Canada's Sweetheart

I had the opportunity last night to hear Canada's Sweetheart, Jill Barber in concert. What a delightful evening! I don't know how to describe her music - sort of singer-songwriter, sort of folk, sort of jazz, sort of '50s something. Sort of awesome though! She had us singing, she had us swaying, she had us in the palm of her hand. She's delightful and her band was amazing. What a great time! and it was a fundraiser for Womenspace, an organization that does all sorts of education and advocacy for low income women and that lost its federal funding last year. The church was really full - it was great to see. If you want to check out her music you can find her site here.

It took my breath away

I always really enjoy the blog Magpie Girl but this post took my breath away.

The State of the World

It has been a very busy few weeks and no time to blog - lots of really great things happening and I have lots I'd like to write about but time has been at a premium.

However, I did find time to read some blogs this morning and found it pretty disturbing. Here is evidence that our culture is pretty messed up. The link came from a blog I hadn't read before but which is up for a Canadian Best Progressive Blog award. It is the Galloping Beaver and is worth a read.

On other fronts I've been listening to Christmas music, and yes I do know it is only just Advent and this is a very bad Anglican thing to do. Thanks to itunes I'm listening to Steeleye Span's album Winter and enjoying it a lot. Now back to work.

Glorious Concert

At yesterday's convocation at the University of Lethbridge Ben Heppner was given an honourary degree and then today he gave a concert to raise money for music scholarships. It was a glorious concert! There were four standing ovations including one in the middle of the concert. He was incredible.

The heart of the concert for me were two operatic pieces. The first was from Massanet's opera Le Cid. It is this beautiful prayer - the lines that especially moved me were "O sovereign, O judge, O father, always hidden, ever present, I loved you in times of good fortune and I bless you in times of sadness!" The piece that did me in though was the next aria from Andrea Chenier by Umberto Giordano. It is an indictment of French nobility who turn their backs on the plight of the poor and the final line is, "love is a gift divine, do not despise it, the moving spirit of the universe is love!" Dad was very present to me while Dr. Heppner sang that piece. I wish it had gone on a lot longer.

Today I was very proud to be associated with the university.

New Life

The Mary Ellen Carter
(Stan Rogers)

She went down last October in a pouring driving rain.
The skipper, he'd been drinking and the Mate, he felt no pain.
Too close to Three Mile Rock, and she was dealt her mortal blow,
And the Mary Ellen Carter settled low.
There were five of us aboard her when she finally was awash.
We'd worked like hell to save her, all heedless of the cost.
And the groan she gave as she went down, it caused us to proclaim
That the Mary Ellen Carter would rise again.

Well, the owners wrote her off; not a nickel would they spend.
She gave twenty years of service, boys, then met her sorry end.
But insurance paid the loss to them, they let her rest below.
Then they laughed at us and said we had to go.
But we talked of her all winter, some days around the clock,
For she's worth a quarter million, afloat and at the dock.
And with every jar that hit the bar, we swore we would remain
And make the Mary Ellen Carter rise again.

Rise again, rise again, that her name not be lost
To the knowledge of men.
Those who loved her best and were with her till the end
Will make the Mary Ellen Carter rise again.

All spring, now, we've been with her on a barge lent by a friend.
Three dives a day in hard hat suit and twice I've had the bends.
Thank God it's only sixty feet and the currents here are slow
Or I'd never have the strength to go below.
But we've patched her rents, stopped her vents, dogged hatch and
 porthole down.
Put cables to her, 'fore and aft and girded her around.
Tomorrow, noon, we hit the air and then take up the strain.
And watch the Mary Ellen Carter Rise Again.

For we couldn't leave her there, you see, to crumble into scale.
She'd saved our lives so many times, living through the gale
And the laughing, drunken rats who left her to a sorry grave
They won't be laughing in another day. . .
And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.

Rise again, rise again - though your heart it be broken
And life about to end
No matter what you've lost, be it a home, a love, a friend.
Like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Written and recorded by Stan Rogers on Between the Breaks ....Live.
Copyright Fogarty's Cove Music, FCM 002

The Oggie Man

When I was a kid Dad used to sing The Oggie Man song to me all the time. When I was sick he's rub my back and sing me to sleep with it. When I was older I asked him what the song was about and he told me that it was about the man who sold pasties being driven out of work by big business (well, hot dog carts anyway). Tonight I was listening to a recording of it by the group Jiig and it brought a lot of memories back. There is an interesting explanation of the song, written by Cyril Tawney here. Turns out it is a love song too.

Am I the only kid whose lullabies were labour songs?

Iron and Wine

I fell in love with Iron and Wine after hearing the soundtrack from Garden State and have eagerly listened to all Sam Beam's music. So I found this blog entry about evangelical interpretation of Iron and Wine fascinating.

Not all evangelicals would appreciate this blogger's views but I think that there is enough truth in it to consider seriously:

The world for many evangelicals is basically black and white. But art is all about the gray, and herein lies the source of the difficulty: how can an evangelical really appreciate art when the evangelical posture toward the world is one that is anti-aesthetic? Evangelicals see things in terms of propositional and moral truth; but art is not primarily concerned with the propositional and/or the moral. Art is not teaching by a different means. If we think of the classic transcendentals, evangelicals are perfectly at home with Truth and the Good—with logic and action—but not with Beauty.

Sufjan Stevens

A couple of years ago some of our students got me hooked on Sufjan Stevens' music and I've been listening to him a lot. If you want to read a wonderful discussion of the power of his lyrics check out this post over at Faith and Theology.

Narrative in music

Tim over at Tale Spin has a really interesting quotation from a folk singer about a lot of contemporary song writing. Essentially the point is that much of contemporary song writing focuses on "the personal landscape" and it gets boring.

I was thinking about this last night when I went to a concert of well known Christian singer-songwriter. I like a number of his songs but realized last night that there are two big differences between singing a couple of them at church and listening to twenty of them in a concert. The first is that in concert you have all the extra keyboard/electric guitar/drums and reverb and frankly that gets old fast (or maybe it is just me getting old fast). The other big difference is that when you get 20 of them in a row you realize that none of them tell a story. They are all about the personal relationship with a mighty God and they don't even tell a story about that relationship. And after a while they all start to sound the same.

New Music

My music guru Scott put me on to this new band and I'm really enjoying them. Check them out.

The Darby and Joan Club

Just got home from hearing the Darby and Joan Club play at the Slice. It was great! I love live music and I really like their British pop sound. They debuted a new song tonight that was really good. I went with a friend who's my age and I figured we'd raise the age of the crowd considerably but there was actually a table of 50+ year olds who did more than us to change the demographics. The Slice is a neat bar - pretty mellow crowd and good live music. Check it out!

Bruce Cockburn concert

I love the CBC. I'm listening to concert Bruce Cockburn gave in Banff and it is wonderful. There are a number of concerts on the site - don't know how long they leave them on but I hope they leave this one there. I love Cockburn - especially when he is acoustic like he is in this concert. One of the things I want to do before I die is see him in concert live. And barring that I'm looking forward to that eternal concert in the New Jerusalem.

New Music

Somewhere on some blog I was reading someone mentioned this guy's music and I checked it out and love it. I wish I could give credit to who ever put me on to him but thanks is going out to the blogsphere for this.

His name is Idan Raichel and his music is fascinating:

The Idan Raichel Project burst onto the Israeli music scene in 2002, changing the face of Israeli popular music and offering a message of love and tolerance that resonated strongly in a region of the world where the headlines are too often dominated by conflict. With an enchanting blend of Ethiopian and Middle Eastern flavors coupled with sophisticated production techniques and a spectacular live show, the Idan Raichel Project has become one of the most unexpected success stories in Israeli music today. Read the rest here

A Fabulous Weekend

This weekend some friends and I went up to Calgary for the last performance of the Calgary Opera for the season. It was an all Canadian production of Carmen and it was fabulous. The whole weekend was fabulous. We checked in to the hotel and changed into our fancy duds. I even bought a new purse and necklace for the occasion. We were all dressed to the nines. When we went out into the hall we discovered that everyone else staying on our floor was also dressed to the nines. We met a group of drag queens at the elevator. We asked them what was happening and they told us that there was a drag queen ball that evening at the next hotel. At this point one of the men dressed in evening gown, red wig, tiara and feather boa turned to one of our group and told her, "and you could win. That outfit is fabulous!" That became the theme for the evening. We had a fabulous dinner a block away at The Chutney, a wonderful new East Indian restaurant. The opera was fabulous. The people watching was fabulous. Even the partying that went on all night long on our floor couldn't dampen our spirits. We had a fabulous time. Someone else must have had a fabulous time too because the next morning there were boa feathers scattered all down the hallway.

We had another wonderful meal in the morning at a Dim Sum restaurant a couple of blocks from our hotel. When we went in there were about 30 people eating - by the time we left it had grown to about 300. I've never seen anything like it. One of the little old men at the table next to us pulled a mickey out of his pocket and served up about four fingers of something brown to his companion. People watching there was a lot of fun too. In the midst of the meal I said to one of my friends, "so this is what pagans do on Sunday morning." When I lived in Hamilton friends and I used to go for Dim Sum on Sundays but after church not instead of. I could get used to doing that again pretty easily. I can't do the shrimp anymore but I love those slimy pancakes. Fabulous...just fabulous.

Palm Sunday

Refrain

All glory, laud and honor,
To Thee, Redeemer, King,
To Whom the lips of children
Made sweet hosannas ring.

Thou art the King of Israel,
Thou David’s royal Son,
Who in the Lord’s Name comest,
The King and Blessèd One.

Refrain

The company of angels
Are praising Thee on High,
And mortal men and all things
Created make reply.

Refrain

The people of the Hebrews
With palms before Thee went;
Our prayer and praise and anthems
Before Thee we present.

Refrain

To Thee, before Thy passion,
They sang their hymns of praise;
To Thee, now high exalted,
Our melody we raise.

Refrain

Thou didst accept their praises;
Accept the prayers we bring,
Who in all good delightest,
Thou good and gracious King.

Refrain

The­o­dulph of Or­le­ans trans­lat­ed from La­tin to Eng­lish by John M. Neale

The Hardening of Musical Arteries

I read something a while ago that said that people's musical taste harden around the time that they are 25 so what they listened to in university is what they will listen to the rest of their lives. I wonder if this is really true because it sure isn't for me. In university I listened to a lot of folk music and opera, the music I was raised on. If the theory was right that's what I'd still be listening to. Oh wait, I am still listening to them. (Check out Cranny Anie's band As the Crow Flies - they make some beautiful music) But since then I've also discovered a lot of rock and alternative music I like. I listened to very little rock growing up but now enjoy some a lot.

Last night I went to hear the Diesel Librarian's band play at the local folk pub, the Tongue 'n' Groove. The Darby and Joan Club are really fun - sort of a British pop sound with a caffeine edge. I really get a kick out of their music and hearing them live is always fun because Rob is particularly fun to watch. He gets really intense and does a lot of moving while he plays - not what you'd expect from a librarian at all :-). Last night I was sitting there feeling the percussion in my chest and wondering if my heart was beginning to beat to the same rhythm. I closed my eyes and everything around me disappeared. All I was aware of was the beat of my heart and the drum beat reverberating in my chest. It was a really neat sensation and I thought kind of a good opportunity to pray. While I can intellectually appreciate the Quaker tradition of stripping away everything that might distract the senses to allow the Spirit room to move it doesn't appeal to me much. I've always preferred times when my senses become so satiated that they are so busy that I'm not distracted by them anymore and can just sit and listen to the Spirit.

Now as I write this I'm listening to Charlie Haden. There was no jazz in my house growing up and while I discovered Ella and Billie while working on my MA thesis late at night listening to CBC it has only been recently that I've discovered more jazz. My cousin came for Christmas and gave me Charlie Haden and Hank Jones' album Steal Away and I fell in love. Right now I'm listening to Land of the Sun and it is beautiful too. So I'm glad to say that I don't suffer from the hardening of my musical arteries.