Let's talk about music

We had an election yesterday. You worked so hard and so long and so intensely to support our democracy. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I don’t have any understanding to impart. But I do have three thoughts. First, heroes come from unlikely places. Second, we do not know the future. Third, we have to stand up for what we believe in and work our hardest to care for one another.

On election day, the Washington Bach Consort generously gave a free lunchtime concert at a church in downtown DC. I can’t think of a nicer distraction.

We heard Johan Sebastian Bach’s sublime Cantata BWV 82 “Ich habe Genug.” If you’ve never heard it, please drop everything and listen to the first movement sung by the late mezzo soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who died too young, and whose voice was a gift from the gods. I learned while writing this newsletter that she started off as a professional violist, before turning to voice studies at age 26. Wow.

A few years ago, when I was a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, I met Mikhail Johnson, a pianist and classical music composer from Jamaica. I loved talking to him. I had a lot of questions, and he had a lot of insight and vision. When I returned home, I listened to his lectures and music online. I’ve been learning from him ever since.

I asked Johnson some further questions, and thought you’d enjoy reading his answers.

1. What does a composer do?
2. How did you become a composer?
3. What sustains you in your work?

Here’s a book that may not have made your radar: Catharine H. Murray’s NOW YOU SEE THE SKY. This heartbreaking memoir about losing a child is also an uplifting family story. I felt blanketed in comfort within this family, immersed in life in a rural Thai village on the Laotian border that I would never have visited otherwise.

With love and appreciation for each one of you,

Martha

P.S. ICYMI, here’s last week’s newsletter: A capital defense lawyer who writes.