New (and old) music

Bill Fay's 'beautifully hymnal fourth studio album' Who is the Sender? 'contains sublime, heartfelt ruminations on nature and the world.' With less light and shade than Life is People but with a more consistently meditative tone, With profound simplicity, like that of Chance in Being There, Fay mourns the inhumanity of our warlike impulses while prayerfully calling for a new world to be manifest.

Carrie and Lowell is a meditation on grief observed that channels the emotional honesty of C. S. Lewis' reflection on his time in the shadowlands. 'I saw intimacy pass by while going about it's business, like something sung and felt by Sufjan Stevens on his new beautiful solitary and rich record filled with faith and disbelief and the resurrection of trust and dreams.'

To mark the 50th anniversary of the freedom marches as well as the Staple Singers’ performance at the New Nazareth Church on Chicago’s South Side, their concert has been remastered and restored to its original setlist and runtime. Pops Staples, patriarch, bandleader and musical visionary, had written a song about the freedom marchers called ‘Freedom Highway’ which was debuted at this concert and which became the family’s biggest hit to that date, a pivotal record, connecting gospel music with the struggle for civil rights, that inched them toward the pop mainstream without sacrificing their gospel message for a secular audience.

'The Staple Singers have left an imprint of soulful voices, social activism, religious conviction and danceable “message music.”' 'Pops and the family were rooted in gospel, blues, and "message music" traditions. He sang about darkness, and he sang about light. He's done it again [on 'Somebody Was Watching' from Don't Lose This], and while the song's arrival might be belated by over 15 years, it's a total gift to hear one of the greats completely owning his lane.'

I'm also currently discovering the music of Krzysztof Penderecki: 'naturally vibrant, sensual and with a very personal sense of architecture': 'If you simplified the last 100 years of music as a war between the forces of the atonal and the lyrical, Penderecki would be on the front lines of battle. He found fame, around 1960, as a forward-thinking avant-gardist, but later defected to the other side, looking back at the Romantics and even Bach for inspiration ... Much of his music is not for the faint of heart. With its viscerally intense drama (even in his non-stage works), this music occupies a sound world that can often be described as terrifying.' 

'The St. Luke Passion, completed in 1966, was a breakthrough piece for Penderecki, proving he was much more than a trendy avant-gardist ... It was also a major religious statement at a time when, under Soviet rule, the church was officially frowned upon.' 'In his music, Penderecki has approached politics, religion, social injustice and the plight of the common man, both in general terms and by considering specific individuals and events.' 

Arun Rath writes: 'Penderecki is not Jewish — he's not a survivor — but he is Polish. Auschwitz is basically in his backyard. A devout Christian writing authentically liturgical music, Penderecki seems to be wrestling directly with the question of how you can make peace with God after such horrors.'

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The Staple Singers - Freedom Highway.

Support for artistic flight and future grace

In the absence of an Association of Scholars of Christianity in the History of Art (ASCHA) website that actually works, Stoneworks has helpfully provided more information on this newly formed professional organization that seeks to redress the tendency in much of recent scholarship to ignore or minimize the influence of Christianity on the arts.

A report on ASCHA's inaugural symposium in Paris can be found by clicking here. The art space in which the symposium met is a venue for the arts which seeks to support and encourage the arts and artists regardless of their faith affiliation by providing a space at an enviable address at a reasonable cost to the artists for performance of music and poetry, the mounting of art exhibitions, as well as meetings like the symposium.

Also seeking to support artists in expressing their Christian faith in the face of a lack of understanding of the resulting art is New York based artist Makoto Fujimura, who has recently published a letter to young artists in which he writes of the ability to learn to fly as artists as 'future grace' citing C. S. Lewis to describe an artist's early development - "while the wings are just beginning to grow, when ... the lumps on the shoulders…give ... an awkward appearance”:

"What if Lewis is right, and you are destined to “fly”? What if our awkwardness, and our uniqueness points to the potential of the person we are meant to become? In order to learn to fly, you need to be patient, and ready to experience many failures; we need an environment where we can fail often, but you also need opportunities to peer into the wonders and mysteries of the vista of the world to come. Since many, including those in the institutions of the schools or churches, will not understand, you may have to create “fellowship” yourself. Do not be surprised by their rejections ...

Even if you are not cognizant of a grace reality, you can still create in the possibility of future grace. That takes faith to do, but if you can do that, you will be joining so many artists of the past who wrestled deeply with faith, doubt, poverty, rejection, longing and yet chose to create. Know that the author of creativity longs for you to barge in, break open the gift you have been saving; he will not only receive you, he can bring you purpose behind the battle, and rebuke those who reject you. Mary’s oil was the only thing Jesus wore to the cross. He was stripped of everything else, but art can sometimes endure even torture. A friend of mine said that in the aroma of Christ, Mary’s oil mixed with Christ’s blood and sweat, there are da Vincis and Bachs floating about. He will bring your art, music and dance to the darkness of death, and into the resurrection of the third day ...

Growth comes by understanding how limited you are. Learning to use your wings means learning the discipline as a means to grace. Give yourself boundaries and goals; start with small things, like having a small table dedicated to your poems. Emily Dickinson wrote her poems on a small 18 inch by 18 inch desk in her room in Amherst. Do not put anything other than your poems, though, on that area. Guard against the world invading your boundaries. Learning to paint, play the piano, or dance has much to do with keeping your self-set boundaries, otherwise you will not own your craft. We are each given unique wings with unique particulars of how to use our wings; no one else can fly for you. You have to jump off the edge, and spread your wings."

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Mumford and Sons - Roll Away Your Stone.

Abstractions on Bach's Preludes & Fugues

Rodney Bailey with a piece included in the staff exhibition at the V&A

Works included in 'Abstractions on the 48 Preludes & Fugues by J.S. Bach'

Work included in ‘Abstractions on the 48 Preludes & Fugues by J.S. Bach’

Work included in ‘Abstractions on the 48 Preludes & Fugues by J.S. Bach’

Rodney Bailey at the ‘Abstractions on the 48 Preludes & Fugues by J.S. Bach’ exhibition

I had an enjoyable day off today visiting the V&A and meeting up with Rodney Bailey. Rodney, who will be exhibiting at Visual Dialogue 2, has a current exhibition at the Orsini Restaurant and is preparing for an exhibition of his graffiti art which will open in November.

His current exhibition is Abstractions on the 48 Preludes & Fugues by J.S. Bach. Rodney began studying the 48 Preludes & Fugues when he was 24 and has had endless joy listening to and learning to play them on the piano. His fascination with them first began in Barcelona where he was living for just under a year in 1992. This collection of work began in 1997 and is a continuous theme in his work.

He has made personal commissions for his friends and family to some of his favourite pieces from the Preludes & Fugues. In his opinion, “Sound and colour are like mother and child in art and to have the good fortune to be able to play the music of J.S. Bach and to make beautiful pieces of art based on his inspirational work is a true honour.”

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J.S. Bach - Prelude & Fugue in F minor