Never Too Late: The Songs of Jan Horvath

Now this is different! Usually when a Broadway performer releases a CD, it’s of classic show tunes or love songs in traditional arrangements. Not Jan Horvath, who proves with these 11 songs she wrote that she’s got the heart of a country girl, and a crystal clear voice to go with it.

I really enjoy “Country Lilt,” a quirky little love song reminiscent of those by Kate and Anna McGarrigle: “So if you’re not waiting at the pearly gate/I won’t have to think or even hesitate/I’ll give all the angels back their wings/Their golden harps and all of their things/Yes if you’re not in heaven on judgment day/I’ll know you’ve gone the other way/So to show you that my love is true/I’ll go to hell dear just for you.” What fun!

For inspiration, Horvath includes “Questions” and “Never Too Late,” songs about finding your true path in life, and a lovely number called “Immigrant’s Anthem,” which she premiered with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra in 2005, and most recently sang with The Rochester Philharmonic on a barge in the Erie Canal with about 14,000 people lining the shores. A well-deserved honor; I hope she will have many more opportunities to present it.

As a music critic I am blessed with receiving many CDs that entertain or enrich me. Horvath’s does both. I was fortunate to have this one given to me personally instead of the usual route -- by the FedEx man courtesy of a publicist. I met Jan at Broadway Blessing -- she’s a friend of Phil Hall who was performing (and whom I now consider a friend too!).

Thanks for coming to BB, Jan, and thanks for bringing me this CD. I’m grateful to have it in my collection.

To learn more about Jan Horvath visit her web site at JanHorvath.com. “Never Too Late” is available at http://cdbaby.com/cd/horvathjan.

The Dining Room

I love sitting back and watching Gurney-world. His plays are laugh-out-loud funny, but not in a cruel way.
“The Dining Room” is different from other plays of his I’ve seen in that it is MULTI-charactered. The six first-rate actors -- Anne McDonough, Timothy McCracken, Dan Daily, Claire Lautier, Samantha Soule and Mark J. Sullivan -- play about 50 different parts, WASPs of several generations and their servants. The common theme is the importance, or lack thereof, of gathering around the dining room table, and it is portrayed in unrelated scenes. Director Jonathan Silverstein does a lovely job of keeping it all rolling.
I grew up Irish Catholic and not WASP, but my mother had so many of the same sensibilities as the older generation here. We ate dinner every night in the dining room, by candlelight, with the silver and linen napkins, the whole nine yards, only without the servants. Many of the scenes in the play hit home to me, but one in particular brought back memories. Two teenage girls are sitting around the table drinking a mixture of vodka, gin and Fresca waiting for some boys to come over to smoke pot. Helen, the girl who is visiting, is impressed and wants to stay there when the boys arrive. Sarah, who lives there, wants no part of the dining room and all it represents -- formality, gentility, proper ways of doing things.
I was that girl, and the visiting girl in reverse. The first time I had dinner at my grade school friend Terry Hagen’s house I was enthralled because we ate TV dinners in the kitchen with her family. I had never had a TV dinner and was fascinated. We had gone to the stores and selected them, which meant that everybody could have something different and exactly what they wanted. Then we ate them in the containers, which was so cool because the vegetables, potatoes and meat each had their own little walled space instead of all being on a china plate. I thought how lucky Terry was and when I got home I asked my mother if we could start eating TV dinners in the kitchen. Absolutely not, but she did let me do it the next time she went out for dinner. It just wasn’t as much fun doing it by myself. I had never given a thought to eating in the dining room by candlelight, but from then on I envied Terry and her TV dinners in the kitchen. In the play when it is suggested that people nowadays eat in the kitchen, the older generation is horrified and makes it perfectly clear they will not. My mother would agree.
Originally produced in 1982, this delightful revival of “The Dining Room” is presented by Keen Company, which did a poignantly beautiful production of “Tea and Sympathy” earlier this year. It runs through Oct. 14 at The Clurman Theater on Theatre Row.

Confession

What a lovely discovery! I had never heard of Joshua Williams, who wrote and composed the 12 songs on this CD, but his web site says this is his third release. I’ll have to look into the others.

I had reservations initially when I saw the title of the first song -- “Loser for Jesus.” The negativity of the word loser paired with Jesus made me think of that derogatory term from the late 70s, Jesus freak. One listen, though, and I was hooked, as well as dancing and singing along to this country/rock composition. The words make it clear just what kind of loser Williams is talking about: “’Cause I’m a loser for Jesus Christ/I’ve given my all; yes I’m learning to die/I’m a loser for Jesus Christ/I’m ready to lose my life.”

It’s a lively start to a CD that offers a variety of styles. The title track, “Confession,” is a gentle change, with its simple guitar arrangements of Samuel Medley’s 1785 words of contrition and reliance on God’s love and forgiveness to give eternal life.

I also like “Rock of My Salvation” with its catchy folk/rock melody, and the upbeat “This is My God,” which makes my heart soar. The variety continues with “Song Five” and the comforting and beautiful voice of his wife, Kerry Williams, singing the joyful words of the Song of Songs.

In the boldest offering, “Luke 14:26,” Williams is courageous enough to tackle one the most difficult passages in the gospels, Jesus’ tough statement about the need to hate those who are closest to us. I know clergy who avoid this lesson by preaching on the Epistle on the Sunday it appears. But following Jesus isn’t just about joy and praise, it has its challenges as well. Once again with the simplicity of guitar, Williams sings about seeing Jesus perform miracles, feed the hungry, forgive the sinner, and then the shocking part: “But today He did something that/I’ve never seen before/He turned to the largest crowd and said aloud,/ ‘This is from the Lord’/He said you have to hate your father,/and hate your mother/I don’t understand, I can’t comprehend,/. . . I don’t want to know, this can’t be so,/do I really have to die to my life?”

Then he recounts other marvels he has witnessed in following Jesus, including the clincher of them all: “But today He did something that/I’ve never seen before/He gave His life and was crucified,/I know now He is the Lord.” And he understands the context of Jesus’ words, that “this is what love is for. . . I will come to know, ‘cause He told me so,/what it means to die to my life.”

That’s rigorous theology to put over in a song, but Williams doesn’t soft-pedal it, and he reminds us of the daily task we have of putting aside this life for the purpose of advancing God’s kingdom.

I can imagine this CD being a big hit with Christian youth groups, in religious education, on retreats and in church services, but it’s also a good listen everyday for anyone on the journey of faith. You can hear selections at Williams’ web site, www.newdayministry.org, and you can order a copy from www.winepressbooks.com. I highly recommend it.

The Impulse of His Love

At first, Karen Piranian Burgman didn’t realize the full impact of what was happening to her. Only a junior in high school, having just won a major competition, she had every reason to expect a fruitful career as a pianist.

But the pain in her hands kept getting worse, creeping in between her fingers until she couldn’t play for more than 10 minutes. The seriousness still didn’t really hit until the hand surgeon looked her in the eye and told her she would never play again, and suggested she take up swimming.

“I was crying,” she remembers. “I said: ‘This isn’t my hobby. This is my life.’ I had studied since I was 5.”

When the shock wore off, she was able to acknowledge something she had actually known all along, music wasn’t her life, God was. And God was getting ready to show her just how well-placed her trust had been. Her career as a pianist wasn’t over. Instead, she was to get an education no conservatory could ever provide. She would use her hands again, but she’d be playing from her soul.

“I had no other agenda except to say what God had done in my life,” said Ms. Burgman, 25, one morning during a telephone interview from her home in North Wales, PA. “Playing the piano is how I express my love for him. Now I feel I have so much more to say.”

Ms. Burgman has poured all her praise and thankfulness into a CD, “The Impulse of His Love,” released this summer by Paraclete Press. It’s a piece of work she never could have anticipated on that day when her tendinitis was diagnosed.

“I had thought, ‘There’s 13 years of training down the drain.’”

But more training was in store, thanks to Sandra Carlock, the coach of a trio of which Ms. Burgman was a member, who offered to work with her one-on-one to help her relearn to play. This involved teaching her to relax, to be in tune with her body and to feel the weight of her fingers on the keys.

A year and a half later, she was off to Oberlin Conservatory for a major in piano performance. The following summer, while she was home in North Wales, her friend Ron Lamar told her she had to make a CD as a way of telling her story.

“I said, ‘I’m just a kid. I’ve just gotten over this injury.’”

But Mr. Lamar held firm and so Ms. Burgman began choosing hymns. She knew “Take My Life and Let It Be” had to be one of them, with its lyrics “take my hands and let them move at the impulse of your love.” She had been playing the piano at her church, Hilltown Baptist, since she was in 10th grade, so she was familiar with many hymns. In improvising them for piano solos, she felt she could personalize them to share her journey.

For three or four weeks she lovingly recorded her arrangements of “His Eye Is on the Sparrow,” “The Lord’s Prayer” and 11 others. The hymns sounded beautiful and when she was finished she and Mr. Lamar sat down to listen to the tapes. But as they played them, what they heard was not so lovely after all. Birds that had made their home in the ventilation system had been picked up by the high definition recording equipment and could be heard on every number.

“It wasn’t some pretty little birds chirping,” she says. “It was really ugly.”

Not willing to give up, Mr. Lamar said he had the studio for one last hour the next day so they would go back and do the entire program then. Ms. Burgman was aghast. She had poured her whole self into that work. She told him she was spent.

“He said, ‘Then you better get down on your knees and pay for a miracle.’”

She went home and told God she had nothing left to give, that she was empty.

“He said, ‘’That’s exactly where I want you to be.’ I asked the Lord to work through me.”

Once again trusting God, she returned to the studio and improvised all 13 songs in one hour. “I get chills talking about it now,” she says. “He took over my hands. I never played like that before. I was crying. My heart and soul came out in it. That’s what the CD is. It’s unedited, all in one take. It summed up the way God was working in my life.”

For four years she sold the recording on her own at church and her concerts. Then a friend gave one to someone in the acquisitions department at Paraclete and another minor miracle occurred. They wanted to represent her and market the CD the very week she sold her last. Since being released in July, “It has absolutely flown off the shelves here at Paraclete,” said Rachel McKendree, music publicist.

Ms. Burgman thinks she understands why.

“There’s an interest in hymns that basically give a new sound,” she says. “People appreciate the depth of theology, but played with a personal testimony of a life touched by God. It reaches people. There’s no more powerful way to communicate than through the arts.”

To continue this work, she and her husband, Michael, a middle school English teacher, have formed a company, Lifespring Music, for future projects, including a Christmas CD of piano improvisations.

“This thing has a life of its own,” she says. “It’s so much bigger than I ever imagined. God’s hand is in it. It’s been his.”

Related web sites

www.karenburgman.com
www.lifespringmusic.com
www.paracletepress.com

God's fire

Thought you would appreciate this sermon for Pentecost XII, preached Aug. 19 by the Rev. Canon Tom Miller at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine.


There is a new production of Bernard Shaw’s St. Joan at the National Theatre in London. I attended a preview performance when I was there last month. The play received glowing reviews and has been hailed by one critic as a “potent political masterpiece.” While other writers have told the story by focusing on Joan of Arc as a saint and martyr, it is Shaw’s genius to tell all sides of the story with understanding and surprising impartiality. In Shaw’s treatment, we have some sympathy for church and state in what they perceive is a war of terror that challenges their authority. Then, too, we also get a critical look at Joan’s unbending individualism that threatens anarchy and raises legitimate questions about whether she is prophetic, obsessive, or possibly psychotic. At the very least the play offers a caution about people who claim to have private lines to God.

The play has been called a tragedy with no villains. But then there are no real heroes or heroines either. Despite efforts all round to avoid Joan’s legendary fate, every one, including Joan, is complicit in the outcome of the story – and that outcome is fire, the consuming fire that kills Joan but which also brings everyone to contrition by the final scene. And the cynic might well ask, what has been achieved in the end? Church and state dominate to survive and Joan only eventually becomes a saint as a kind of cosmic consolation prize. And the pattern will continue down to our own day.

It is no great surprise that the National Theatre decided to revive this particular play at this particular time in history. Once again we are playing with fire: nations reacting against threats to their security; religious authority in much of the world colluding with the state to preserve the old order, or at least the order in power, and actors on the world stage, in both leading and supporting roles, getting their instructions directly from God. And it all inevitably ends with fire.

The reality of that fire is all around us: in the flames of war, in flames fanned by fanatics on a mission, in flames ignited by reactionary forces bent on controlling others. And then there are the metaphorical flames to consider: flames of jealousy and insecurity that lead to abuse and murder; flames of hatred and self-righteousness that lead to exclusion and suppression and often enough to actual cruelty and murder; flames of rage and revenge. No wonder hell is pictured as a fiery furnace waiting to consume the sinful. We know that version of hell right here on earth.

And yet, fire is also central to our faith tradition and how we understand God to be with us and working for us. The pillar of fire that led the Hebrews through the wilderness by night is a majestic and reassuring image. Moses encountered the bush that was burning but was not consumed. In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus speaks of bringing fire to the earth through the Passion about to be played out, and as a result of his death and resurrection, the Apostles received the Pentecostal tongues of flame, that fire that burns within the human heart and mind but does not destroy us, but rather continually inspires us to let God guide us, reveal divine reality to us, and to live in us and through us.

As much as we fear the fires set off by our worst excesses, we welcome the kindling of the spirit we call divine. As we often sing, “Come down, O love divine, seek thou this soul of mine, and visit it with thine own ardor glowing.” And the hymn continues: “O Comforter, draw near, within my heart appear, and kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing.” What a contrast the holy flame offers to humanity’s flirtation with the flames of destruction. From Moses to Jesus, the holy fire burns but does not consume. Holy fire enlivens us and fuels desire for God and for God’s righteousness on earth and in our lives. As William Blake envisioned a new Jerusalem even in the midst of a growing industrialism, the poet cried out, “Bring me my bow of burning gold! Bring me my arrows of desire! Bring me my spear . . . Bring me my chariot of fire!”

And so, when Jesus declares, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” we might well imagine that he cries out in reference to the holy flame of desire that is already burning in his heart and which will burn with its true brightness only when his own baptism of fire is complete. And the passion with which these words are recorded in Luke’s Gospel is profoundly powerful not only for the souls of the righteous, but for the sake of the world as well. “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” Divine passion is too powerful not to challenge the established order. Divine passion is bound to unsettle those who experience it and unsettle those who feel terror at what may be prophetic witness but that might all too easily be psychotic delusion. Without such divine fire we would be lost in the flames of our own destruction.

And all this time you thought Jesus was the Good Shepherd, or perhaps you are a devotee of the Suffering Servant, the Teacher or the Great Physician. For you he is the Prince of Peace, Redeemer, or Christ the King. Yes, all right, Jesus is all of these things, but Jesus is also the one who tells us, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” We are given a picture of Jesus as the fire-bearer, the one who brings passionate desire to the earth so we can see what God’s passion looks like. We have seen the presence of God in the burning bush; the persistence of God in the pillar of fire, and now we witness the passion of God emerging from the sacred heart of Jesus, who understood that nothing of the story can be left out. Powers and principalities will play with fires that lead to death and destruction, but God offers flames of holy desire that bring us to life. As many seek glory in the fires of war, it is in the sacred flames of holy desire that we find the true mark of greatness in the world.

Stephen Spender wrote, “I think continually on those who were truly great – The names of those who in their lives fought for life, Who wore at their hearts the fire’s centre.” We have been given God’s holy fire to wear in our hearts, to let a holy flame burn at the center of our being. This is not fire to be played with, but fire to kindle and keep a continuing flame burning for the peace and justice of God to prevail in the world.

Bernard Shaw had it right, I think. We are all players in the affairs of the world, we are all complicit in the vain and foolish games we play with fire, and certainly no one is exempt from the destruction that ensues. The whole world suffers when the powerful in either church or state make security or certainty their idol. We suffer too when we keep our faith private and exempt ourselves from the sins of the world.

God does not keep to private places. As Gerard Manley Hopkins reminds us, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out like shining from shook foil.” That shining, that spectacular illumination of God, is the fire Jesus brought to earth. We see it before us, and we have it within us. And nothing can put out that flame except that our indifference can divert our attention from it, our arrogance can blind us to it, and our fears can mistake it for destruction.

The second verse of the hymn “Come down, O Love divine” goes like this: “O let it freely burn, till earthly passions turn to dust and ashes in its heat consuming; and let thy glorious light shine ever on my sight, and clothe me round, the while my path illuming.” May we have the wisdom to distinguish the flames of destruction from the fires of passion for life, and seeing the difference, may we not fear the fire of Love divine, and may the glorious light of that burning Love shine on the path before us and make a dwelling in our hearts forever.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

It was well worth waiting for. This is the best production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” I have ever seen. It’s also the first time I liked the mechanicals, the weaver, carpenter and other craftsmen who provide the low comedy, or rather lowest comedy. I always found them to be tedious, both in reading the play and watching it. But these six actors make them endearing and quite funny.

Director Daniel Sullivan has assembled an excellent cast and brings out each of the four plots -- the royals, the young lovers, the fairies and the mechanicals -- strongly in their own right, and then mingles them beautifully, not sacrificing any part.

As I said in my earlier mini review after Sunday’s rain-interrupted show, Jay O. Sanders is fabulous as Nick Bottom, the weaver. So is Jesse Tyler Ferguson as Francis Flute, the bellow’s-mender, who is a riot as Bottom’s bride in the mechanicals’ play. Tim Blake Nelson, Ken Cheeseman, Jason Antoon and Keith Randolph Smith make up the rest of the troupe and are also terrific.

This “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” more than makes up for long waits for tickets, rain, cold, buzzing helicopters and all the other variables of the Shakespeare in the Park experience. Catch it before it closes Sept. 9. A production like this will not come along again.

Dandelions & Honey: Notes on a Forsaken Island

Check out this book by Harry Kavros. It’s a collection of essays in which the author travels through the mythological, cultural, literary, culinary, theological and mountainous landscapes of Crete. http://hkavros.googlepages.com/home.