Music Spans Time from Pipe Organ to Jazz Band Editorial Viewpoint Viewpoint

The Journal o f Pacific Union College Winter 2005 Music Spans Time from Pipe Organ to Jazz Band editorial viewpoint viewpoint STAFF Executive Editor Michelle Konn Rai, ’97 | [email protected] Editor Thea Hanson, ’74 | [email protected] Editorial Assistant Lainey S. Cronk, ’04 | [email protected] MUSIC THROUGH THE GENERATIONS Thea Hanson, Editor Alumni Editor Herb Ford, ’54 | [email protected] | Layout and Design Heidi Bristol Lukowicz, ’99 | [email protected] Art Director Cliff Rusch, ’80 | [email protected] There’s something magical about the blending of voices and Photo Editor Heidi Bristol Lukowicz, ’99 | [email protected] Contributing Photographer Landon Bennett, ’04 instruments. But when the musical rabbit jumps out of the hat, Contributing Writers Landon Bennett, ’04; Rita Hoshino, ’79; James Kempster; all is not magic—some people respond with joy while others are LeRoy Peterson; Mike Mennard, ’91 Copy Editors Rita Hoshino, ’79; Thelma Winter overcome with tension. Cover Heidi Bristol Lukowicz, ’99 PUC ADMINISTRATION I remember as a teenager, my music would drive could come away from the service having been blessed. Perspectives on Change President Richard Osborn 4 A kaleidoscope of voices my mother mad. I just couldn’t understand how the Max Lucado says it so well in “Grace for the Moment,” (pg. Vice President for Academic Administration Ileana Douglas popular folk songs of the ’60s could be so offensive 164): “Unity … needs to be protected. How do we do Vice President for Financial Administration John Collins, ’70 to her. What is there about the evolution of music that? … Does that mean we compromise our convic- Vice President for Advancement, interim, Herb Ford, ’54 Music Department that causes so much tension between people—even tions? No. Does that mean we abandon the truths we Vice President for Student Services Lisa Bissell Paulson mothers and their daughters? cherish? No. But it does mean we look long and hard 10 Spans Time From Paulin to jazz band As we were gleaning information and articles at the attitudes we carry.” ALUMNI BOARD featuring music for this issue of ViewPoint, I developed We have aimed to share with you in this issue an Ron Stretter, ’68, President; Carla Aagaard; Tureic Cordis, ’78, ’80; a new appreciation for the struggles of change that overview of music at PUC, from its traditional begin- Lena Escandon, ’71; Tom Hopmann, ’61, ’71; Kellie Lind, ’82; constantly take place in the music arena. It wasn’t just nings to its contemporary challenges. I hope that as Enrichment for All Martha Utt-Billington, ’44, ’70; Barbara Youngblood, ’47 12 Breaking the barriers between my mother and me; the same struggles take you read this issue celebrating the theme of music, place in church music as well. you will be inspired to appreciate each other’s music CONTACT US While interviewing Robert Murphy for one of the styles and to practice tol- E-mail [email protected] 20 President’s Corner profiles (page 15), I saw just how difficult it must be erance toward them. Phone (707) 965-6303 for the ministers of music in all the churches, not just My mother and I still Fax (707) 965-7101 21 News at PUC, to satisfy the needs of all their parishioners. don’t listen to the same Post ViewPoint Editor Everybody has a favorite style of music; some love music, but we love each Pacific Union College 23 Announcements traditional hymn singing and listening to the choir, other just the same. One Angwin Avenue while others prefer raising their hands in praise to Angwin, CA 94508-9797 24 Class Notes God as they sing along with a group of instruments. top left: As a teenager in 1966, with my mother. I’m not here to tout one style of music as good and above: Today, with my 91-year-old mother. www.puc.edu/viewpoint 27 the other bad, or even to tell you which style I prefer. Obituaries I would like to think, maybe naively, that everybody Vision Statement: ViewPoint, the Journal of Pacific Union College, 30 Letters to the Editor aims to be a vehicle for the school’s motto: “Thinkers, not mere reflectors of other men’s thoughts.” ViewPoint provides PUC’s 31 Final Thoughts alumni and friends with features that further the college’s educa- tional and spiritual ideals, with news about the college and its alumni, and with means to unite, motivate, and inspire. Produced by the Pacific Union College Office of Public Relations. © 2004, Pacific Union College Printed in USA. Volume 28 no. 3 2 ViewPoint • Winter 2005 ViewPoint • Winter 2005 3 With all its power to bless and delight—and to bring about debate and contention—music has lived a long and vibrant life in many different areas of PUC. Infusing even the corners of campus with texture and color since the college’s beginnings, music’s influence is enduring—but not unchanging. Perspectives ON Change A kaleidoscope of voices sharing observations on music at PUC by James A. Kempster and Lainey S. Cronk 4 ViewPoint • Winter 2005 ViewPoint • Winter 2005 5 Echoes of The by Lainey S. Cronk PUC Church The Ways We Praise by James A. Kempster, D.M.A., professor emeritus of music Lynn Wheeler, chair of the music department and faculty member for 33 years, comments on how things debate. Most of us can defend our musical tastes with members sing “Fairest Lord Jesus” because it tested the used to be: “When we first came,” he says, “there was an assuredness our theological beliefs may never reach. voice, and everyone knew the song. Then, in the late a Catholic student at PUC who came to our church Over the next three decades, music changed in ’70s about one in four would say, “I don’t know that because the congregational singing was like a huge ways few of us ever envisioned. The invention of song, can we do something else?” By the ’80s less choir. You could hear all the different harmony parts. 45 rpm and 33 rpm vinyl records made recorded than half knew that hymn, and eventually I had to We don’t sing hymns that way very often anymore.” The music available to everyone at bargain prices. Some find another song. I switched to “Amazing Grace,” but focus now, Wheeler explains, is more on an ensemble of smart record executive had an “aha” moment and by the time I retired very few knew that hymn. Hymn musicians and singers who lead (or, in a sense, perform) began targeting the youth market. Music has never singing in the home, in the classroom and in the from the platform. been the same. youth divisions in church had ceased, and gradually Barbara Tonsberg, ’47, ’59, an organist and Angwin But an even more profound though subtle change campfire songs or choruses took their place. resident, is among those who “have very strong opinions occurred in the general realm of aesthetics. Prior to Interest in choral singing was waning also. I tried about today’s style of music”; she feels that “we do it WWII there was a basic assumption that music and to keep it alive by using musical stunts. As each new just to go with the flow, because we don’t want to be other fine arts were an edifying influence—they made fall quarter began, I would invite anyone in the different.” Tonsberg, who studied music at PUC in the us better people. It was believed that the right notes congregation who had ever sung in a choir, or had ’40s and ’50s, says that “everything I was taught has been joined with the right words had the power to lift our ever wanted to sing, to come to the front and sing thrown to the wind. I have to wonder, were all those minds and our souls to new spiritual insights. Today, an anthem with the organ. I would get a huge crowd people who taught me wrong?” only a few traditionalists hold to that belief. The up on the stage, and we had a great experience. What “I think,” says LeRoy Peterson, professor of music at majority go with the popular culture and its creed of many didn’t realize, though, was that I would get PUC, “that students are capable of having a wide range “anything goes,” and the idea that music means only singers I knew and newly registered choir members of tastes in music; but we don’t give that—we just give what we say it means. The individual and his or her to rehearse two or three times before the service—it them what they want to hear.” desire for self-expression or excitement thus becomes was “planned spontaneity.” Martha Billington, class of ’70 and Angwin resident, The first time I walked into the PUC Church, in the sole arbiter of taste. After one such performance a young lady came reflects that she likes the more traditional music, since 1968, I was awestruck by the spacious feel, the new In 1968, when the PUC Church first opened its up to me and said, “Oh, I just loved doing that. it’s what she knows. But she adds, “If students like the smell, and the beams of light streaming through the doors, traditionalism was still the norm. A choir was That gave me goose bumps! I love to sing in choir, contemporary music and come to church because of it, jewels of stained glass. The church had been open for expected to sing each Sabbath, and the choral music I’m all for it.” use for a mere six months, and the elegant newness program thrived.

Load more