Kyle Matthews Concert

Kyle Matthews performed at Chowan on Sunday night. I appreciated the theme of service that he emphasized in a more and more focused way as the concert went on. A song from his newest CD, "The Main Event," discusses the way that the most important happenings in the realm of God's Kingdom often seem unimportant and eclipsed by the passing acts of human pride, yet those quiet occurrences on the sidelines are often the real main events.

Kyle also mentioned that he had noticed that in the Gospels Jesus seems to have treated every person he met as an individual and never "processed people." Jesus met each one at their point of need. The point of need, both ours and others, is where we meet God.

This point about the way Jesus related to the people has important application for the way I do my job here at Chowan. As I see it, my basic job here is to educate pianists, and to do so, it makes sense to me to study works of Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and 20th/21st Century masters with my students. In addition to this core piano study, it is very good for students to be exposed to many different ways of making music. But our university's mission also suggests that students are getting some vocational training, so education and exposure are not enough. We need to think of the students' futures in music. This seems to call for a more personalized approach. Not every student is aspiring to be a classical pianist. Most have other goals, and those goals might be better suited to those students as well. Thus, I need to be open to the stylistic interests and experiments of my students and find ways to work with them on a case-by-case basis in those areas. For that matter, each student's psychological state, background, attitude towards education, etc., might call for very individualized approaches. Ultimately - and most exciting - we are making something new together as we create our own musical culture here at Chowan, in Murfreeboro, and in the surrounding area.

Back to Kyle, it was really fun having him in town. He was professional and flexible and was enthused to visit with children and students. His music admirably expresses his spiritual journey, and it invites those who hear to join in following the way of Jesus. In addition, he's a deep thinker about the relationship of music and faith.