Welcome to Josh Barbour, Interim Choir Director

We are pleased to announce that Josh Barbour, frequent guest pianist at our congregation, has accepted the position of Interim Choir Director.  Josh will begin his time with us on June 2nd through December 1st.  During this interim transition, Josh has agreed to play for each of our services as well as direct the choir twice a month (with the exception of July when they are traditionally off).  In addition, Josh will assist our Salisbury musicians with music selections for their services.

A North Carolina native, pianist Josh Barbour joins us with an expanse of experience as a vocal coach, teacher, music director and pianist. Josh joined the staff of Opera Carolina as répétiteur in 2011 under the baton of Maestro James Meena. An active recitalist and vocal coach, he has performed and taught throughout the region. He is currently staff pianist at Wingate University but has also performed and taught at Johnson C. Smith University and Queens University. Josh was the official pianist for the 2014 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions (NC District) and also accompanied the Heafner/Williams Vocal Competition and the Charlotte Opera Guild Competitions in March.

Josh joined Opera Experience Southeast, a summer program started by Metropolitan Opera tenor John Fowler, in 2012 as pianist and vocal coach. Josh was also the music director and coach for the Opera Carolina Express outreach program last season, and he has performed and coached with FBN Outreach Opera and Palmetto Opera, both based in South Carolina. Josh also accompanies the vocal studios of international opera singers Victoria Livengood and Rosemarie Freni-Molinari.
Josh holds a Master of Music from The University of South Carolina and a Bachelor of Music from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His teachers have included Lynn Kompass, Scott Price, and Joseph DiPiazza.
A huge foodie, Josh enjoys cooking and trying new international cuisines. He also loves traveling, shopping and just relaxing by the pool.

We hope you’ll be able to welcome him as he joins us this summer.

Music Notes

July is my favorite month. Everything is vibrant and blooming.  Our garden is providing us with daily tomatoes and green beans. I love sitting out in the backyard in the evening as twilight turns to nightfall (in spite of the minor annoyance of mosquitoes) and watch the fire from the fire pit with its endless variations of color and light. Listening to music outdoors is a special enhancement.

On one of those lovely evenings last week Malinda and I were talking about how the advent of recorded music has changed what music means to people.  Before the invention of the phonograph which was invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison, all music that was heard was "live." A century ago people gathered on summer evenings in parks to hear musicians play. Music was a social event. Since then, with the invention of the radio and television, people began to stay home and listen to music, first together as a family in the living room (where the one black and white TV and radio were located), then increasingly with more technological advances people began listening to music on their Ipods with earbuds.

Our attitudes toward music has changed a lot because of this.  In the centuries before Edison's invention, people could only experience the music together. Today we press a button and can select from millions of recordings. Via TuneIn internet radio we can listen to Radio Antarctica or my favorite station, "P2" on Danish radio, which features a nice mix of classical, jazz, and contemporary music.

It's wonderful, isn't it?  Or is it?  Malinda and I were wondering whether it might not be better to experience music as people did centuries ago, when music meant more to people than it does today with our casual access to music. Did you know that in 1705, J.S. Bach walked from Arnstadt to Lübeck, a distance of more than 250 miles, and stayed nearly three months to hear the Abendmusik (evening concerts) of the famous Lübeck organist and composer, Dieterich Buxtehude. Can you imagine how much effort it took for him to walk 250 miles just to hear music?  Wow, times have changed, haven't they?

When we come into the sanctuary on a Sunday morning, we will hear "live" music.  This gives us an opportunity to hear music the way it was meant to be heard: in a group setting, not in isolation, and experiencing the rich experience of watching it being performed "live."
Namaste,

Wally
music.director@puuc.org

Music Notes

June is the last month of the church year and we have a lot of exciting things going on in the musical program.  The choir will be singing on the first three Sundays of June, starting with Ysaye Barnwell's "We Are..." on June 2.  June 9 is RE Bridging Sunday, and the children will sing "The Glass Half Full," a song about the importance of one's attitude and whether we view a glass half-empty or half-full.

If you play an instrument, please consider sharing your talent at church.  A song is wonderfully enhanced when we add an instrument or two.

Other opportunities to help the music program, even if you cannot play an instrument or sing, is volunteering to help sort our music.  I'd be happy to tell you how to you can help us out, after a service!

Here is the upcoming music schedule:

Sunday June 2:
   10:30  Choir rehearsal
   11:00  Choir sings

Thursday June 6
   7:30-9:00  Choir rehearsal

Sunday June 9
   10:30  Children and Choir rehearse
   11:00  Children and Choir sing

Thursday June 13
   7:30-9:00  Choir rehearsal

Friday June 14
    10:00-11:30  Free Spirit Band rehearsal

Sunday June 16 
   10:30  Choir rehearsal
   11:00  Choir sings

All the best,

Wally
email: music.director@puuc.org

THE IMPACT OF MUSIC MINISTRY

Several years ago, I was taking down chairs after a fairly uneventful choir rehearsal. The choir was preparing for the upcoming Christmas Eve service, and we had rehearsed, among other pieces, a choral version of Pachebel's Canon in D. The choir and I had gone over notes, practiced tricky spots of other anthems, and generally participated in an enjoyable but not remarkable evening.

I thought that I was the only one remaining in the church as I restored the room, when a woman from our congregation approached me. As tears streamed down her face, she related that she had been at another meeting across the hall from the rehearsal.

She heard the beautiful music that the choir was creating, and she shared the meaning and importance the music had for her at this particular time in her life.

The depth of her experience surprised me, especially since I had not considered how listening to a rehearsal, with all the stopping and starting, the dissecting of parts and reintegration into a whole, would be valuable to an outside listener. What I learned was that I can never know how the music I create - whether in rehearsal or in a Sunday service - will affect anyone who hears it.

This is the miracle of music. It reminds me of a Navajo prayer that I especially love:
  Beauty is before me, and beauty is behind me.
  Above and below me hovers the beautiful.
  I am surrounded by it. I am immersed in it.
  In my youth I am aware of it,
  And in old age I shall walk quietly
  The beautiful trail.

May we always be aware of the beauty around us.

Namaste,

Wally
music.director@puuc.org