Whupped by Winter -- Musical Tribute to Dr. King to Be Rescheduled

Sarah_peek

Dear Ad Hoc Instigatees,
Winter has taken us out to the woodpile and whupped us with weather!
 
Because of snow, sleet, freezing rain and dropping evening temperatures in central New Jersey, our musical tribute to Dr. King tonight will not take place.
 
I just spoke to Nancy, the activities director at Delaire nursing home.  Right now, her schedule of events is pretty much empty, and we don't have to do our tribute on a weeknight. We could gather at 3 p.m. for a 3:30 p.m. start time on any Sunday in February -- February 6, 13, 20, or 27.  Let me know how these times and dates work for you, and maybe we'll come up with an optimum date!

Vin Reilly
        I'll ply the fire with kindling now,
        I'll pull the blankets up to my chin        
        I'll lock the vagrant winter out and I'll bolt my wandering in        
        I'd like to call back summertime        
        And have her stay for just another month or so,        
        But she's got the urge for going so I guess she'll have to go.
                        -- Joni Mitchell, "Urge for Going"        
..

 

"This Is My Father's World."

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Our tribute to Dr. King is taking place tomorrow night, January 18, 2011. (Ad Hoc Chorale Instigatees please check your e-mail for a reminder of all the particulars!)

I want to open with a hymn not associated directly with the civil rights movement. It expands on the theme of the beauty and majesty of creation, yet behind all the beauty, the Earth is not just about the things that exist and grow in it; it is about its origin as a gift from the Creator of the universe, a place founded on both justice and mercy; a place that cannot be owned by any human, any organization or any government. Our world is a place with a larger purpose than any of ours.

1. This is my Father's world,
and to my listening ears
all nature sings, and round me rings
the music of the spheres.
This is my Father's world:
I rest me in the thought
of rocks and trees, of skies and seas;
his hand the wonders wrought.

2. This is my Father's world,
the birds their carols raise,
the morning light, the lily white,
declare their maker's praise.
This is my Father's world:
he shines in all that's fair;
in the rustling grass I hear him pass;
he speaks to me everywhere.

3. This is my Father's world.
O let me ne'er forget
that though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father's world:
why should my heart be sad?
The Lord is King; let the heavens ring!
God reigns; let the earth be glad!
It takes a lot of strength to stand up for what's right, despite the opposition of the powerful, and regardless of the consequences of such opposition, but one can find great strength in the thought that the struggle for mercy and the fight against injustice is not just the expression of our preference -- is our participation in making the world work according to the vision of its creator!

I want to open our tribute with one of my favorite hymns, "This Is My Father's World".

..

 

Our Tribute Takes Shape

The Ad Hoc Chorale Hymn Sing and tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King is still on for January 18, 2011 at Delaire Nursing and Convalescent Center in Linden, New Jersey!
Our tribute continues to take shape -- and I must apologize for having taken so long to make this happen -- so I have a bit more of

A List of Hymns That We Will Sing.
(download)

 

Lift Every Voice and Sing 

 The lyrics of  this hymn were written by James Weldon Johnson, first spoken at a Lincoln's Birthday Celebration in 1900; then set to music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson in 1905. The hymn was adopted  in 1919 by the NAACP as its official hymn. It couples long chromatic phrases with lyrics covering 500 years of Black history, yet still manages to be easy for everyone to sing together. 

Onward Christian Soldiers

December, 1955 is erroneously marked as the beginning of the American Negro Civil Rights Movement with the bus incident involving Ms. Rosa Parks. December 5, 1955 was the night Montgomery's African American community crowded into Holt Street Baptist Church, to vote for or against a boycott of city buses. Martin Luther King, Jr., who had been elected leader of the Montgomery Improvement Association, later recalled the singing: "The opening hymn was the old familiar 'Onward Christian Soldiers,' and when that mammoth audience stood to sing, the voices outside swelling the chorus in the church, there was a mighty ring like the glad echo of Heaven itself."

 

Leaning on the Everlasting Arms

As I have written elsewhere, this was another hymn sung at the beginning of the Montgomery mass meeting.

Take My Hand, Precious Lord

Dr. King's last words were to a musician, Ben Branch, who was scheduled to perform that night at an event King was going to attend.   Branch reported that Dr. King had said: "Ben, make sure you play 'Take My Hand, Precious Lord' in the meeting tonight."

Will there be more hymns than these?

Yes. I will update you very soon.

  

 

 

Leaning on the Everlasting Arms

Our hymnsing & tribute to Dr. King will be occurring on January 18, 2011. The time is nearly upon us! To that end, I am sharing one of the hymns we will be singing.

The Montgomery bus boycott was one of the early defining moments of the American Civil Rights movement. It was the first mass meeting that led to the boycott, and the first time that Dr. King stepped forward in the role of civil rights leader.

(download)

The meeting was sponsored by the recently-formed Montgomery Improvement Association, an organization of the black citizens of Montgomery, Alabama. In responding to the arrest of Miss Rosa Parks, the Association wanted everyone to vote on the idea of boycotting the entire city bus system for as long as it took for the city to end enforced seating-segregation. In the 1985 documentary "Eyes on the Prize", Reverend Ralph Abernathy recalled that he had never seen a crowd so excited and so unruly. He said that it took them a long time to settle down, and that once they did, the meeting began with the singing of a hymn. Taking that as a cue (and what isn't a cue?), we will begin our evening as they did, with "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms".

Please click here to see the lyric and music page for this hymn, which is from the United Methodist hymn website.

Please click here for printed music representing all for choral parts.

Finally, below you will find links to some excellent websites concerning the creation of the hymn itself:

http://schaefer-family.com/hymns.htm

http://www.songtime.com/hymn/hymn0601.htm

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Leaning_on_the_Everlasting_Arms

Filed under  //   Alabama   Delaire   Dr. King   Martin Luther King   Montgomery   Rev. Ralph Abernathy   Rosa Parks   US civil rights movement   USA   bus boycott   history   hymn   tribute  
 

Rolling Out Of the Comfort Zone Already

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Photo of Dr. King from the Library of Congress' collection

At time of posting, The Ad Hoc Chorale has had two successful dates in which we shared "A Good Old-Fashioned Hymnsing" with residents of St. Joseph's Senior Residence in April, and then in July with the residents of Emeritus at Hillsborough. Both of these dates were very successful, and a lot of fun was had by everybody who was there.

After the show, I was looking for ideas from my group concerning other such places where we might bring some music and fellowship. Carol knew exactly where we should go -- she has been a long-time volunteer at Delaire Nursing and Convalescent Center in Linden, New Jersey. Everyone had the idea that we would probably do the same hymnsing at Delaire near the end of September.

The next week I called the Delaire activities director, who welcomed the idea of us coming to sing.

"We would be happy to see you come on a Sunday afternoon, but there are a lot of churches in the area, and often send people on Sunday afternoons," she said.

"What would be a good time to come? What do you need?" I asked earnestly.

"I've been trying to find a group that would be be able to come here on February 8. We were looking for a group that could present a tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King. It's been very difficult to find anyone".

"I'll have to ask the rest of the group, to see if enough people can come." I sounded confident, but even so, I thought "February? That's cold, and maybe icy, too. Will anyone want to say yes? Do I even want to say yes?" I asked the Ad Hoc Chorale members and enough of them would be there for the event that I called the activities director the next week to say yes.

I've never done anything like this before. It's in solistitia brumali, the very dead of winter. The weather is often difficult. So, why have I rolled the Ad Hoc Chorale and myself out of our comfort zone after only two performances? Partly, it's due to our loosely-defined mission and membership.We are still working out what we will be. The other, and more important reason was that the show would be tribute to Dr. King.

Some would ask why he was so important to me -- after all, they might say, you're not black. This would come from a person who did not see the importance of Dr. King and his faith, to themselves and to all people. And here is his shocking faith -- that a person has an intrinsic value which cannot be set or altered by society's restrictive vision of his place or function. Included in this intrinsic value is the right to say "no" to that vision.1 Many people say that this is true. But Dr. King proclaimed to the world that not only was this true, but that society itself must conform to this truth. Liberation. That's where I get on board with him and that's where I stay.

In advance, I wish you a remarkable Martin Luther King Day. Keep the faith.

 

1. In short, what it means to say no to society's restrictive vision: 

I will not accept
your proscriptions
on me.

I will not accept
your descriptions
of me.

I will not accept
your prescriptions
for me.

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About the Ad Hoc Chorale

Not_the_ad_hoc_chorale

 

This loosely-organized, informal assemblage of friends, comprising singers, pianists, and other persons of goodwill, is called The Ad Hoc Chorale .  Its sine qua non would have to be Dr. Tony Godlefski and his Central New Jersey performance choir, The Starlite Chorale.  Every member of the Ad Hoc Chorale has some connection to this group and its director, and could spend a lively afternoon playing a game just now minted, named "Six Degrees of Tony Godlefski". 

It all started in January 2010.  The Starlite Chorale was performing its Christmas program at St. Joseph's Senior Residence, a home for the aged run by the  Little Servant Sisters of The Immaculate Conception. The sister in charge of this residence absolutely loved our Christmas program. Her very last words of the afternoon were "Please come back! You don't even have to sing -- just come back!"

The Starlite Chorale has two performance seasons. Its Spring show features the choral performance of the songs of the Great American Songbook as well as great popular music of the 20th century as well as .the winter show is all about bills and Christmas carols and general rejoicing. The director is pastor of a church in central New Jersey, and often his schedule is constrained by the demands of ministry. In the late winter of this past year of 2010, so much was going on at his church that he had to cancel the Spring show.

So as to provide a reason for these tragically underused performers to come together and sing, Vin Reilly, the first Instigator of the Ad Hoc Chorale, got the word out to his performing friends and relatives that they should get together, return to St. Joe's and visit with the Sisters and residents.  So a "Good Old-Fashioned Hymnsing" was what took place in April 2010.  Everyone had a good time, and the Ad Hoc Chorale now had its continuing mission -- to bring joyful music and fellowship to people and places that could use a lift now and then.

Stated this way, there are no limits to the mission of the Ad Hoc Chorale.  After all, where is it where people don't need a lift every once in awhile?.  Maybe you'll see us around somewhere....

Photo courtesy of The Whitby Archives. <
 

What is the Ad Hoc Chorale?

The Ad Hoc Chorale is exactly what the name says -- a musical group that exists for a particular purpose and no other. In a sense, in between the performances, it exists only as an idea.  But what a great idea.

Wanted: Volunteers for Pleasant Afternoon
Objective: to share music, fellowship, and Christ's love while pretending to just sing some old songs.
Needed: Love, Patience.  Kindness.  Other Fruits of the Spirit also helpful.  Singing a plus, but not essential.
Contact: the Instigator --  Ad.Hoc.Chorale@Gmail.com
 The Ad Hoc Chorale.
A day spent making music is never a wasted day.

Press "play" to hear this post as read by the author

(download)