Over the past few rehearsals and performances, I kept finding more and more reasons why I like Cantorei, and it's kind of funny just how they kept hitting me. Even though we do a lot of hymn-anthems and monophonic singing, the stuff we do reminds me most of what I did while singing in church choirs as a kid, more so than any other choir I've been a part of. For one, we rehearse every Wednesday in Boe, so those days we have the organ accompanying some of the pieces we have. We had a couple services/concerts earlier in the week, and I was amazed at how many people were touched by it. It helps to know the wide variety of worship experiences where fulfillment could be achieved. I know, because I had an experience like that after one of them.
For my comp lessons, my goal this semester is to have two pieces ready and set to be performed for my comp recital next semester. Right now I am working on a six-part choral piece (much like what Charles V. Stanford does in his "Beati quorum via," which, ironically, Cantorei will be doing at some point this year), based on excerpts from a couple psalms, #2 (Why are the nations in an uproar) and #130 (Out of the depths). But what motivates me to juxtapose these two texts is theme I'm trying to set up. Psalm 2 suggests an anger at the clashes between several nations, and Psalm 130 hints at a sort of despair, possibly as a result of these inter-national clashes, and hope, where turning to God will help solve all these problems.
For my Ethics of War class, in addition to reading all these books about different arguments about war through the Christian lenses (and possibly those of other religions) we have to attend seminars occuring every other week where multiple faculty members involved in the semester theme "Liberal Arts in Times of War" lecture on various books on this subject. So the piece I'm writing will include (albeit subtly) some of these sentiments about war and the contending nations, and how it affects/will affect the rest of the world. I think I'm trying to portray a message of some sort with the juxtaposition of texts, but while it's a little blunt and short to explain point-blank a vision of what we as humans should do in life. So I'll have to use some of my musical creativity (whatever's there, anyway) to dramatize it as much as possible.