Eric Wall

Friends,

You may have read a recent article in the New York Times (February 8) about film composer John Williams, who is ninety years old. In the article, he talks about what he has done for much of those ninety years—and how he anticipates shifting away from some of that work to new things. What a musician: entering his tenth decade with new energies and projects. I have long been grateful for what this composer shows us about music: the ways it accompanies, partners, illumines, and shares.

One of my earliest experiences of captivated orchestra-listening was the 1980 double-LP soundtrack to The Empire Strikes Back. (I still have it.) Somehow it was pivotal: it revealed something about the ways music can travel with and take part in a story. This composer has shown this as musician and person: in any interview or performance, he reveals kindness, grace, humanity, intellect; his arms, ears, and spirit are open wide; during curtain calls, he mostly gestures praise to the orchestra.

There are a whole lot of Williams recordings in my CD rack. They’re on the bottom shelf, alphabetically and maybe also metaphorically: they seem to signify near-the-floor values like collaboration, sharing, songfulness, curiosity, generosity, wonder, attending to stories, noticing other people. Film composer he may be—I think he’s secretly a church musician.

Thinking about these things, I suppose what inspires me comes down to a single word: accompanying. The term “accompanist” has sometimes given way to other words. Concert programs and music degrees sometimes favor terms like “collaborative pianist” or “chamber musician”—but I remain in the “accompanist” camp. Perhaps there is a worry that “accompanist” diminishes the musician, but the worry actually diminishes accompanying itself. After all, what is accompanying?

            listening

            guiding

            partnering

            sometimes leading

            sometimes following

            being present

            sensing

            walking alongside

John Williams is an accompanist. So are all of us in PAM—Accompanists Writ Large. There are many titles for our work: Director of Music, Minister of Music, Bandleader, Organist, Cantor, Choir Director, Pianist, Section Leader, Administrative Assistant, Teacher. I think we’re all mainly Accompanists, and I know I don’t want to be anything else. It’s what musicians and pastors have in common. There is no better calling for our crafts and gifts, no better calling for our humanity. The world needs Accompanists.

It's the work PAM is called to do: as our mission statement says, we are committed to the ways that this work of the people—this liturgical life—is formative and collaborative. We can’t do it alone. Thank you all for all the ways you take part in PAM, the various ways you do indeed help it to be the work of the people. Your support, presence, prayers, ideas, are all needed for such a time as this.

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And such a time as 2022 is bursting at the seams with PAM-ness. The 2022 Worship and Music Conference, “In the Stranger’s Guise”, is drawing near—so run, don’t walk, to register! Co-directors Krista Wright and Marlon Hurst and their Planning Team have imagined a wondrous conference and pulled together amazing people and ideas. Registrations are already climbing, and it’s only February! It’s Year 52 for PAM this conference—please don’t miss it!

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As you’ll read in this newsletter, PAM is in high gear. Our committees are flourishing; our visioning is deepening; our Board is a fantastic, committed group; our Executive Director, Kelly Abraham, seems to have a life-time contract with Energizer and is unflagging in her creative work for this organization. In addition, we are grateful for the work of Katherine Kupar, Lisa Myers, Elizabeth Myers, and Sandra McDonald in the PAM Office.  

Don’t forget one of our new initiatives: the Submission Based workshops that will debut at the 2023 Conference. Applications for these are due by March 1, so there’s still time. You’ll find all the information in this newsletter and on the PAM website. It’ll be a great way for us to learn from one another. Again: thank you for your love and support of PAM. As we head into this fifty-second year, we may not know what the stranger’s guise will bring, but we trust that God is in it.

Coincidentally, the article on John Williams appeared as I’d been listening for a week or so to his Bassoon Concerto, subtitled The Five Sacred Trees. Based on writings by poet Robert Graves, the subtitle evokes trees in Celtic mythology. As is usually the case, Williams writes a piece that, however virtuosic for the player, seems to allow the instrument to be its full, natural self. In this concerto, the bassoon does what it does so well: it muses and wonders; it scurries and bounces; it winks and jokes; the low register seems to be under the earth; the high register has ache and tenderness; and above all, it sings.

I think our work in the church in these two years has been bassoon-like. We have scurried frantically and bounced from change to change. We’ve been living and working in an aching, tender high register. And as probably any double-reed player can testify, just getting the breath into the instrument—into our work—has been hard enough. But, thanks be to God, we can also testify that we’ve seen, in new ways, how liturgy and song are—past, present, future—a low register, under-the-earth, bottom-shelf God-place.

So a bit of recommended listening: if you want to hear what, to me, is right music for this moment, listen to the final movement of this work. It sings sorrow and beauty, disquiet and transcendence. In a way, it doesn’t seem to end—just to pause, knowing that more is to come. Somehow it catches a tone for the time; it does good accompanying.  

As we approach Lent, let us keep each other in prayer for the roads ahead. A pandemic keeps striking back; systemic, societal injustice keeps striking back; life-fatigue keeps striking back. Like John Williams at ninety, we can look back—but we can’t go back. What is before us, as church musicians and pastors and lovers of worship and lovers of God, will call on who we’ve already been as well as who we are becoming: beloved creatures; servants and siblings; ones called to the holy work of journeying alongside.

Peace,

Eric