Sacred Sundays with David Garland
Maybe it's because of my own family background in the non-doctrinaire Unitarian church, but it has always seemed to me that while music is inextricably connected to a sense of the sacred — a sense of mystery, purpose, and wonder larger than ourselves — it isn't only "officially" sacred music that offers transcendental moments.
Maybe you've experienced a sense of the sacred through secular music, perhaps via one of saxophonist John Coltrane's improvisations, the hypnotic rhythms of rave music, an empathy-inducing love song, or a Beethoven string quartet. Or maybe you've been moved by the sacred music of a religion or tradition other than your own. Please share such musical experiences and impressions here in the comments section — I'd love to read about them.
Previous Sacred Sunday offerings have included Jacob TV's "Paradiso," The Whirling Dervishes of Konya, and Hafliði Hallgrímsson's "Passía." This past week, we heard "The Separation," composed and arranged by Bobby Previte, and written and directed by Andrea Kleine
Coming up in the Sacred Sundays series:
March 23"Requiem for Fossil Fuels"
By O+A (Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger).
O+A, the collaborative duo of composer/sound sculptors Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger, has created "Requiem for Fossil Fuels" combining four extraordinary singers performing an original setting of the traditional Latin Requiem Mass with an orchestra of sounds recorded in dozens of cities: revving engines, truck horns, subways, passing airplanes, the tonal drone of traffic recorded through long tubes, and other artifacts of our gas-fueled lives. The effect is both beautiful and urgent, allowing us, in the composers' words, to "listen to who we are and what we have become."
— David
