SACRED AND SERIOUS
Faith Partners Premieres New Religious Music in New York City

By Sebastian M. Glück

This article was originally published in the February 2003 issue of The American Organist. It is reprinted by permission of the publication and author. - Ed.

(American Organist, February 2003) Many organists cringe when they hear the term "contemporary worship music," fearing that they will be asked to perform unchallenging works and leave their conservatory training by the wayside. In the contentious realm of liturgical music, disagreements regarding taste can cost organists and music directors their jobs. Self-preservation prompts acquiescence, lest their character and motives - and even necessity - are questioned. Why have our clergy forsaken Parry, Haydn, Bach, and Vittoria? What made the chazzan abandon Milhaud, Sulzer, Lewandowski, and Schalit?

If this music is relegated to the scrap heap, who will dare to write great sacred music for the future?

The Faith Partners program of the American Composers Forum was developed a decade ago to expand the sacred music repertoire by placing composers in residence with collaborating congregations. Participating institutions provide a supportive atmosphere, committed performers, and a musically appreciative audience, in places and at times that people expect to gather and be moved by music. The program began in the Upper Midwest and has spread east, with recent successes in Atlanta and Boston. Currently, New York City is the setting for an interfaith consortium that has premiered eight new works by two composers at three prominent houses of worship.

An Act of Faith

Charles Griffin

Generally, Faith Partners matches a composer with a regional consortium of two or three congregations for an 18-month residency. The composer collaborates with the consortium in the creation of six sacred works that are premiered by the congregations' musicians. This relationship evolves into a dynamic give-and-take. The composer is joined in a traditional bond with the faith-based patrons who will use the music in worship services. The participating musicians and vocalists provide pragmatic feedback on the performance of these works, creating a composers' laboratory for developing music on a practical, usable level. The resulting compositions have a better chance of being performed and used in worship by more communities, rather than fading into oblivion after their premieres.

In addition to musical issues, Faith Partners congregations have input regarding the texts. Many works are tailored to a particular house of worship, sometimes with text actually written by the spiritual leadership. Pieces written for the entire consortium require consensus amongst the participants; intentionally more universal in their content, they tend to rely on Old Testament texts and poetry.

In this context of communal discourse, "accessibility" and "universality" are not generalized justifications used to create simple, uninspired music. The program gives both musicians and congregants credit for their taste and intelligence. The dumbing-down of sacred music that has so troubled us in recent times has often been excused by the absurd notion that Bach and Mozart, and all great composers, were writing the pop music of their time, since it was fresh, new, and modern during its place in history. Nothing could be further from the truth, as they wrote the best music of their times. The Forum aspires to similar results.

The Spirit of the City

Gerald Cohen

What sets the New York City project apart is not just its extraordinary trio of venues - St. Bartholomew's Church (Episcopal), Church of St. Ignatius Loyola (Roman Catholic), and Temple Emanu-El (Reform Judaism) - but also the scope of the partnership. Forty-five composers, a record number, applied for the residency, and were whittled down to three finalists. When the panel of music directors convened to select their composer, they determined that they would have to restructure the New York City residency to accommodate two composers of merit, Charles Griffin and Gerald Cohen, who would each write four sacred works.

Griffin's compositions have been performed in notable halls throughout North America as well as in Cuba and the European Union. Though biblical verse, such as Griffin's interpretation of Psalm 23 for St. Ignatius, is the mainstay of sacred music, he drew upon Sufi tomes for his "Out of Nothingness," written for all three houses of worship and scored for SATB chorus and organ. Assembled from a handful of texts, this passionate departure overflows with sensuous imagery: clearly monotheistic, it remains steeped in cosmic and universal references. "I focused on dervish/ecstatic imagery so that I could create a joyous, emotional piece of music," wrote Griffin of his text, which ends, "We have been in love with God/For so very, very long."

A cantor and composer, Cohen is the son of European immigrants who were also musicians. He brings to his music the experience of a practicing liturgical musician, his knowledge of the classical repertoire, and his familiarity with centuries of secular and liturgical Jewish music.

Lest anybody think Jewish musical settings are limited to the Old Testament, Cohen draws from sources beyond psalmody, including the Kabbalistic "Zohar" and the best-known piyyut, or hymn-poem, "Adon Olam (Eternal Lord)." He scored the latter for St. Ignatius, setting the original Hebrew for a cappella SATB chorus. For St. Bartholomew's, Cohen scored Wordsworth's poem "Ode on Immortality" for SATB chorus, children's chorus, and organ. Like Griffin's "Out of Nothingness," it is a combination of earthly and celestial themes, suitable for use in both churches and synagogues.

All of the works were premiered as service music at the houses of worship for which they were written; extra performances were scheduled to accommodate the pieces shared by all three institutions. All three congregations worship in architectural masterpieces. While the St. Ignatius sanctuary features a resonant barrel-vaulted Baroque ceiling, St. Bartholomew's Church and Temple Emanu-El are neo-Byzantine buildings lined with absorbent acoustical blocks, the legacy of their era. All three have fine choirs, and all host fine instrumental ensembles and soloists.

Their collective pipe organ culture is extraordinary. St. Bartholomew's boasts the largest pipe organ in the city, with a V/225 in the church and a II/18 in the chapel. St. Ignatius houses the largest mechanical-action organ in the city, a IV/91, in the gallery. Temple Emanu-El has a IV/135 in the sanctuary, the largest synagogue pipe organ in history, a III/35 in the chapel, and a III/35 in the auditorium.*

A Road to the Future

Since most editions of the Oxford English Dictionary list "ecumenical" as an erroneous spelling, and contain no entry for "interfaith," how do we define Faith Partners residencies? Partner congregations range from The Cambodian Church of the Nazarene in Minneapolis to First United Methodist Church in Tupelo, Miss. Composers run the gamut from working cantors like Cohen, to Craig Carnahan, former director of the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus. Christians have written for Jews and Jews for Christians, in a working, living bond in which composers, performers, and worshippers develop real, lasting relationships.

These exciting and productive unions can only exist when an educated clergy and a musically conscious community have the collective desire and will to undertake not just the artistic journey, but also the less-glamorous administration of the residency. Taste and commitment are key ingredients, as private foundations happily compensate the composers, relieving the consortia of financial strain. The positive impact on congregational spirit and strength is consistently large and evident. Is your church or synagogue next?

* Roman numerals are the number of manuals, or keyboards. Arabic numerals are the number of stops.

Sebastian M. Glück is a pipe organ builder and restorer living in New York City. He earned an AB in Architecture and MS in Historic Preservation from Columbia University, and studied organ at The Juilliard School. His articles appear regularly in The American Organist magazine, and he is the editor of the Journal of American Organbuilding, the official publication of the American Institute of Organbuilders.

Faith Partners in New York City is funded by the Wolfensohn Family Foundation.