Music-In the Midst

Linda and I find ways to experience music at the places we visit.

On our recent European journey we attended an afternoon concert by "Elf" at St. Martin-in-the-Fields next to Trafalgar Square in London.  We were experiencing jet lag and needed a place to sit, relax, and re-energize.  Elf was the perfect energizer!  Three men in their 50's, one on piano, one flutist, and one on the French horn.  Their music is a combined blend of jazz, classical, and romantic styles.  Though there were moments when we dozed off, their music was a wonderful stimulant!  It revived us.

Evensongs at St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey provided quiet moments of prayer, heightened by pipe organ music and choirs of men, women, and children.  Stillness in a churning world.

Sunday morning in Berlin drew us to the Berliner Dom, a huge Lutheran church on Museum Island.  Its granite outside walls are still covered by "fire-black"  from Allied bombing and WWII final days fighting between the Russians and Germans.  The worship?  Imagine a huge pipe organ pouring out some of the finest organ compositions, a chamber orchestra, a four-part choir, an opera quality soloist, and finally a nearly full sanctuary singing hymns!  Christ is alive!  This is most certainly true!

Upon arrival in Annecy, France, we strolled through the tree-filled city park, located on a lovely peninsula.  Dance music pulled us towards an open air dance floor where couples twirled, and joy and love stirred by the rhythm and lyrics of the band.  Magical!

A walk through the paseo of Albufeira, Portugal, where hundreds of street cafes and restaurants had a large screen television set to the latest soccer match between Real Madrid and Barcelona, brought us to a Roman Catholic Church, packed to the gills with standing room only, as they celebrated some Christian event.  Candles everywhere!  The music was provided by singers and a guitar choir.  One of the songs had strains of "When the Saints Go Marching In"!  Color!  Spirit!  Faith alive!

There wasn't much music in Tangier, Morrocco.  What music there was consisted of single people blowing a flute-type instrument.  No joy.  Indeed, I barely remember any music.  We spent most of our time walking the narrow, smelly streets of the "kasbah", or old Tangier.  "Kasbah" means fortress, and it was a walled area enclosing small shops, much poverty, and many people seemingly living aimless lives.

An evening on the "Balcony of Europe" in Nerja, Spain, treated hundreds of folks to music from "Ikaiki Amayu", two musicians from the Andean mountains of South American, playing traditional pan flute instruments.  The music was magnetic, drawing people like flies to light!  Gentle, romantic, uniting, amidst a rising moon and pounding surf.

We attended a Flamenco dance and music concert near the Mezquita in Cordoba, Spain.  The  space was small and intimate,  packed with people, including about 50 high school age youth.  Linda and I each sipped on a Sangria as we watched and listened to two talented guitarists, two robust vocalists, and a half dozen dancers who tapped and sweated their way through a most passionate program.  We learned that Flamenco has Gypsy (Roma) and Moorish roots. Go prepared to marvel at the footwork, the color of the women's dresses, and the physicality of movement.  Flamenco is not for the faint of heart!

Then there is Portugese "Fado". Fado was born out of despair, poverty, and struggle.  It is mostly minor key music with a bluesy feel, and deep passion.  The CD jacket explains Fado thusly:  "What people is this who, in the middle of the 19th century, surrounded by hunger, disease, and illiteracy, created a song to nurture the soul, strengthen the heart, and keep thought alive?.... What song is this?  It is called Fado and its birthplace is Portugal."

We were drawn in to the Cloisters Cathedral in Belem, Portugal to listen to a children's cello recital and concert.  What a lovely mix of parents, relatives, performers, tourists, and strangers, all listening to dressed-up, spiffed-up youth, guided by their musical mentors, expressing their musical dexterity, with sound bouncing off the centuries old stone walls!

Throughout our journey, as we listened to music, we also watched and listened to televised reports of economic chaos in the United States, Europe, and the world, starvation in Africa, suicide bombings in the Middle East, political gridlock in the USA, endless war, fires in Texas, and you name it!  And then there was soccer!  Europeans are absolutely catatonic about a sport where goals are as frequent as days above freezing in a Minnesota January!

"In the midst" of the life realities, the music drew people TOGETHER from all over the world, locals and globals.  During these times there was no fighting, no killing, no swearing, no arguing, no gamesmanship, no debating.  There was a sweetness at each event.  I am reminded of an old Coke commercial where people are lined up along a mountain ridge, each holding a can of Coke and singing, "I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony...."  Music reflects society, but it also transforms society.

Is there a lesson for the world here?

Go to a concert!  Better yet, get some people together and make music, even if you just "make a joyful noise" to God!  Become ONE!

Peace!
Ron