Kerry Jackson, a visual artist, ministers to the arts community in Atlanta as a Mission Service Corps missionary and church planter (www.drawingtotherock.com/msc). He’s also president of Drawing to the Rock Ministries, Inc. (www.drawingtotherock.com) and presents live worship art around the world.
LeAnne: Tell me about the gallery you are planning to open.
Kerry: God has given us the vision for a studio/gallery where thought-provoking art can be seen so that spiritual conversations can be generated. The gallery will also be a place for other Christian artists to share their acts of worship. It will be a gathering place for artists as well as art lovers. It will be a great place to build relationships and community. We will have shows and receptions. We will have art classes, creativity seminars, and Bible studies. This will lead to a new church start.
LM: What are you doing right now to reach out to artists?
KJ: Right now we're just trying meet them and find out where they are. Our desire is to volunteer and serve them, to help them be successful. We are immersing ourselves in the arts community by participating in guilds, associations, and clubs. We are volunteers at many of the art venues in Atlanta. We are reaching out to all creative people—not only visual artists, but actors, set designers, dancers, photographers, poets, musicians, etc, as well as those who profess not to have artistic talent but simply love art. We're praying that they will not only see us as colleagues, but as friends. We have to gain their trust before they will listen to us regarding spiritual matters. As we are blessed to help people find the Lord, we will help these new believers begin their discipleship by involving them in a local church.
LM: How are you being received by them?
KJ: So far so good. Our volunteer efforts seem to be very much appreciated. Once they begin to trust us, they are interested in hearing about our church planting efforts. When they learn I'm a visual artist, they want to see my work. Once they see it, spiritual conversations soon begin.
LM: Is there anything else you'd like to say about Christians in the arts?
KJ: Everywhere I go I'm introduced to many "artists" who tell me that they never really thought about using their talent for God. There has been such a disconnect with the Church and the arts that they don't see themselves worthy of being a "minister." My prayer is that through our small efforts, we can inspire a few people to reconnect with God and the Church.
On Monday: a photographer
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
Kerry Jackson: Ministering to Creative People
Kerry Jackson, a visual artist, ministers to the arts community in Atlanta as a Mission Service Corps missionary and church planter (www.drawingtotherock.com/msc). He’s also president of Drawing to the Rock Ministries, Inc. (www.drawingtotherock.com) and presents live worship art around the world.
LeAnne: What is your background in art?
Kerry: I've been involved in art all my life. I always knew that I'd be an artist when I grew up. I received a BA in Painting from Mississippi State University. I also have a Masters in Communication Arts from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. My art is primarily spiritual in nature, however I also paint traditional landscapes. I work mostly in mixed media. I also travel around the world presenting live worship art in churches and Christian schools.
LM: In October 2006, you were commissioned to be a missionary to the arts community. How did this come about?
KJ: After a mission trip to Europe where I had the opportunity to meet and talk to street artists outside the tourist venues, I came back home wondering: who is trying to reach creative people for God? That became my prayer. I felt God say in my heart, "No one. Will you?" So, the idea for a ministry to creative people was birthed.
LM: Tell me about your ministry in Atlanta. What is your vision?
KJ: We see a day when a church will be started that will be so creative in its worship that creative people will feel inspired to worship God in the way that He has gifted them. It is our desire and charge to see this model replicated all over North America.
Thursday: more from Kerry Jackson. Next week: a photographer.
LeAnne: What is your background in art?
Kerry: I've been involved in art all my life. I always knew that I'd be an artist when I grew up. I received a BA in Painting from Mississippi State University. I also have a Masters in Communication Arts from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. My art is primarily spiritual in nature, however I also paint traditional landscapes. I work mostly in mixed media. I also travel around the world presenting live worship art in churches and Christian schools.
LM: In October 2006, you were commissioned to be a missionary to the arts community. How did this come about?
KJ: After a mission trip to Europe where I had the opportunity to meet and talk to street artists outside the tourist venues, I came back home wondering: who is trying to reach creative people for God? That became my prayer. I felt God say in my heart, "No one. Will you?" So, the idea for a ministry to creative people was birthed.
LM: Tell me about your ministry in Atlanta. What is your vision?
KJ: We see a day when a church will be started that will be so creative in its worship that creative people will feel inspired to worship God in the way that He has gifted them. It is our desire and charge to see this model replicated all over North America.
Thursday: more from Kerry Jackson. Next week: a photographer.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Luci Shaw on Madeleine L'Engle
Today, I want to direct your attention to poet Luci Shaw’s excellent tribute to Madeleine L’Engle. If you have not read L’Engle’s Walking on Water, pick up a copy as soon as you can. It’s a must-read for artists, and I have quoted from it on the blog before. Check out Shaw’s tribute at http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2008/001/10.8.html.
Enjoy your weekend.
Enjoy your weekend.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Timothy Michael Powell, Part 3: An Expression of the Human Experience
This is the conclusion of my interview with Dr. Timothy Michael Powell, an accomplished conductor and composer. He is the Director of Choral and Vocal Studies at Lee College and directs the Lee College Chorale and the Baytown Community Chorus. Dr. Powell holds a DMA in Conducting from the University of South Carolina and was the 1999 National Choristers Guild Scholar, a 2002-2003 Fulbright Scholar to Bulgaria, and a 2002 Fellow with the prestigious South Carolina Conductors Institute. He received both his Bachelors (cum laude) and his Masters degrees in Church Music from Belmont University.
He was the Rhodes College Conductor-in-Residence for the 2004-2005 Season and the Director of the Honors College Choir at the University of South Carolina from 2001-2002. His compositions include numerous major works, including his "Wedding Mass" which will be premiered in Carnegie Hall in June of 2008, and his opera "His Terrible Swift Sword" which was premiered in April of 2007. Go to www.DCINY.org for more information about the concert.
Dr. Powell is an active clinician and scholar and holds memberships in the Pi Kappa Lambda Music Society, The Texas Music Educator's Association, and the American Choral Director's Association. He serves as the Director of Music at St. Matthews United Methodist Church in Houston, TX. Samples of his music can be heard at www.myspace.com/timothymichaelpowell.
LM: Your MySpace site lists about two dozen musicians who have influenced you. Pick two or three and tell why and how they influenced you.
TP: I think that Giovanni de Palestrina is my model for small-scale motet construction. His music is so beautiful and loses none of its emotional impact, even after 400+ years. Yet at the same time, there is a certain succinctness and crystalline sparseness of form, almost a conservatism, that allows the climatic moments to develop and emerge and then hit you over the head like a hammer. I'm thinking particularly of his piece In Monte Oliveti, which is a setting of this biblical text: "On the Mount of Olives, he said to his Father: ‘Father, if it be possible, take from me this cup: Let it be your will.’" There's a moment in the last line which gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.
As for living American musicians, I would say that I have an affinity for composers like Eric Whitacre and Morten Lauridsen, who are part of a neo-tonal movement in classical music. I think the text painting of Whitacre has been influential for me, and the large-scale motivic construction of Lauridsen's music has influenced my larger works, particularly the Wedding Mass. As for pop stuff, I'm definitely influenced by country and bluegrass. I spent some time in grad school playing in a rockgrass band, which was a great outlet for writing songs. The band, Salt Creek, produced a studio album which included a number of my songs. However, I feel like there is an approach to musical climax in my pop music that actually comes from groups like U2 and Coldplay. They have a rhythmic drive and energy that explodes on you that I just love.
LM: Does your faith impact your music? If so, how?
TP: In the sense that I am a Christian and a composer, then yes, but I do not consider myself a "Christian musician" in the sense of the Nashvegas CCM world. I hope that my faith impacts all that I do, and I don't think it would be possible for there not to be some bleeding of my faith into my art. Art is quite personal. You can't create something artistic in a vacuum and also cannot expect that you can create art without exposing vulnerability. My classical music is almost exclusively Christian, because I set sacred texts for choir. That, however, is also driven as much by the practicalities of being a church choir director and an administrator of a collegiate choral and sacred music program.
I don't shy away from secular subjects, however. Music, and its composition, to me is an expression of the total human experience. I think that Christ is incarnate in the every day, as well as in the highest worship. He's present at the conversion of new believers, but also in the midst of the relationships between people, the suffering in the world, politics, war, hunger, etc. As such, I don't see much disconnect between being a composer who writes music for the church, and who also can write a pop song that doesn't refer to God at all, or in fact references taboo subjects like sex. My opera His Terrible Swift Sword, as an example, is based on characters from Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath as well as the Biblical story of Job. It tells the story of a preacher who loses his faith after having an extra-marital affair under the temptation of a devil-like figure. It is certainly PG-13, and deals with very difficult questions about morality, faith, and providence. But so does the Bible, I think, and you have to ignore a great deal of messy stuff to believe that God doesn't have something to say about all of it (which He does), or that everything is black and white and cut and dried (which it is not).
Happy Martin Luther King Day. Enjoy the holiday.
He was the Rhodes College Conductor-in-Residence for the 2004-2005 Season and the Director of the Honors College Choir at the University of South Carolina from 2001-2002. His compositions include numerous major works, including his "Wedding Mass" which will be premiered in Carnegie Hall in June of 2008, and his opera "His Terrible Swift Sword" which was premiered in April of 2007. Go to www.DCINY.org for more information about the concert.
Dr. Powell is an active clinician and scholar and holds memberships in the Pi Kappa Lambda Music Society, The Texas Music Educator's Association, and the American Choral Director's Association. He serves as the Director of Music at St. Matthews United Methodist Church in Houston, TX. Samples of his music can be heard at www.myspace.com/timothymichaelpowell.
LM: Your MySpace site lists about two dozen musicians who have influenced you. Pick two or three and tell why and how they influenced you.
TP: I think that Giovanni de Palestrina is my model for small-scale motet construction. His music is so beautiful and loses none of its emotional impact, even after 400+ years. Yet at the same time, there is a certain succinctness and crystalline sparseness of form, almost a conservatism, that allows the climatic moments to develop and emerge and then hit you over the head like a hammer. I'm thinking particularly of his piece In Monte Oliveti, which is a setting of this biblical text: "On the Mount of Olives, he said to his Father: ‘Father, if it be possible, take from me this cup: Let it be your will.’" There's a moment in the last line which gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.
As for living American musicians, I would say that I have an affinity for composers like Eric Whitacre and Morten Lauridsen, who are part of a neo-tonal movement in classical music. I think the text painting of Whitacre has been influential for me, and the large-scale motivic construction of Lauridsen's music has influenced my larger works, particularly the Wedding Mass. As for pop stuff, I'm definitely influenced by country and bluegrass. I spent some time in grad school playing in a rockgrass band, which was a great outlet for writing songs. The band, Salt Creek, produced a studio album which included a number of my songs. However, I feel like there is an approach to musical climax in my pop music that actually comes from groups like U2 and Coldplay. They have a rhythmic drive and energy that explodes on you that I just love.
LM: Does your faith impact your music? If so, how?
TP: In the sense that I am a Christian and a composer, then yes, but I do not consider myself a "Christian musician" in the sense of the Nashvegas CCM world. I hope that my faith impacts all that I do, and I don't think it would be possible for there not to be some bleeding of my faith into my art. Art is quite personal. You can't create something artistic in a vacuum and also cannot expect that you can create art without exposing vulnerability. My classical music is almost exclusively Christian, because I set sacred texts for choir. That, however, is also driven as much by the practicalities of being a church choir director and an administrator of a collegiate choral and sacred music program.
I don't shy away from secular subjects, however. Music, and its composition, to me is an expression of the total human experience. I think that Christ is incarnate in the every day, as well as in the highest worship. He's present at the conversion of new believers, but also in the midst of the relationships between people, the suffering in the world, politics, war, hunger, etc. As such, I don't see much disconnect between being a composer who writes music for the church, and who also can write a pop song that doesn't refer to God at all, or in fact references taboo subjects like sex. My opera His Terrible Swift Sword, as an example, is based on characters from Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath as well as the Biblical story of Job. It tells the story of a preacher who loses his faith after having an extra-marital affair under the temptation of a devil-like figure. It is certainly PG-13, and deals with very difficult questions about morality, faith, and providence. But so does the Bible, I think, and you have to ignore a great deal of messy stuff to believe that God doesn't have something to say about all of it (which He does), or that everything is black and white and cut and dried (which it is not).
Happy Martin Luther King Day. Enjoy the holiday.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Timothy Michael Powell, Part 2: “New Places”
Dr. Timothy Michael Powell is an accomplished conductor and composer. He is the Director of Choral and Vocal Studies at Lee College and directs the Lee College Chorale and the Baytown Community Chorus. Dr. Powell holds a DMA in Conducting from the University of South Carolina and was the 1999 National Choristers Guild Scholar, a 2002-2003 Fulbright Scholar to Bulgaria, and a 2002 Fellow with the prestigious South Carolina Conductors Institute. He received both his Bachelors (cum laude) and his Masters degrees in Church Music from Belmont University.
He was the Rhodes College Conductor-in-Residence for the 2004-2005 Season and the Director of the Honors College Choir at the University of South Carolina from 2001-2002. His compositions include numerous major works, including his "Wedding Mass" which will be premiered in Carnegie Hall in June of 2008, and his opera "His Terrible Swift Sword" which was premiered in April of 2007. Go to www.DCINY.org for more information about the concert.
Dr. Powell is an active clinician and scholar and holds memberships in the Pi Kappa Lambda Music Society, The Texas Music Educator's Association, and the American Choral Director's Association. He serves as the Director of Music at St. Matthews United Methodist Church in Houston, TX. Samples of his music can be heard at www.myspace.com/timothymichaelpowell.
LM: You were awarded a Fulbright grant to study in Bulgaria. What was that experience like? How did it change you? How did it affect your music?
TP: It was the seminal experience of my adult life. Bulgaria, though part of Europe, is such a melting pot between east and west, Christian and Muslim. Throw in the Romany or gypsy culture, and it often feels like you have entered a different world. There's a wonderful tension between the old and new there, particularly since the fall of communism. I lived in an apartment in downtown Sofia. Down the street was the most expensive hotel in the country, surrounded by modern boutiques and shops, and the national soccer stadium. Yet every day, I woke up to the sound of a donkey and wagon being driven by a gypsy passing under my balcony. It was surreal. If it changed me in any way, it was that I became much more self-sufficient. When you only speak a little of the language and you have to catch a bus, you learn quickly to adjust, to cope, to do what needs done, and to learn how to approach complete strangers with hand signals. Musically, I don't know if it had much of an artistic impact, other than I wrote a lot more pop music because I didn't have a piano. I had my guitar and more free time than I've ever had in my life, so that combination produced a lot of good music. Since the dollar went a long way in 2003, I also got to experiment in the recording studio with no time or financial limits, which I think is one of the reasons that “New Places” [a song I wrote there] is successful. If you have the freedom to discard mistakes and start over, then you can also polish and tweak until you are satisfied.
LM: Let's talk about your song, "New Places," inspired by JRR Tolkien. What is it about?
TP: Well, I was living in Bulgaria at the time and listening to a great deal of Cold Play, Nora Jones, and classic Sting. In addition, I was a bit overwhelmed by the experience of living in a different culture. I'd just seen the Fellowship of the Ring for about the 5th time (I've read the Lord of the Rings just about every year since I was in the 4th grade) and was inspired by the visual vistas of the movie. Since I had this feeling that I was entering uncharted territory (at least in my own life) by living in Eastern Europe, and that I was having the great adventure of my life, I decided to put pen to paper to talk about going "across the sea under twinkling stars to fields where no one's been." What emerged was a song that was informed by those three artists (though I think it is much lusher, more exotic, and much more symphonic than any one of the three) and which alluded to Tolkien's poem from The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, "The Road Goes Ever On and On." The song was written on my old guitar, but I got to mess around in the studio and played all but one instrument on the recording. Now that Peter Jackson has agreed to do The Hobbit movie, I'm hoping the song will get a little more attention and make it on to the soundtrack. Some of the folks in the worldwide fan community for the movies come by my Myspace page regularly to comment on the song. I'm hoping that lightning will strike and the song will get some attention.
Don’t miss the conclusion of my interview with Tim Powell on Monday.
He was the Rhodes College Conductor-in-Residence for the 2004-2005 Season and the Director of the Honors College Choir at the University of South Carolina from 2001-2002. His compositions include numerous major works, including his "Wedding Mass" which will be premiered in Carnegie Hall in June of 2008, and his opera "His Terrible Swift Sword" which was premiered in April of 2007. Go to www.DCINY.org for more information about the concert.
Dr. Powell is an active clinician and scholar and holds memberships in the Pi Kappa Lambda Music Society, The Texas Music Educator's Association, and the American Choral Director's Association. He serves as the Director of Music at St. Matthews United Methodist Church in Houston, TX. Samples of his music can be heard at www.myspace.com/timothymichaelpowell.
LM: You were awarded a Fulbright grant to study in Bulgaria. What was that experience like? How did it change you? How did it affect your music?
TP: It was the seminal experience of my adult life. Bulgaria, though part of Europe, is such a melting pot between east and west, Christian and Muslim. Throw in the Romany or gypsy culture, and it often feels like you have entered a different world. There's a wonderful tension between the old and new there, particularly since the fall of communism. I lived in an apartment in downtown Sofia. Down the street was the most expensive hotel in the country, surrounded by modern boutiques and shops, and the national soccer stadium. Yet every day, I woke up to the sound of a donkey and wagon being driven by a gypsy passing under my balcony. It was surreal. If it changed me in any way, it was that I became much more self-sufficient. When you only speak a little of the language and you have to catch a bus, you learn quickly to adjust, to cope, to do what needs done, and to learn how to approach complete strangers with hand signals. Musically, I don't know if it had much of an artistic impact, other than I wrote a lot more pop music because I didn't have a piano. I had my guitar and more free time than I've ever had in my life, so that combination produced a lot of good music. Since the dollar went a long way in 2003, I also got to experiment in the recording studio with no time or financial limits, which I think is one of the reasons that “New Places” [a song I wrote there] is successful. If you have the freedom to discard mistakes and start over, then you can also polish and tweak until you are satisfied.
LM: Let's talk about your song, "New Places," inspired by JRR Tolkien. What is it about?
TP: Well, I was living in Bulgaria at the time and listening to a great deal of Cold Play, Nora Jones, and classic Sting. In addition, I was a bit overwhelmed by the experience of living in a different culture. I'd just seen the Fellowship of the Ring for about the 5th time (I've read the Lord of the Rings just about every year since I was in the 4th grade) and was inspired by the visual vistas of the movie. Since I had this feeling that I was entering uncharted territory (at least in my own life) by living in Eastern Europe, and that I was having the great adventure of my life, I decided to put pen to paper to talk about going "across the sea under twinkling stars to fields where no one's been." What emerged was a song that was informed by those three artists (though I think it is much lusher, more exotic, and much more symphonic than any one of the three) and which alluded to Tolkien's poem from The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, "The Road Goes Ever On and On." The song was written on my old guitar, but I got to mess around in the studio and played all but one instrument on the recording. Now that Peter Jackson has agreed to do The Hobbit movie, I'm hoping the song will get a little more attention and make it on to the soundtrack. Some of the folks in the worldwide fan community for the movies come by my Myspace page regularly to comment on the song. I'm hoping that lightning will strike and the song will get some attention.
Don’t miss the conclusion of my interview with Tim Powell on Monday.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Timothy Michael Powell: Concert at Carnegie Hall
Dr. Timothy Michael Powell is an accomplished conductor and composer. He is the Director of Choral and Vocal Studies at Lee College and directs the Lee College Chorale and the Baytown Community Chorus. Dr. Powell holds a DMA in Conducting from the University of South Carolina and was the 1999 National Choristers Guild Scholar, a 2002-2003 Fulbright Scholar to Bulgaria, and a 2002 Fellow with the prestigious South Carolina Conductors Institute. He received both his Bachelors (cum laude) and his Masters degrees in Church Music from Belmont University.
He was the Rhodes College Conductor-in-Residence for the 2004-2005 Season and the Director of the Honors College Choir at the University of South Carolina from 2001-2002. His compositions include numerous major works, including his "Wedding Mass" which will be premiered in Carnegie Hall in June of 2008, and his opera "His Terrible Swift Sword" which was premiered in April of 2007. Go to www.DCINY.org for more information about the concert.
Dr. Powell is an active clinician and scholar and holds memberships in the Pi Kappa Lambda Music Society, The Texas Music Educator's Association, and the American Choral Director's Association. He serves as the Director of Music at St. Matthews United Methodist Church in Houston, TX. Samples of his music can be heard at www.myspace.com/timothymichaelpowell.
LeAnne: On June 14, you'll be directing the world premiere of your Wedding Mass in Carnegie Hall. The concert is produced in collaboration with Distinguished Concerts International New York. How did this opportunity come about?
Tim: I've been to Carnegie a number of times as a singer and participant in similar concerts and during the course of the last couple of years developed a relationship with Iris Derke, who is the executive director of DCINY. We sat down in Miami this year to discuss the possibility of me coming to Carnegie to conduct a festival concert. During our brainstorming we talked about a number of options for the concert, and I mentioned that I had a major choral work that I thought would be a great match for Carnegie. She asked me to send along a copy of the music and a recording, and I got a call a couple of weeks later from Jonathan Griffith, who is the artistic director, inviting me to premiere the piece. We decided to expand the accompaniment for full orchestra for the premiere performance (it was performed first in the spring of 2005 in a chamber orchestra setting for a small crowd in Memphis). It was a great honor to be invited to such a wonderful and historic venue!
LM: What inspired you to write your Wedding Mass? Tell me about your composing process.
TP: The melodic basis for the piece actually comes from a song I wrote about 9 years ago about an afternoon that I spent with my sister at the beach. When she told me she was getting married, I turned the melody into a processional for piano and cello that she used when she walked down the aisle during the ceremony. When I was beginning the composition of the Wedding Mass, the melody seemed to fit the tripartite structure of the Kyrie ("Lord, Have Mercy") which is the opening prayer of the Catholic and Orthodox worship service. Once the Kyrie was in place, I began to work on the other movements. The Agnus Dei ("Lamb of God") came next, followed by the Gloria, Credo and Sanctus. The Mass was basically finished, but then I lost the manuscript for the Agnus Dei. It worked out well, however, because after September 11, 2001 I rewrote the movement from memory and made some important adjustments to the structure and melody. I think these changes more accurately reflect the inherent tension between repentance and forgiveness, darkness and light, and grief and catharsis that is present in the Agnus Dei prayer, "Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy on us; grant us peace." I put the Mass away for some time, and then before my own wedding to my wife Jen in 2005, I wrote the middle movement "When Love is Found" using the beautiful hymn text by Brian Wren. When the Mass was sung for the first time in its chamber orchestra setting, I decided to include that movement. A choir of my closest friends also sang that movement during my wedding ceremony.
As for my compositional process, it really is different for every piece. I haven't settled on a specific process, mainly because I am not a full-time composer. In my day job, I'm a conductor and a department administrator, which means I have to squeeze out time to compose when I have free time. I'm also a bit "streaky", to use a baseball term. I compose in bursts, and then don't compose for long periods of time, sometimes months. I don't have an efficient system that allows me to crank out material on demand. My music tends to percolate, to languish on the piano, to get lost underneath huge piles of other work, and then to somehow work its way to the top in some kind of Darwinian process to emerge sometimes years later as a finished piece. In that sense, however, the editing process I have is exhaustive and always ongoing. The way that I approached my Mass was very different from the way I composed my opera, for instance, or the way I approach smaller works like motets, anthems, and songs. With the Mass, it developed over 5 years. The bulk of my opera, at least an hour's worth of music, was written in about 4 weeks. My most frequently performed motet, Mirabile Mysterium, was written in an hour but underwent at least a week's worth of revisions. If there is an over-arching inspirational process, it is certainly based on the text that I'm setting, which as far as I am concerned, should be the be-all and end-all of choral composition.
On Thursday, Tim Powell will talk about his song inspired by JRR Tolkien and his time in Bulgaria.
He was the Rhodes College Conductor-in-Residence for the 2004-2005 Season and the Director of the Honors College Choir at the University of South Carolina from 2001-2002. His compositions include numerous major works, including his "Wedding Mass" which will be premiered in Carnegie Hall in June of 2008, and his opera "His Terrible Swift Sword" which was premiered in April of 2007. Go to www.DCINY.org for more information about the concert.
Dr. Powell is an active clinician and scholar and holds memberships in the Pi Kappa Lambda Music Society, The Texas Music Educator's Association, and the American Choral Director's Association. He serves as the Director of Music at St. Matthews United Methodist Church in Houston, TX. Samples of his music can be heard at www.myspace.com/timothymichaelpowell.
LeAnne: On June 14, you'll be directing the world premiere of your Wedding Mass in Carnegie Hall. The concert is produced in collaboration with Distinguished Concerts International New York. How did this opportunity come about?
Tim: I've been to Carnegie a number of times as a singer and participant in similar concerts and during the course of the last couple of years developed a relationship with Iris Derke, who is the executive director of DCINY. We sat down in Miami this year to discuss the possibility of me coming to Carnegie to conduct a festival concert. During our brainstorming we talked about a number of options for the concert, and I mentioned that I had a major choral work that I thought would be a great match for Carnegie. She asked me to send along a copy of the music and a recording, and I got a call a couple of weeks later from Jonathan Griffith, who is the artistic director, inviting me to premiere the piece. We decided to expand the accompaniment for full orchestra for the premiere performance (it was performed first in the spring of 2005 in a chamber orchestra setting for a small crowd in Memphis). It was a great honor to be invited to such a wonderful and historic venue!
LM: What inspired you to write your Wedding Mass? Tell me about your composing process.
TP: The melodic basis for the piece actually comes from a song I wrote about 9 years ago about an afternoon that I spent with my sister at the beach. When she told me she was getting married, I turned the melody into a processional for piano and cello that she used when she walked down the aisle during the ceremony. When I was beginning the composition of the Wedding Mass, the melody seemed to fit the tripartite structure of the Kyrie ("Lord, Have Mercy") which is the opening prayer of the Catholic and Orthodox worship service. Once the Kyrie was in place, I began to work on the other movements. The Agnus Dei ("Lamb of God") came next, followed by the Gloria, Credo and Sanctus. The Mass was basically finished, but then I lost the manuscript for the Agnus Dei. It worked out well, however, because after September 11, 2001 I rewrote the movement from memory and made some important adjustments to the structure and melody. I think these changes more accurately reflect the inherent tension between repentance and forgiveness, darkness and light, and grief and catharsis that is present in the Agnus Dei prayer, "Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy on us; grant us peace." I put the Mass away for some time, and then before my own wedding to my wife Jen in 2005, I wrote the middle movement "When Love is Found" using the beautiful hymn text by Brian Wren. When the Mass was sung for the first time in its chamber orchestra setting, I decided to include that movement. A choir of my closest friends also sang that movement during my wedding ceremony.
As for my compositional process, it really is different for every piece. I haven't settled on a specific process, mainly because I am not a full-time composer. In my day job, I'm a conductor and a department administrator, which means I have to squeeze out time to compose when I have free time. I'm also a bit "streaky", to use a baseball term. I compose in bursts, and then don't compose for long periods of time, sometimes months. I don't have an efficient system that allows me to crank out material on demand. My music tends to percolate, to languish on the piano, to get lost underneath huge piles of other work, and then to somehow work its way to the top in some kind of Darwinian process to emerge sometimes years later as a finished piece. In that sense, however, the editing process I have is exhaustive and always ongoing. The way that I approached my Mass was very different from the way I composed my opera, for instance, or the way I approach smaller works like motets, anthems, and songs. With the Mass, it developed over 5 years. The bulk of my opera, at least an hour's worth of music, was written in about 4 weeks. My most frequently performed motet, Mirabile Mysterium, was written in an hour but underwent at least a week's worth of revisions. If there is an over-arching inspirational process, it is certainly based on the text that I'm setting, which as far as I am concerned, should be the be-all and end-all of choral composition.
On Thursday, Tim Powell will talk about his song inspired by JRR Tolkien and his time in Bulgaria.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Learning from Those Who Came Before
A few weeks ago, we went to the High Museum in Atlanta (www.high.org) to see Inspiring Impressionism. This exhibition is “the first comprehensive survey to explore the influence of Old Master painters on Impressionist artists.” It juxtaposes works by artists like Monet, Cézanne and Degas with those of Titian, Rubens and Fragonard.
We spent a delightful two hours wandering through, taking note of similarities in composition and subject matter. Two of my favorites included Fragonard’s A Young Girl Reading (ca. 1776), a painting my husband and I both loved before we met, and Morisot’s In the Garden at Maurecourt (1884), with its vivid greens and the dark-eyed girl turned rather casually toward the viewer.
The artists in this exhibition studied and copied great works of art so they could eventually produce their own. American Impressionist Mary Cassatt said, “Museums are all the teachers one needs.” As I saw these 80+ works side by side, I kept thinking it was a good reminder that we can all learn from the past, from those who came before, whether our art form of choice is painting, composing, dancing, or writing.
I think it’s time for me to reread some of the classics…
Next week: a conductor/composer/scholar/director of choral and vocal studies
Note: I just started a new blog I’m really excited about called Beauty and the Beholder. On Wednesdays, I’ll be writing about the beauty around us. Check it out at my website or at www.beautyandthebeholder.blogspot.com.
We spent a delightful two hours wandering through, taking note of similarities in composition and subject matter. Two of my favorites included Fragonard’s A Young Girl Reading (ca. 1776), a painting my husband and I both loved before we met, and Morisot’s In the Garden at Maurecourt (1884), with its vivid greens and the dark-eyed girl turned rather casually toward the viewer.
The artists in this exhibition studied and copied great works of art so they could eventually produce their own. American Impressionist Mary Cassatt said, “Museums are all the teachers one needs.” As I saw these 80+ works side by side, I kept thinking it was a good reminder that we can all learn from the past, from those who came before, whether our art form of choice is painting, composing, dancing, or writing.
I think it’s time for me to reread some of the classics…
Next week: a conductor/composer/scholar/director of choral and vocal studies
Note: I just started a new blog I’m really excited about called Beauty and the Beholder. On Wednesdays, I’ll be writing about the beauty around us. Check it out at my website or at www.beautyandthebeholder.blogspot.com.
Friday, January 04, 2008
A New Look Will Soon Be Here
I'm so excited! On Monday my fabulous web designer will be working to update the blog with a whole new look. If you try to access it and can't, please come back later. It should be up and running--and bright and shiny and new--later in the day. Thanks.
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