Bryan Baker

Good morning. I’m your Director of Music, Bryan Baker. I conduct the adult choir most Sunday mornings, giving me the curious distinction of being often recognized by the back of my head. I want to tell you a little bit about what I do, and why it matters to me far beyond a paycheck. I have multiple jobs to make a living, keeping me busy, conducting here, playing there, teaching at the other place. The varying work-loads keep me juggling. On weeks like this one, the church requires my main focus: just today, there are two services, four different rehearsals, and the Messiah Sing-Along.

Sometimes it seems my life, so full of good work, is caught in a storm of activity. My partner says I need to slow down, and, now that I’ve passed 50, I sometimes believe him. Why am I so active? Am I running away from something? Hurrying to someplace? Both have been true, now I think I’ve just “grown accustomed to the pace.”

In September, Barbara Hamilton-Holway asked those of us at a worship planning meeting to think of the time we feel most alive, of why we are alive, and other easy questions. I usually feel alive doing music. But when am I most engaged, focused, leaving no room for anxieties and distractions? It is often when I am rehearsing with our choir, this wonderful group of people who commit so much of their time and energy to singing for you on Sundays.

Learning choral music is a complex and fascinating, and demanding, endeavor. Each part has it’s own melody, rhythm, times to sing and be silent: ‘high or low’, ‘fast or slow’, ‘yes or no’, loud or soft, connected or separated, bright or dark; and everything in between. Do we like them, do we agree with them, should we change any? How best to convey the meaning, the ineffable quality of music that carries it beyond the reach of words alone? Guiding a choir of mixed musical aptitudes and interests, keeping them focused on the task, encouraging growth and fellowship, and a certain amount of diva-management—this calls on my musical education, teaching experience, creativity, humor, love of people and passion for music. So much of me is fully engaged, I feel completely myself. When things come together on a Sunday, the members of the choir merge themselves into whole; the singing means something to them and reaches to you…that is a wonder. That is a religious experience. And a reason to be alive.

I have worked in many churches over more than 20 years. While there have been many happy moments, and musically satisfying ones, I have never been really comfortable. I have tried to ignore the words and been cautious about friendships, dreading the questions: “So, how is your faith, dear?” “Bryan, tell me about your relationship with Jesus.”

What a pleasure to be here, where people are not only good, but they think for themselves. Nowhere else has a sermon touched me or moved me (at least not in a good way). One of Barbara’s inspired me to start a diet, exercise and meditation. And one Bill gave after his father died that still moves me.

UUCB is a wonderful place to do music. The facilities are excellent; our organ the crowning glory, and the acoustic rich. The people are even better. I treasure our four splendid section leaders. I am truly and deeply honored to work with Barbara and Bill and Chris. I cannot say enough good about Michèle Voillequé, our Children’s Music Director and cantor, or our brilliant organist, Ron Swedlund. And you, this fascinating, varied, intelligent, active, discerning, involved community.

I seek music that will interest enough of you without irritating too many others, and mean something to enough without offending too many others. And music that blends with the service themes, while keeping the choir interested. It is enormously satisfying when we succeed and the varied service elements come together.

UUCB is full of remarkable people. I will never forget Jean Lipton breaking her foot in the middle of our performance of Side by Side by Sondheim, and refusing to go to the hospital until she’d sung her big solo. Francis Hanna dancing to Rod singing “Our Father who art in Heaven”, a song I thought I never wanted to hear again, yet being moved to tears. Two weeks ago the choir sang “The Promise of Living” accompanied by slides of scenes from their lives; last week, the hush as Lisa and Rod sang the duet “Sure on this Shining Night”; just Thursday, the choir recorded “May Sun Warm You” at the request of a member whose father had just passed away and wanted the comfort of that music.

I feel closest to a Creative Spirit, God when I am fully engaged intellectually and emotionally, and when I am with people joining together to reach beyond themselves to do something beyond the ordinary. I am glad to find myself so much alive here.

Michèle Voillequé

You know what I do on Sunday mornings. As we light the chalice, I sing something and you sing it back. At 10 o’clock, I rehearse the Youth and Children’s Choir in the RE Building. Some Sundays I leave the 11 o’clock service and support our volunteer facilitators in the Religious Education Program. On Thursdays, I meet as part of the worship team to go over orders of service, and plan worship for the coming weeks.

Behind the scenes, there’s finding music, learning music, planning lessons, teaching, improvising. The work is varied and good for me. I find it stretches me to capacity, and, doing the work, I feel my capacity increase.

I am trained in Orff-Schulwerk, which is an approach to music education that emphasizes the coequality of singing, dancing and playing as paths to learning. Orff-Schulwerk begins with the assertion that we are all inherently musical, and that we learn best by doing. As Carl Orff explained, “Tell me, I forget, show me, I remember, involve me, I understand.”

When I sing a phrase and you sing it back, I’m hoping that you can hear yourself as part of a larger whole. I hope that you feel grounded in your body, undistracted by books and ideas about how things ought to be. I hope that you get a glimpse of what makes music so vital to my own well-being.

There is a stillness in all that sound we make together. That stillness to me feels like a place. A place that is neither here, nor there, but everywhere, all at once.

I found this place as a child, playing the violin in a tiny orchestra. We were public school musicians in Idaho, not child prodigies of any sort. We discovered this ethereal/everywhere place because we felt safe in one another’s company, and we wanted to connect. As an adult, I find that I feel most alive when I am making music with other people, and teaching music – helping people to find their voice.

In February, I started a chorus for veterans staying at the Community Living Center in the San Francisco VA hospital. A couple of times a month, we gather in the dining hall and sing songs a cappella that they know by heart. The singers range in age from 60 to the mid-90s. Most are in wheelchairs. Together, we find this stillness in song. We feel safe in one another’s company, and in memory. We connect.

A couple of months ago, we started singing Christmas songs to prepare for the holiday party that will be held this Friday. After a verse of O Come, All Ye Faithful, one of the men said, “Excuse me, there’s just something I’ve gotta say. I was overseas for 5 years, and I didn’t think I’d ever see my people again. Folks I never met sent me Christmas cards, and those Christmas cards carried me through. I’m sorry I’m so emotional, but if you have a moment, could you please send a Christmas card to the folks overseas. They’d sure appreciate it.”

The song connected him to a painful part of his past, and yet, rather than being overcome with pain, he overflowed with gratitude. He continues to sing.

Every music teacher at some point gets asked the question, “Do you think my child has potential?” And, to be honest, the question of human capacity is much easier for me to wrap my head around. What is the potential of a man who’s lost one leg in the war, and another last month to diabetes? I have no idea. But his capacity for generosity and for music is immense, and needed by the world now.

I am convinced that musicians don’t look for jobs. We look for rooms to make music in, and trusted souls to make music with, so that we can spend more time at that ethereal/everywhere place, connected to the root of all things, stretched to capacity so that there’s room to grow again. I am so grateful to be offered this room, and these souls – you.

Whoever might have told you to “just mouth the words” was just plain wrong.

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