At the end of the last post, I said that I was about to go to my first concert in at least two years. What I didn't say, was that it was the British vocal ensemble, VOCES8.
When I saw a brief TV advertisement about the concert, I could not believe it. VOCES8 in Duluth, Minnesota? At this moment in time, barely out of the pandemic and with war looming? One of the top a cappella groups in the world? Here? I quickly bought two tickets and invited a friend, but frankly, until they walked out on stage, I simply thought that some sort of trickster energy was afoot. But it wasn't. They were here.
I sat on the edge of my seat for nearly two hours straight. In the wake of the last two years (not to mention a challenging lifetime), I was a dry sponge, desperately needing filling. It isn't just that they sing "my" music (Thomas Tallis, Orlando Gibbons, Benjamin Britten) with such astonishing purity of sound, perfect pitch, and sensitivity. It is that the music I didn't expect to like as much was equally powerful, de-lightful, and fulfilling (Monteverdi madrigals and jazzy 60s-era numbers like "Fly Me To the Moon").
Yesterday, I realized that this performance could be said to be a perfect representation of Goddess qualities. Now, I don't know any of the male and female singers, and cannot possibly know if this is what they had in mind. And if this group is like any of the choral groups I have ever been in, there are undoubtedly some interpersonal conflicts, and "issues" around planning and long-term goals. But once they get together to sing, that is their job, to sing. To bring different voices with different qualities and ranges together in a harmonic convergence, a living, beautiful "painting" in sound and time.
In the end, the type of music being sung isn't the issue, and neither is it the type of chorus. It is the high, love-filled energy quality of the performance or oeuvre, and this can happen in all sorts of musical genres, and in poetry, visual arts, theatre, dance, prose, crafts, and other media. As human endeavors become more conflict-driven (our economy, industries, politics, military, sports, and entertainment), it becomes harder and harder to find true harmony. These institutions create energetic convergences, but rarely harmonic ones. Which makes perfect sense, doesn't it?
So in this crucial week, I am immensely grateful to VOCES8 for exemplifying the kind of love-and-beauty path that will get us through this dark time. They gave me something I can say an unconditional "yes" to. They embody a glowing, shimmering beauty to believe in as other, darkly contrasting events unfold.
