Wind Ensemble: Spring 08

The Gordon College Wind Ensemble has taken several European tours over the last decade, even making a brief stop in Orvieto in 2006. But in May of 2008, the Ensemble made its base in Orvieto for five days, supporting the work of the Gordon-in-Orvieto program with concerts in the great cathedral of Orvieto and in nearby Assisi. Orvieto program director Prof. John Skillen and Ensemble director Prof. David Rox offer some reflections on the important contribution of a Gordon College performing group to the cultural and religious life of the site of a "Gordon In" program.

The Wind Ensemble's performances in Orvieto were inserted as a major element in the 3rd annual Festival of Art and Faith. The Festival was established by Gordon College's Studio for Art, Faith & History, in collaboration with the town of Orvieto and the Roman Catholic diocese of Orvieto, to promote the relevance for contemporary culture and Christian faith of the holiday season surrounding the Feast of Corpus Christi. 

Inaugurated by a papal decree from Orvieto itself in 1264, this holiday is celebrated by many wings of the Church around the world. Its focus is the great mystery of the Incarnation: of God made flesh in Christ, of Christ become fully human in the womb of Mary, of Christ made bodily present in the sacrament of Holy Communion and in his followers as the Body of Christ. The holiday is the pivotal event of the year in Orvieto, celebrated extravagantly, but whose contemporary relevance can get lost amidst the nostalgic pageantry of medievalism.

The Festival brings together contemporary visual artists and musicians and theater folk whose work responds creatively to premodern Christian culture and tradition in ways that can speak powerfully to the conditions of our own time. The first two Festivals included major exhibits by painters such as Gordon's Bruce Herman and a cycle of medieval "mystery plays" directed by Gordon alum Karin Coonrod.
 

One element of this year's Festival was a show of 70 icons representing scenes from the life of Christ, recently painted according to the painstaking process followed by specially trained icon "writers" in the Russian Orthodox tradition.

A gratifying moment occured when the priest-in-charge of the local Russian Orthodox community (which serves the exploding numbers of East European immigrants coming to the Orvieto area) brought his entire flock to see the exhibit.  They visited not with the dispassionate aesthetic gaze of the museum-goer, but as a worshipful pilgrimage to a source of their own devotional and liturgical tradition. Several local elementary school teachers brought their classes to the exhibit as well. This kind of subtle and non-invasive "catechesis" through the arts, which doesn't sacrifice artistic excellence to pietism--which the Bishop can endorse and the secular school administrators can accept--is exactly an informing intention of the Festival, and of the Studio for Art, Faith & History itself.
 

Another event was a concert in the Duomo by one of the most highly respected Italian musicians of the last 30 years: Angelo Branduardi. A cross-over musician and songwriter whose approach combines pop modes with classical training in medieval and Renaissance music, Branduardi himself shows how recuperating tradition in non-traditionalist modes can be a new avant-garde. His concert of songs based directly on the sources of Saint Francis's life offered as powerful a testimony to the vivacity of Christian faith in history as any of us Christian believers could hope for. The standing-room-only audience spilled out through the great doors of the Duomo into the piazza.

Photograph courtesy Matt Doll.

As Branduardi has explained, "the idea for [a collection of songs about Saint Francis] wasn't mine. Six years ago two Franciscan brothers came to me, asking me to write an album based on the primary texts of the Franciscan movement. Initially I didn't accept. The Church has expressed for 500 years the most sublime music ever written, and today all is reduced to a 'Beat Mass'. Frankly, I don't like this appeal to the merely popular, and didn't want to contribute to it. Fortunately, now there's Ratzinger [Pope Benedict XV], who loves Bach.

I said to the brothers: why ask a thing of me, who am a great sinner? They replied: 'You see, for big things God always chooses the worst people!' Thus they convinced me.

The fact that this is such an ancient and minimal presentation makes it seem to be nearly avant-garde. It is a bit the same paradox as in [Branduardi's albums entitled] Futuro Antico: the famous step backwards before making two steps forward."

As one Italian reviewer commented: "What a strange encounter: here we have the most 'medieval' contemporary singer of Italian songs and the most 'modern' saint of the medieval period."
 
Photograph courtesy Matt Doll.

The Wind Ensemble's major performance took place Thursday evening--the liturgical feast-day of Corpus Christi itself--in the majestic setting of the Duomo, one of the most splendidly beautiful and historically-freighted cathedrals built in medieval Europe.

The concert comprised works for wind orchestra all inspired by ancient texts written long before symphonic bands even existed. All were recent compositions by living American composers working in distinctly modern modes and tonalities: Martin Mailman's Liturgical Music, Robert Smith's Divine Comedy, and Carol Barnett's Marian Variants. Together, the three works packed a single powerful punch of modern American composers--and young American musicians--responding respectfully but creatively to the classical-Christian European tradition.

John Skillen states: "For me this was thrilling. On the one hand, we bring our American students, largely forgetful of history, to Orvieto in order to help them to hear again the reverberations of Christian history. But on the other hand, they are the ones who can re-combine the vestiges of that history and revivify that tradition for a largely post-Christian Western European society.

"The quality of the music as performed was just plain top-notch. The sheer force of wind and percussion from this 38-person orchestra filled every cubic inch of the vast interior of the Duomo without any amplification. Such a concert has earned a place for the College's student performers in future Orvieto activities."
 

The Marian Variants by composer Carol Barnett (the sister of Biblical Studies professor Elaine Phillips) was commissioned and composed with the Orvieto tour in mind, and premiered in December 2007 in the A. J. Gordon Chapel on the Gordon campus. The composition responds to two ancient hymns to Mary, "Ave, maris stella" (Hail, Star of the Sea) and the 12th century hymn written by St. Bernard of Cluny, "Omni die dic Mariae" (Daily, daily sing to Mary). 

Far from being overly solemn, Barnett's music translates the celebratory praises of the original hymns into modern orchestral modes. As the composer commented to director Rox, "The work turned out to be a fairly lively set of dances. I hope they are not too giddy for the faithful." A wonderful visual resonance was provided by the fresco cycle of the life of Mary in the apse behind the main altar.
 

The work by American composer Robert W. Smith takes its inspiration from that greatest work of Italian literature: the Divine Comedy.  Along with movements corresponding to the three parts of Dante's epic--Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso--Smith adds a fourth section, entitled Ascension, evocative of the Garden of Eden at the summit of Mount Purgatory from which, fully sanctified, the pilgrim ascends to the heavenly realm itself.

Smith's musical response to Dante's poetic vision of the Last Things unfolded against the greatest Renaissance fresco cycle on the subject of the Apocalypse, Luca Signorelli's Last Judgment in the transept Chapel of San Brizio, itself full of Dante references. Between each section of the composition, Orvieto actors Gianluca Foresi and Valentina Bruscoli performed passages from the Divine Comedy chosen for their resonance with the music.
 

The second venue for the Wind Ensemble was not a concert performance as such. Rather, director Rox was invited by the Bishop to provide the music for the Saturday evening Mass for the participants in the richly-costumed Corteo Storico (or historic procession) held the following morning after the High Mass in the Duomo. 

This was a huge honor for the orchestra, and a considerable risk taken by the Bishop, because the service is distinctly an 'among us' sort of affair, saturated with medievalism and local color.

Hence the invitation--and the townsfolks' enthusiastic expressions of appreciation to Dr. Rox and the ensemble afterwards--signified a real incorporation of the sojourning Gordon College folk into the heart of the town's identity. It was also an example of the kind of cross-fertilization that we are about here in Orvieto: bringing together medieval pageantry and contemporary American artistry informed by faith in a way that breaks through "traditionalism" to recover a living tradition.

Photograph courtesy Margot Rox.

Whenever a musical organization the size of the Gordon College Wind Ensemble travels in Europe, there are many logistical challenges. Bands must rent the large percussion equipment and tow it behind their large motor coach. Negotiating the narrow streets of towns like Orvieto and Assisi in such an immense vehicle entails parking far from the concert site and lugging the equipment up to its final resting place. Sometimes local motorists are not too sympathetic, nor is the weather. But Gordon students are always stouthearted when facing adversity.

Photograph courtesy Margot Rox.

Our first concert was for friends and family of the Gordon College community at the Monastery San Paolo, Gordon's new home in Orvieto. Our plan was to perform outdoors in the lovely patio area high on the cliffs of the city overlooking the Umbrian hills. We did get to warm up outside, but a few seconds after the first downbeat, it began to rain. We rushed inside and performed where it was nice and dry.

Our goal for this tour was to have the Gordon College Wind Ensemble contribute to the cultural and spiritual life of Orvieto, helping to enhance the collaboration between Gordon and this historic city. Being a part of the Corpus Domini festival gave us a perfect opportunity to serve in this capacity, while allowing the band members to experience a style of worship very different from their own.

Photograph courtesy Margot Rox.

Our final concert was in nearby Assisi, where we performed outdoors for an appreciative audience. Several Gordon students were featured as soloists on this tour, including Lauren Kiessling on flute, Corey Seapy on clarinet (pictured here), soprano Marissa Sheltra, and David LaBossiere on euphonium.

This outdoor venue allowed the Ensemble to perform many of their lighter selections, including works by Leonard Bernstein, Percy Grainger and John Philip Sousa. In addition to Gordon's program in Orvieto, it is hoped that collaboration with other cities in the region, like Assisi, will expand to provide even more artistic and cultural opportunities for our students.

Associate Conductor Michael Ingram, a senior piano performance major from Columbia, Missouri, conducted two major selections on this tour. Michael is a young musician of extraordinary talent, and plans to continue to pursue a conducting career now that he has graduated from Gordon. He conducted a selection during the mass in Orvieto during Communion, and here in Assisi he conducted Percy Grainger's Lincolnshire Posy.
 
Photograph courtesy Margot Rox.

We stayed in Orvieto for six nights, giving us ample time to explore the city quite thoroughly. On one free day we traveled to nearby Florence, where we saw many of the great works of Renaissance art, including Brunelleschi's Dome, the Duomo, Giotto's campanile, the Baptistry with Ghiberti's "Gates of Paradise," the Ponte Vecchio, and several of the best-known sculptures of Michelangelo. We visited the statue of Dante outside Sante Croce and posed for a group photo. Santa Croce is one of the most beloved churches of Florence, where many great funeral monuments are located, including those of Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, Rossini and Dante.

The Wind Ensemble's 2008 Italy Tour was a success by any measure. The musical talent and commitment of our students is second to none, and the tour provided experiences that will have impact for many years to come. Our thanks to all who made the trip possible--parents, donors and friends, our tour agency World Cultural Tours, and the many Gordon faculty and staff who spent countless hours organizing the administrative details.

Photograph courtesy Margot Rox.