More Richmond Goodbyes

As I wrote several posts back, many events are rounding off my Richmond experience meaningfully and connecting back to my arrival in town or to my arrival at Woodland Heights.

Yesterday, I turned in my keys at UR, which was a little sad. Then I did some research in the Virginia Baptist Historical Society library on campus. There I ran into Dr. Slatton who took Kathy and me out to lunch after church when we visited River Road Church when we first got into town.

Last night, Kathy and I went to a Richmond Braves game with our friend from the neighborhood, Diane. The Braves lost to the Durham Bulls which is what I think happened at the first game we attended when we first moved to Richmond.

Tomorrow is our last Sunday at Woodland Heights Baptist Church. I'm playing the Mark Hayes arrangement of the Doxology tune. I think that wasthe first thing I played at Woodland Heights.

At Woodland Heights I have tried to develop the idea of a church musician's work being a larger work than a single hymn or the events of a single Sunday. Musical and improvisatory themes or approaches can be developed over a season such as Advent or over years of music ministry. So I think it's appropriate from an artistic standpoint to end my time here as I started it. This encapsulates my presence and praise over these several years in this place.

One problem with this approach is that one seldom knows how long one will be serving in a particular church or what direction the life of the church and its music might go. Thus, long-range artistic planning of this overall work maybe be complicated in terms of consciously inflecting structure. (Maybe this also makes the work more like improvising than composing on both long-range and local levels.) But the ebb and flow of the cycles of the church year provide climaxes and other shapes to be articulated. And I think it makes sense that the liturgical calendar would supercede an individual's trajectory in terms of corporate worship.

Part of the appeal of playing for church services is that the musician gets to return again and again to the same group of listeners. At times I have found this very liberating. It frees the musician to provide what is best suited for the moment and the day without feeling the pressure to try to demonstrate everything you can do one any one occasion. People get to relate to many facets of the musician's gifts over a sustained period of time, and I like to think that gives them a richer experience.

I think I didn't play the printed ending of the Doxology arrangement the first time arond at Woodland Heights. I substituted something a little more calming so as not to disrupt the flow of worship by drawing the congregation into the mood to comment on my playing by applauding. Tomorrow I will probably play the printed ending as it is our farewell Sunday and that might give a sense of resolution from that very first time as well as feeling more complete so as to convey that our work here is done.

Reviewing Richmond

We have lived in Richmond seven years now and are preparing to move in a month.

Interestingly, I have had several musical opportunities that are helping me to review the work I've done here.

Last week, I was invited back to Collegiate School, a private school where I taught for several years when we first came to town, to provide a yearly evaluation for a number of the piano students. It was an inspiring day filled with bright young people. There were two brothers with great attitudes who played a ragtime duet from memory. There were several students who had not studied more than two or three years who were making great strides and had prepared lots of repertoire. And there was a brilliant student who really grasped and conveyed the exact character of the accents in the classical era work she was playing. That really impressed me. I also enjoyed lunch with my former boss in the fine cafeteria where I used to eat (including the giant bowl of graham crackers that's always available for an easy dessert.)

On the weekend, I accompanied a senior recital at Collegiate which brought back more memories of student recitals, playing for baccalaureate, and gigs across state. One such gig was accompanying a senior in a scholarship competition in Bristol which was a very long drive, especially after the competition.


This Sunday, I had the opportunity to play for Pentecost Sunday service at Grace Baptist Church. Kathy and I were members there for a couple of years. The congregation is very open to creativity and the arts. I played Chopin Revolutionary Etude for the prelude as the piece seems firey and windy - appropriate qualities for Pentecost. Accompanying the congregational singing for the service also gave me an opportunity to encapsulate much of what I have come to view as relevant to the art of hymn playing while living in Richmond in a final service with that church community. This involves some (hopeful tasteful) text painting, a sense of tension and release following both the text and musical sense of the phrases, ideas about tempo change between verses relating to the text, ideas about the relationship of the pianist and the congregation regarding tempo (sometimes I follow, sometimes I push), and the possibility of binding together numerous musical events in a service by incorporating textures or figurations in the hymn accompaniments that appear in the other service music.

Finally, tonight at choir rehearsal we worked on Ken Medema's "To This Altar" which I first learned at Woodland Heights Baptist Church during the last several years with Kathy leading our choir. It's a very moving piece that touches me everytime we rehearse it. Medema describes it in this way:

"It is about bringing our life problems to God's altar for healing."

The text is broad yet somehow specific (maybe I'm saying that it is deeply thought out and felt, and thus has deeply human and universal application.) Whatever my day's experience is, it finds a healing and warming context in this worshipful anthem.