said: “In this composition, as in many of my vocal works, I tried to use language as a point of departure. I wanted the word to be able to find its own sound, to draw its own melodic line. Somewhat to my surprise, the resulting music is entirely immersed in the particular character of Church Slavonic, a language used exclusively in ecclesiastical texts." What I consider amazing is the because the text is phonetically so foreign to me that I do not hear recognizable words which allows me to forgo my rationale and reach a spiritual depth that allows me to feel and understand the meaning without even attempting to make a connection to the text. When music can speak that universally, it is genial.

From the booklet notes by Marina Bobrik-Fromke: "It is a song of change and transformation. In the symbolism of the church, it invokes the border between day and night, Old and New Testament, old Adam and new Adam (Christ), prophecy and fulfillment, the here and the hereafter. Applied to a person, it recalls the border between human and divine, weakness and strength, suffering and salvation. In the canon of repentance, the text is devoted to the theme of personal transformation. Repentance appears as a necessary threshold, as a kind of purification on the way to salvation in paradise. The difficulty of following the way is shown by the inner tension between the respective eirmos and the following stanzas, that is, between the praise of the Lord and the lamentation of one's own weakness."

There is a very good editorial review by Evan Cater here.

Next: Why is lent so important for an agnostic like me?

Music and Lent part I: Music is my religion

A few posts back I mentioned the brush fire of thoughts regarding lent and music and so here we go with my little series. It became pretty clear to me that music - the highest achievement of humanity in my view - is my religion, since it is close to the only thing that reaches that very deep spiritual spot inside me. I am not sure how to describe this internal place. It is a place of complete harmony, where everything is connected and energy flows, where the physical world stops to exist and gives room to something much bigger. I had a few key experiences when music brought me to this spiritual place, in a way a feeling of total bliss and etheral existance in that moment alone, where everything else falls away.

If somebody would talk about my early childhood, they would probably mention that I seemed to sing and dance through every moment of the day, music was with me at all times. The first time I was deeply touched by a specific piece of music was as a six year old listening to Schubert’s 8th (the unfinished one). Actually my mother had this compilation record that she was playing over and over and introduced me to some fantastic music. It is absolutely ingrained in my brain. One or two years later we went to a concert in our church St. Johannis on Maundy Thursday where Claus Bantzer was playing the organ and I deeply felt the passion of Jesus, it was like a revelation to have experienced such a profound expression in the music and scary as well, because of the depth of the emotion that I had not felt that way before. I kind of grew up in that church, since we lived in the parish house and therefore had the luck that he played at our wedding in that church.

Another musical moment of perfection happened to me on a month long bike trip through Sweden with our youth group. We camped in the yards of the parish houses. In the church building in Sätila at the end of the Lyngern Fjord (the photo is from the Sätila kyrka website) south of Gothenburg stood this brand new wonderful Steinway grand that had been tuned to absolute perfection. I sat there forever and just played a note at a time, listening to it resound and fade and it’s reverberations. The sound was beyond striking the strings with a felted hammer, it was incredible and unforgettable. Later a member of our group - who was a brilliant player and an arrogant prick - could with his harmonies not get the same reaction as just one note had did for me. I am convinced that in order to experience these moments, we need to open our soul all the way to let this indescribable synergy of music in and touch us.

Many years later I threw myself into the youth ministry at one of our churches in the hope to somehow find some kind of faith. Some of my friends and I used to attend Taize* evenings and so I found myself one evening sitting in a circle and the burning light of the setting sun threw itself threw one of the stain glass windows into my face while I was chanting and I had this sudden epiphany, this certain feeling of the existence of something higher and bigger and something that just cannot be put into words, I would not define it as define per se though. I had just lost my god father and uncle and maybe I was just seeking solace, it is hard to say.

I once was on the road to pick up my husband (then boyfriend) and the radio was playing Antonin Dvorak’s 9th (New World) Symphony. I had listened to it many times, but at that moment, it reached much deeper. I had to pull over and stop the car. I sat there in our little red Peugeot in a complete trance and did not even have any thoughts, it was like a meditation, but at the end I was crying and could not stop. It was truely amazing. Isn’t it incredible how art can touch us in these ways?

One of the most influential musicians in my life has been Paul Winter and the first time I attended the solstice concert with the Paul Winter consort in the cathedral St. John the Devine in New York, it was to me like a religious experience. When he came out on the stage and started playing his soprano sax, it hit me. I sat right in front of the stage. What an amazing feeling, I am unbelievably grateful for that. Arvo Pärt’s Kanon Pokajanen touched me in such a profound way, that I will give it a whole post by itself. And anyway, this post is already a bit too long for a blog entry.

* The Taizé Community is an ecumenical christian monastic order in Taizé in Burgundy/France. The music is chant like with repetitive and beautiful lines (often from psalms), sometimes sung in canon and bringing the singers to a different meditative state.

Second hand children's clothing is illegal

This morning I had the bright idea to stop at a thrift store and look for some high end used kid's clothing, since my muffins are growing so fast. Anybody who knows my children also knows that they always wear cool and funky clothing. I am a very thrifty shopper and can find good deals, but I also rely on second hand clothing through church sales, ebay, garage sales - you name it. This way you can get the best, already broken in and comfy, for a fraction. I am very persnickety about what my kids wear and it is so awesome to find a Ralph Lauren dress for $4, a Hanna Andersson outfit for $5 or a Patagonia jacket for $3.50 (the kids had that for 4 years!)

To my surprise, there was no clothing for children anywhere in the store and upon my asking why, I was told that there are no more thrift stores with children's clothing, because a new law is in effect. I was standing there completely dumbfounded. Not for a second did I question even that there is a law, after all, we need a law for everything, since we all are incapable of thinking for ourselves. For example pyjamas, because there is law that they need to be fire retardent, most sleepwear is made from artificial fiber and just for the fun of it, doused in flame retardent chemicals - I am sure that is great. When made out of cotton, they are made so snug fitting, that only children that are extremely skinny can actually fit in them. My children only sleep in organic cotton pj's that fit them just right and I have to spend a fortune on them. Most children though sleep in big, loose t-shirts anyway and they are all doomed to burn - even though more children die of carbon monoxide poisoning before the flames reach them anyway.

So now I cannot buy cool, used kid's clothing anymore and I also cannot sell huge pile waiting downstairs to be sold... I can also not donate it anymore - all children's clothing will end up in landfills, what a complete waste. This article in the L.A.Times explains it all. And here is a petition to revise or change the law. This law was put in effect because of lead in clothing, which now can only be sold if tested. This also effects small companies making clothing for kids that cannot afford the testing, or people who handcraft anything for children and sell it on etsy, at craft shows or the likes. I am all for removing toxins out of children's clothing, but this law seems to go about it the wrong way.

We live in tough economic times and it does not look very promising for the near future. A lot of families rely on thrift stores, I guess second hand Ralph Lauren pure cotton just won't be available anymore and has to be exchanged for low quality Walmart clothing, fresh from China and still outgasing... this is completely insane and I am really mad! I already wrote an email to Kerry, Kennedy and McGovern and also a real letter and in the meantime I will just buy from ebay in England and Germany then. I just hope that our episcopalian church has not found out about this and I can find plenty of clothing there at their annual sale, because they have this family with children that are just a bit older than mine and we buy all their donated Gap and L.L.Bean seonds.

Palm Sunday, Bach, Venice and Fish Poisoning...

This morning, as any other morning, my alarm clock dutifully woke me up. In contrast to other days though, Sundays are so much nicer, bad news are replaced by lovely music. And oh lovely it was today. Usually I just snooze a few times, but the beautiful music this morning, made me head straight for the computer to find out exactly which Bach piece (that was obvious) I was listening too.

It was the Bach Cantata BWV 182 "Himmelskönig, sei willkommen", which Bach wrote in 1714 for Palm Sunday. It was performed by the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists under direction of John Eliot Gardiner. The recording is magnificent and bright, just brilliant, unfortunately rather expensive though. I am contemplating if I should make my own Bach cantata of the month club and study a different one every month. I have always wanted to dive into the works of Bach for a deeper understanding and broader knowledge.


And of course, today was Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter, which commemorates the triumphant return of Jesus to Jerusalem before his Passion. Last year on this day, I was in Venice with my mother. We had a little apartment around the corner from the church of Santa Maria Formosa and when we turned onto the church's square, we noticed everybody was preparing for the Palm Sunday Procession with music to the St. Mark's Basilica. Many young men were playing guitars and everybody was holding up palm tree branches and it all felt festive, jubilant, sacred and ritualistic at once. I wanted to watch the procession, rather than participate, so we kept taking parallel paths, which is actually not that easy in Venice and all of a sudden we lost them. But the moment we reached St. Mark's square, they arrived at a different corner and we got to see them all pass by again and make a big detour around the square to march directly into the beautiful Basilica. In a very strange way it felt special to us, because of all the churches in Venice, it was "our" church after all.

We spent some time at the Museum Correr in the Napoleonic Wing until our feet gave out and we proceeded to our highly anticipated visit of Cafe Florian, one of the oldest and probably most expensive cafes of the world and absolutely worth a visit. My tea sandwiches had caviar on them, which I do not care for, but ate anyway. This was rather unfortunate, since it gave me fish poisoning and a gut wrenching night, not quite as triumphant as the procession, just a good story to tell. (Hey, I went to the worlds most exquisite cafe and got poisoned - what are the odds?)

But back to the Bach cantata 182, listen to part V, the alto solo "Leget Euch dem Heiland unter", isn't it very interesting?