Seance Concert 1: Walk in Beauty

At the corner of Washington and Lyon Streets, on the cusp of the two wealthy neighborhoods of Pacific Heights and Presidio Heights, stands the Swedenborgian Church and its garden.



The small, beautiful church dates from 1895, according to a brilliant essay by James Lawrence, a former pastor of the church. "Founding pastor Rev. Joseph Worcester sketched the original schema and then brought together in an historic collaboration architects A. Page Brown, A.C. Schweinfurth, and Bernard Maybeck, and artists Bruce Porter and William Keith to produce a new expression in religious architecture."



Along with a number of other people, I spent all of Saturday from 10AM to 11PM, working on a fundraiser for the Other Minds Music Festival. It consisted of three separate classical music concerts, starting at 2PM and ending at 10:30PM, that were billed as a "New Music Seance."



The major bulk of the programs were solo piano pieces being played in a tour-de-force marathon by the local pianist Sarah Cahill. Half of the pieces were by deceased "maverick" composers of the 20th century such as Charles Ives, Henry Cowell, Leo Ornstein, Erik Satie, Ruth Crawford, Alexander Scriabin, Lou Harrison and John Cage, and the other half were by living composers who were being presented as their successors.

The match between the musical program and the Transcendentalist Swedenborgian movement, with its Arts and Crafts Movement church, turned out to be serendipitous and everyone who attended the concert could feel it.



In the program, the pianist Sarah Cahill acknowledged her inspiration for these concerts:

"I would like to send special thanks to Helene Brewer, who attended this Swedenborgian Church in 1910, at the age of three. It was she who suggested we explore this setting for the new music seance. Now 98, Helene Brewer is a scholar of Transcendentalism, and with her passion for Emerson and Ives, her adventurous tastes in new music, and her teachings about Transcendentalist writers, she is a constant inspiration."

Emanuel Swedenborg was a Swedish "scientist, philosopher and mystic" according to Wikipedia (click here for the full article) and lived from 1688-1772. The list of his admirers over the centuries is bizarrely impressive: Emerson, William Blake, Johnny Appleseed, Yeats, Carl Jung, Helen Keller and Jorge Luis Borges, among many others.



From the Lawrence essay:

"A group of Stanford researchers put together a massive data program to see if the computer could reasonably calculate the IQ of history's great minds. The test places three titans in a fuzzy tie for first place: John Stuart Mill, Goethe, and Emanuel Swedenborg...While devoting most of his career to the development of Sweden's mining industry, Swedenborg racked up an amazing list of additional accomplishments. In the natural sciences alone, for example, he formulated an atomic theory of matter, was the first to correctly identify the function of the cerebral cortex and the ductless glands, introduced the first Swedish textbooks on algebra and calculus, founded the science of crystallography, and designed and oversaw the construction of what is still the world's largest drydock. Other more personal accomplishments such as playing the organ and speaking nine languages also clearly point to the prophet's broad intellectual genius."

"Throughout Swedenborg's single-minded quest for knowledge, one consideration overrode all else: his search for God. Moving generally from the world outside to the world inside, Swedenborg was convinced that the Divine could be approached and discovered through a naturalistic scientific process.

After 25 years of this searching, he concentrated all his efforts on one final locus of meaning in the physical universe: the human body. He believed that if human anatomy was analyzed closely enough, the location of the soul could be determined...And he did find the soul, but not quite in the way he expected."

"At this point, he was a middle-aged bachelor scientist, arguably Europe's most brilliant thinker, investing the totality of his creative energy into discovering the actual location of the soul and thereby coming face to face with God. As he pressed further into contemplations upon human anatomy, his inner life erupted with dreams and visions that led him into an intense and meticulous personal introspection.

This year-long process culminated in a Christ vision of such extraordinary power that it changed Swedenborg's life in two dramatic ways. In his outer life, he dropped his former scientific pursuits for the writing and articulation of a spiritual understanding of life. His inner life underwent an unprecedented series of paranormal experiences that left him with an idiomatic capacity of second sight, unique in the annals of psychic phenomena."

"Swedenborg claimed continuous access to the spiritual realm, and in this highly clairvoyant and clairaudient state, he penned thirty volumes in which he explained the nature of life as perceived from his remarkable vantage point.

While traversing new spaces, he retained his careful observational style and scientific focus. Swedenborg retained his sanity during this phase. Although resigned from all duties associated with the mines, he made his most solid civic contributions after intromission into the spiritual realm."

Also in the Lawrence essay is a history of the church based on Swedenborg's writings that is fascinating, particularly the split in North America:

"The core issue in which all splinter issues were rooted involved the authority of Swedenborg. By the time the split was complete in 1890, Swedenborg had been dead for more than a century, and many prominent people in the church were cross-pollinating Swedenborgian ideas with much of the rest of the exciting intellectual climate of the nineteenth century.

Swedenborg wrote with tremendous conviction and spiritual authority; many of his serious students felt the need for strict adherence to his writings. In other words, a battle royal shaped over the infallibility of Swedenborg."

"From the Pennsylvania region, the Academy Movement sounded the call to arms for complete fidelity to Swedenborg. The many Swedenborgians repulsed by this attitude congealed geographically and spiritually around the Boston Swedenborgians. A century later, the Pennsylvania and Boston power centers still exist, and the two movements have experienced a stormy relationship. The two North American sects have since evolved into classical portrayals of the age-old tension in exoteric religion between the purist and eclectic tendencies of the human spirit. As is true in almost all branches of all great world faiths, the conservative movement is today stronger and larger than its liberal step-sibling."

The San Francisco church has a great little website (click here) depicting its history which includes this appreciation for the original pastor who was a close friend of the naturalist John Muir:

"Worcester drew up the plans for the church himself. He "had his notion that the way to the door should lead through a garden in which the grass should be ever green, in which the first roses should bloom, in which the birds should gather to bath[e] at a fountain, in which the vines should start on their clinging course, holding fast to the bricks of the church, as the men and women should hold fast to the Bible. He pictured a church interior in which there should be no pretense, no plaster, no paint. He saw the heavy, timbered roof supported by great trees cut from the forest and the thick walls of concrete." (San Francisco Examiner, September 30, 1895) According to legend, Worcester himself went into the Santa Cruz mountains and selected the eight Madrone trees that support the roof."

"Worcester's architect, Page Brown, reportedly criticized his plans severely, especially perhaps the idea of leaving the bark on the interior beams. He reportedly expostulated to his theological client that, "This is not architecture!"-- to which Worcester made his now legendary reply: "I care nothing for the canons of architecture. The building must teach its lessons." When later told of the incident, Brown's chief architect responded, yes, he knew it was not architecture. It was, moreover, the poetry of architecture. According to Charles Keeler, one of Maybeck's closest friends, the budding young architect was deeply affected by his encounter with the gentle minister's ability to create wonderful feelings in his architectural endeavors and that Maybeck's own ideas were forever changed after seeing Worcester's Piedmont house in the early Eighties."

As it turned out, the small, historic church could not have been any more perfect for a Transcendental Musical Seance.

The three concerts making up the "New Music Seance" on Saturday, December 3rd at the Swedenborgian Church required a small cadre of professional friends and volunteers...



...including this piano tuner.



He was actually called back after the first concert because the cold within the church caused the high notes on the keyboard to go slightly out of tune almost immediately.



There was a professional videographer, Jonathan Doff, who was documenting the event with three large cameras and a rotating cast of volunteer photographers for a DVD.



Clyde Sheets was the production manager, lighting designer, and house manager all rolled into one. The way he dealt with a distinct lack of wattage (the circuits blew out at least three times over the course of the day) and the complex needs of the historical site was both calm and inspiring. I don't think I've ever seen a better production manager.



Some volunteers were helping to beautify the place...



...and also make food for the performers and crew during the marathon session.



Richard Friedman, the president of the Other Minds board, greeted the concertgoers and played usher when he wasn't attending to a multitude of other tasks.



The pianist Sarah Cahill was 17 years old when the local composer John Adams wrote a solo piano piece for her in 1977 called "China Gates" which was the penultimate piece on the last Seance program.



She has gone on to become one of the most articulate performers and advocates of modern classical composers in the world. To get to her website, click here.




Though Cahill performed the vast bulk of the music, there was also a violin and piano duo, Kate Stenberg and Eva-Maria Zimmermann respectively, who played relatively long (20 minutes) pieces in the middle of each concert.



Their first selection was Charles Ives' Second Sonata for Violin and Piano (1910); the second an amusingly lively proto-minimalist duet by the Danish Henning Christiansen called "Den Arkadiske" from 1966; and finally "Trois Regards" by Ronald Bruce Smith (1988), a very intense-looking Canadian composer in attendance at the concerts who had originally written the music for Kate Stenberg. I loved all three of the pieces.



Other Minds, a new music advocacy group, was presenting the concerts as a fundraiser for itself, and in the above photo the artistic director Charles Amirkhanian was showing off the Yamaha Disklavier, which could either be played live or preprogrammed like a player piano.

The programming was in the digital music format MIDI, which I learned about in the early 1990s at SF State's Multimedia School. Randall Packer, a composer himself, was teaching a course in digital audio that was fascinating but went way over my head. When he explained how musicians had gotten together in the early 1980s and created a standard set of numbers for digital musical notation, I asked him why the same thing hadn't happened in the digital graphics fields where there were so many competing file formats. "Musicians are usually nicer people," was his simple reply and one I've never forgotten.



Amirkhanian is a ferociously intelligent character with a dry wit. His brief professional bio on the Other Minds website (click here) reads as follows:

"When American composer John Cage died in the summer of 1992, the New Yorker ran an unattributed obituary: "His epitaph might read that he composed music in other peoples' minds." Reading this, Jim Newman suggested "Other Minds" as the name of the major international music festival that he was about to launch in San Francisco, with myself as Artistic Director.

This moniker fit aptly with my typical roster, as my lifelong specialty has been the showcasing, via radio, concert, and commercial recording production, the careers of originals and outsiders in avant-garde music. As an electroacoustic composer and sound poet myself, I served as Music Director of KPFA Radio in Berkeley from 1969 to 1992. In the Fall of 1992 I became Executive Director of the Djerassi Resident Artists Program in Woodside, California where I remained until early 1997."

Above, Charles was demonstrating the piano for the composer Gary Noland, an ex-Berkeley composer who now lives and works in Portland.



Noland had written a 15-minute piece for player piano in the late 1970s called "Grande Rag Brillante." According to the program, "The world premiere was broadcast live over KPFA FM to inaugurate its (then) brand new facility (in particular its Yamaha Disklavier grand piano) in Berkeley, California on October 4, 1991. The music is, without question, the longest and most technically demanding piano rag ever composed." The program note also claimed that Noland "has been called the most virtuosic composer of fugue alive today," which he later contested to me, but in any case the piece was extraordinary and lots of fun.



Also attending the concerts was Bunita Marcus, who wrote a lovely set of variations to John Lennon's "Julia."



From Emeryville, Daniel David Feinsmith had two pieces performed, "Amalek" for player piano and "Self," which required Sarah Cahill to recite a poetic essay by Emerson while playing clusters of notes on the piano.



The church only held seating for about 100 people, so that the place was literally packed to the rafters for all three concerts.



The first two pieces were called "Stars" and "Sunburst" from 1926 by Dane Rudhyar, a composer more famous for the dozens of books he wrote on the subject of 20th century astrology, which he essentially created by injecting the notion of "free will" into the equation. He died in San Francisco in 1985 and is still revered by his followers.



There couldn't have been a better start to the first concert than Rudhyar's music, which was played exquisitely by Sarah.

Seance Concert 3: Toward The Flame

Real theatrical magic is rare indeed, requiring the perfect alchemy of performers, audience, crew, place and time.



So when the magic does occur, there is a feeling of the miraculous being encountered and an air of celebration.



The three "New Music Seance" concerts at the 1895 Swedenborgian church were quite definitely magical, though until they actually occurred, nobody involved was quite sure the event was going to come off all that well.



During the break between the second and third concerts, a delicious meal was prepared by Carol Law and Victoria Shoemaker...



...for the performers...



...and crew...



...who were happily intermingling...



...with the composers.



In many theatrical situations, there is an unspoken hierarchy of composers/writers, principal performers, lesser performers, and crew.



This evening none of those hierarchies existed. It felt like early 20th century bohemianism, which the combination of eccentric music and church only emphasized.



Another reason the concerts were so successful were the audiences, one of the most raptly intelligent and appreciative groups of people I've ever been around.



About a dozen listeners opted in for the entire marathon of three concerts, including the Hillbrands above. "Why are you here?" I asked them, and they replied that their son Kyle was studying to be a composer in Manhattan and he had taken them to an Other Minds Music Festival when he was back in the Bay Area. So they'd taken a chance and were having a great time.



Charles Amirkhanian, the Artistic Director, had a vision of the church in total darkness with circular seating around the grand piano, which would require titles of some sort since it would be too dark to read the program. The vision proved to be impractical, and the stage became more proscenium-style, with candles lighting the perimeters of the church which turned out to be a perfect visual touch.



The titles idea remained, however, so I created a series of screens to be projected with the names of the composers and their compositions. For the deceased composers, I animated photos of them young and old across various earth/air/fire/water backgrounds. For reasons of sheer practicality, the projector needed to be in the back of the church above the fireplace so that the images were huge, and the photographic ghosts flew to the ceiling and the altar. It was great, and a happy accident.



As an audience member, the musical revelation for me were the four works by Henry Cowell (1897-1965). It made me want to hear everything he's ever written. The composer was raised locally in Menlo Park by very interesting sounding bohemian parents, and he went on to basically invent modern American classical music. For more on Cowell, including his four-year incarceration in San Quentin for being a homosexual during the 1940s, there's a good biographical essay in Wikipedia (click here).



There's also a wonderful appreciation written by Kyle Gann (click here), the composer and music writer for the "Village Voice" during the rag's salad days. Two of Gann's pieces were also included in the concerts, including the eponymous "Nude Rolling Down an Escalator" for player piano, which was great, wild music.



The concept of a seance involves conjuring spirits and there were plenty of those popping in during the day and evening for different people. A friend in the Oakland Hills, Nora Ellis, had been living with one cancer or another for the last 20 years and she had survived through sheer force of will until her son was grown. She died during the night on Friday, just before the concerts, and made an appearance at the church while Sarah Cahill was playing on the strings of the piano during Henry Cowell's wild and weird "The Banshee."



The program notes from Cowell explain the myth:

"A Banshee is a fairy woman who comes at the time of a death to take the soul back into the Inner World. She is uncomfortable on the mortal plane, and wails her distress until she is safely out of it again. The older your family, the louder your family banshee will wail, for she has had that much more practise at it."

As the hours wore on, many of us became exhausted, but the pianist Sarah Cahill seemed to be gathering strength and energy as the night continued. She was literally radiant for the final "Graceful Ghost Rag" by William Bolcom. What an extraordinary day.