TRANSCENDING PROBLEMS IN INTERFAITH RESIDENCIES

by Chris J. Granias

For those who carried us away captive asked of us a song...

How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?

Psalm 137 reflects the time when Israel was captive in Babylon. The message and its relevance to contemporary interfaith projects seem clear. How are we to pray, worship, sing, and compose in arenas that are different, foreign, and awkward? And how are we to sing songs of praise that are removed from our own belief systems? Do we ourselves become “captives” when we join others who have very different theologies and who lead us along paths far removed from our usual formulas for worship? Or are congregations and clergy just grist for the artist’s mill, expected to listen politely to the music and not truly enter into worship as they normally do?

As a composer in the midst of an interfaith residency under the auspices of the American Composers Forum Church/Synagogue Residency Program, I wonder. I wonder how people really view these projects. I wonder how any ecumenical venture could ever be workable. How can conservative Jews, mainline Lutherans, and humanist Unitarians pray and sing using the music of an Eastern Orthodox composer? Although the challenges are wonderful, they are also daunting.

Questions arise daily. How do we agree on language? Is the divine referred to as God, Adonai, Kyrie, Lord, Father, Mother, Sophia, or Theotokos? Why can’t the conservative Jews use English instead of Hebrew, or write for instruments instead of a cappella? In fact, they can — in a concert situation. And I as a composer am quite prepared to label my accompaniments as “optional.” But why? They have their reasons for preferring what they do, and those reasons are grounded in their beliefs — beliefs that must be dealt with. So how can I, a non-Jew, non-Lutheran, non-Unitarian, create music for worship in those contexts? Do I believe in their messages?

How can we all agree on the thrust of interfaith pieces? There are “safe” routes: Thanksgiving pieces, creation worship, songs about peace, and of course paraphrasing each other to create a web of token acceptance of diversity. But these beg the core questions.

To tackle these and similar issues, I have been seeking a center, a point of balance and focus, that allows not only for tolerance of diversity but also for the flowering and marriage of music and prayer that can be powerful as well as useful beyond the concert stage. For me, but perhaps not for all, this center derives from my belief system and its attitudes towards art, creativity, and music in the sacred world.

Many composers and listeners have become quite fond of Eastern Orthodoxy in recent years. John Tavener and Arvo PÀrt are only a few of the almost cult-like figures who belong to the Russian Orthodox Church and have been incorporating the Orthodox environment of mysticism into their works. This is welcome and wonderful on a sensual plane, but there is something deeper and in some respects more obvious to investigate in the relationship between Orthodox prayer and art.

Visual art is an integral component of Orthodox worship. Two-dimensional images adorn all Orthodox Churches. These Ikons are representational paintings of stories, people, and situations that provide a point for meditation and veneration of ideas. Never to be objects of adoration, Ikons, like Buddhist Mandelas, are to be entered into as windows to heaven, as images of the divine that open up the participant inwardly. Any art used in the church, including music, can give access to this characteristic mode of Orthodox liturgical worship.

Entering into the divine by artistic means may sound like the perfect cop-out — but it works. Allowing a diverse group of constituents to focus and meditate on images conducive to their individual belief systems is a modest but effective way to avoid conflict and enhance particular formulas for worship.

For me, the process of gathering images and investigating how the variety of beliefs can be projected in my compositions began when I first visited Beth El Synagogue and met with Cantor Neil Newman. As I talked with the cantor and was given a tour of the synagogue, several key issues came to the fore. The first was the role of the cantor and his relationship — as musician, teacher, and pastor — to his flock. This role was evident to me when, during my tour, he taught me the meanings of the symbolic images on the stained-glass windows and the sequence of feast days. He showed me the tapestries over the Torah scrolls, representing both Sephardic and Ashkenazic traditions. He also spoke of how he trained his congregation to be an active part of the musical process of worship. From early training in cantorial singing for Bar Mitzvahs to weekly lessons in the chanting of prayer at Beth El, the main emphasis was on singing the Torah. As Cantor Newman proudly exclaimed, “This is our tradition.”

There was no doubt in my mind that, to gain acceptance in this setting, I would have to keep in mind all these traditions and symbols, Hebrew settings and the functions of cantors, as I composed.

Cantor Newman and I also discussed the form of his liturgies, the use of the siddur (prayer book), and which texts would be most functional, meaningful, and to the liking of us both. Subsequent meetings included discussion of early church worship, connections to Greek Orthodoxy in morning prayer formulas, and the metamorphosis of Jewish holidays into Christian ones (such as pesach into pasca, the Christian Easter).

When I attended a service at First Universalist Unitarian Church, I realized that this would be in some ways the easiest and in some ways the hardest to write for. The easy part is that first-rate musicians are everywhere: they keep coming out of the woodwork. There are choirs that can handle Palestrina, string players that can put together Brahms chamber works, and even jazzers who can jam with the best of them.

The hard part is dealing with a “politically correct” institution in which symbols have to be very carefully packaged. For the instrumental piece that I am writing this is not a problem, but for the interfaith piece with text a potential problem looms. Some compromises will have to be made. The idea of setting psalms has come to mind because all three institutions use them in one form or another. The Unitarians suggest leaving out “Lord,” “King,” etc. The Lutherans want to preserve every original poetic nuance. The Jews suggest that we bring our common traditions to the forefront.

My solution was to propose an interfaith vespers service that I would construct, including within that framework individual pieces that reflect individual theologies. Everyone has agreed.

The piece for Holy Trinity Lutheran Church was the easiest to put together. I wanted to make it special, however, and to bring in elements of my own tradition. The piece, Theophaniea, is a celebration of Epiphany. In the Eastern church, Epiphany celebrates not only the visit of the wisemen but also the manifestation of Christ in the world at his baptism and the revelation of the Holy Trinity. (For a church named Holy Trinity, this was an obvious special emphasis.) Using Byzantine chant, however, would have been a musical disaster, so instead I’ve quoted particular fragments of chant for solo violist and also used a variety of texts selected by choir directors Julie Lindorff of Holy Trinity and Barb Bauman of St. George’s Greek Orthodox Church.

To orient and educate the congregations, I lectured on the project twice this winter at adult forums and will do so again on the day of the premiere. The juxtaposition of Western and Eastern images, though not unprecedented, can be confusing, and some verbal explanation is therefore useful.

All three institutions, staff, clergy, and musicians have taken it upon themselves to make a serious investment in this project. Along with the excitement of new music itself, the opportunity to share worship through music has greeted enthusiastically. I’ve learned how small the world is and how joyous an opportunity like this can be.

Interfaith worship is difficult. Interfaith composing is tricky. One can water down and whitewash a variety of prayers to the point where all images, sounds, and words are reduced to a feel-good groove with no substance. Or, with a lot of sensitivity and hard work, composers can gather images from all institutions and denominations involved and let these emerge within their compositions. To me, this seems a healthy choice.

In the end, I’m reminded of what may be the ultimate example of interfaith tolerance. On the foot of Mt. Sinai in Egypt, where Moses received the ten commandments and God was revealed in the burning bush, there stands a third-century monastery: St. Catherine’s, the oldest Christian monastery in the world. In the area are numerous Bedouin Muslims. These Bedouins have frequent contact with the Orthodox Christian monks, either as workers in the monastery or simply as passers-by. Many years ago, the monks decided to build a mosque within the confines of the monastery. Whenever I start to lose hope that different peoples will ever learn to get along, I reflect on this Christian-Muslim relationship. Nothing has been whitewashed. Both Greek Orthodox Christian and Bedouin Muslim beliefs are very strong in Egypt. One has only to look at recent politics to sense the fervor of these peoples. And yet, at St. Catherine’s, they do get along, without compromising their beliefs. There, in the shadow of Mt. Sinai, they not only tolerate each other but provide mutual platforms for worship — a model of interfaith respect for us all.

As artists, we need to be faithful both to our own deeply-held beliefs and to the marvelous diversity of those for whom we write. We can “sing the Lord’s Song in a foreign land.” And we are “captives” only if we allow ourselves to be.

Chris Granias, a Chicago native, is a composer, pianist, and improvisor. He holds a Ph.D. in composition from the University of Minnesota, and teaches through the University’s Compleat Scholar program and at the MacPhail Center in Minneapolis.