Tag Archives: ground-breaking

Conductor

Conductor: (n) a person who directs the performance of an orchestra or choir.

I have a friend who has played oboe for many years.

I got a hankering to write some pop-classical music, and thought it would be wonderful if we could start a symphony orchestra in a medium-sized Southern town. (On another occasion I will go into the details of what it was like to promote such a high-brow idea in a town where thefunny wisdom on words that begin with a C
 Cracker Barrel is always packed to the gills.)

But the thing we immediately discovered was that female conductors and symphony orchestras do not necessarily coincide–and also that symphony orchestras and innovation have been separated for quite some time.

So rather than easing our way into the marketplace, we took a radical approach. Perhaps the most outlandish idea was placing the conductor in the middle, at the rear of the orchestra, facing the audience, so those who came to the hear the symphony could experience seeing the symphony conducted, right in front of them.

It was ground-breaking, and my friend was a natural.

We did this for about eight or nine years, and then grew weary of the tedium.

One wonderful thing about life–if you get tired of what you’re doing, you can go “conductor” yourself in another activity.

 

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Angelou, Maya

dictionary with letter A

Angelou, Maya: (1928-2014): a U.S. novelist and poet, who wrote the autobiography, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” recounting her harrowing experiences as a black child in the American south.

When Ms. Angelou died recently, I was curious about how the press would discuss her journey.

Let’s be honest–it’s what we do. We characterize human beings into such small compartments that it is difficult for them to be contained without busting out the sides.

Here is what I discovered: most of the reports focused on some aspect of her race, her experiences within the realm of her color, or her writings about the subject. It will be many generations before we’re able to escape the statement, “She was black.”

The next popular phrase used for her was “ground-breaking.”

Often I think we fail to understand that breaking ground means that the earth has gone fallow, failing to grow anything, and that someone needs to take a shovel to the crusty surface and risk looking like a fool for pursuing hope in the desert.

Even though we laud her efforts, we must realize that she spent the majority of her life subjugated by a society that found her inferior by hue, even though she was able to intellectually surpass all the hum of their activity.

In third place was an appreciation for her art.

I suppose it might have taken a primal position had it not been for an ongoing, quiet racism that whispers in corners of the secrecy of our private moments.

I personally remember her as a soft-spoken, gentle woman with a bit of edge, who tried to explain the confusion around her using more beautiful language than it perhaps deserves.

I recall her debating a rap artist and telling the young man that using dark or evil language was like pouring poison into the world. She said, “Poison is always poison.”

The young rapper was very respectful but unmoved. For after all, one man’s poison is another man’s medicine, and all the cures we have for ailments, left to themselves or taken in excess, are deadly.

She was a tender, simple woman of craft who believed there was still much to be done, carried the scars of her upbringing and yearned for a more peaceful place.

It is a great comfort to me that she has found that home.

It is a great curiosity to me that perhaps in the future, people like Maya can be known for what they say … instead of what color they appear to be.

 

 

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