5/16/10 Sunday

Today we attended the Oxford ward on our way out to the colleges.  We sang three numbers in church, all hymns.  The setting was ideal for truly bearing my testimony of the savior through song.  I felt pretty passionately about the text of "I Stand All Amazed" it nearly brought tears to my eyes to bear testimony in the intimate setting of the chapel with this ward all eyes and ears for us.  It felt so right to perform that way. 

Our next stop was to practice with our respective colleges.  I sang with Lincoln College.  What an exciting challenge.  I felt the greatest challenge was following this choir master.  I just struggled to get used to the down beats being where the upbeats are in his conducting pattern.  It wouldn't be a big deal to do this and just keep tempo but, we were practicing the psalm and these are always performed with more free rhythm. Ahhhh....struggle.  In the end we managed to pull ourselves together on that one and the director was patient and very understanding with us.  Eventually the members of the choir started to show up and that made things way easier.  The piece we were all obviously strongest on was "Hail Gladdening Light".  We also did Purcell in G for the canticles and sight read a few hymns.  The first hymn was a since to sight read because we had just sung it in sacrament meeting "I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say".  muahahaha.  Our Purcell in G could have used another rehearsal for polishing but, the English don't seem too worried about perfection for their evensong and they are all pretty amazing sight readers.  

After the rehearsal we had tea with the Oxford students and chatted about school, music, and everyone was pretty interested in hearing about our study abroad.  I found out that this particular choir is auditioned but it's composed of students from some of the different colleges at Oxford and many of them aren't even studying music, like many of the students in our study abroad.  We also chatted about the differences between their hymns and ours, the differences in musical terminology, and the differences between our unis (what people call University in England).  I had a particularly fun conversation with a girl who was asking how many counts a dotted minim (dotted half note) would get in 6/8 time and I had fun explaining that it's the same count wise, just a different name...6 beats of course.  A little bit of basic theory mmm fun.

My experience at Oxford was absolutely wonderful.  I could see that the tradition of choral music is incredibly alive there and we were fortunate to sing with an interesting and talented group of individuals.  More than anything, I could tell that these individuals were all friends.  They enjoy singing together and they get a kick out of sight reading each Sunday together.  

-most amazing day at Oxford

-first we attended the local LDS services

*chatted with the locals

*had a munch and mingle

*sang in the meeting

*they do their meetings backwards

-headed out first, after some confusion, to rehearse with Lincoln College

*just us at first

*others joined, one girl asked me if we sing a cappella in America...ummm yes.

*tea with the students

*evensong

*drinks and mingling with people in the congregation and the clergy

*dinner-so fancy, felt like Harry Potter, great conversation about music and culture and social things, Tim gave me his meal and got his late, students stand as the fellows walk in, invite for more drinks but we had to go to catch our coach

-met up with everyone and boasted about how awesome our experience was, it seemed like nobody felt their experience was that great

-slept on the bus ride back

-scott carried me home because he's awesome like that

5/15/10 Saturday at Oxford

Today I had the privilege of attending the New College evensong rehearsal.  I heard from the small group that attended their rehearsal yesterday that these children are incredible musicians.  Sister Hall asked who would like to attend the rehearsal and I shot up my hand.  She took the first six she saw and what a treat it was to watch these little boys working on such thick repertoire!  They practiced music for their evensong and some for their other concert engagements.  This rehearsal was conducted like a well oiled machine.  The boys quickly moved between pieces (silently), they helped each other, and they answered questions about theory.  I just went over the modes with Matt yesterday and I was blown away that these children were already well trained enough to know what mode they were singing in.  There was also a portion of rehearsal where the conductor pointed to each child in turn to check how well they knew the piece and how well they were singing it.  If one boy messed up the director would stop and ask "what happened there?" and the boy would answer with something like "I keep singing the fifth sharp" or something like that.  The director would say "what are you going to do?" and the boy would say "fix it".  What dedication from such a young musicians.  I learned a few things from this rehearsal but mostly that children are so capable!  If you set the standard high and encourage them in the proper ways, they will rise to the occasion.

We attended evensong there with them.  They sang an introit, Stanford's "ascendit", responses Howells "St. Paul's Service", and Finzi's "God is Gone Up".  It's been so fun to listen to the songs that we studied in culture class before coming to England being performed live and by some pretty incredible and well respected choirs.

-roam with Logan

-headshots

-covered market for Scott's man bag (he didn't purchase) and umbrella that he loved but didn't get, he says in his blog it's because he didn't want to spend the money and cart it home...the real reason is that it was blue and had accents that he felt were to feminine.  

-tour with Ruth, seeing where famous people went to school

-oxford time, thus us being on time to Christ's Church meant we were 5 minutes early

-sandwiches at Mortens, ate there 2x. :) sooo fresh and yummy, lovely courtyard

-Asmolean Museum

-New College evensong, scott experienced the choir the day before

-6 people at the rehearsal, very intimate setting, got to do all that with Scott

-not open to the public, just students

-sleeping on the bus back

5/14/10

Today was our first of three days at Oxford.  I've been looking forward to this experience as a highlight for the entire program.  We split into groups and headed off to different choir schools to observe these young singers and some students even got to tutor these children in music.  We followed Sister Hall to the Dragon School, a private school for boys and girls.  I really enjoyed observing these two choir classes.  These children are ages 8 to 12 and quite a well behaved but energetic group.  Their teacher was great at captivating their attention.  I felt like I was watching Marry Poppins directing music she was just such a ball of energy.  They did some simple warm ups.  It was intriguing that these kids pronounced the African text in the warm up as if it was french.  I was blown away that they all study English, French, Latin, and Greek.  Amazing.  It was fun to see music be taught in this way.  Such a contrast from what we have been hearing from the children at the Choir Schools associated with the cathedrals and abbeys.

That evening I attended evensong at Christ Church with the same group of students.  I was really impressed by the acoustics in their church and the warm tone created by the boys in the choir.  

-first day at Oxford

-split into groups

-dragon school

-Jess, Nick, me trying to get ahead and do our own thing

-market time: bought bread, jessica goes crazy over scarves

-gathering for evensong at Christ's Church College

-purchase stockings

-take off on busses

Parallels

There are many similarities between the exodus of Latter Day Saints across the plains to the west and the exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt.  First, the leaders of each exibition were similar in faith and experience.  Moses learned his leadership skills through the time he spent in the military.  Similarly, Brigham Young learned under the stewardship of the prophet Joseph Smith and worked along side him during the difficult move from Missouri to Nauvoo.  There is no question that each of these leaders experienced trials and the Lord knew these trials would come.  We read in Exodus and in D&C 136 as the Lord promises that if his appointed leaders and his chosen people would endure these trials, they would be blessed for each of these groups were God's "chosen people".  Both leaders had the Lord's blessing and guidance upon beginning these journeys and believed from the beginning that it was the will of the Lord that they do so.

In D&C 136 we also read that the saints were promised they need not fear their enemies; that the Lord would "do (his) pleasure with them".  This was also the case with the Israelites who crossed through the parted Red Sea that came crashing down over the Egyptians, their enemies, who were chasing after them. Each of these groups witnessed miracles along the way.  The Lord promises, "marvel not at these things, for ye are not yet pure; ye can not yet bear my glory; but ye shall behold it if ye ae faithful in keeping all my words".  He would show them his glory after the trial of their faith which, since they were tried from the beginning, I think he showed them bits of His glory along the way, helping them keep hope and faith.  The Mississippi River even froze over for them to cross.  This parallel to the children of Israel is a pretty clear one to me!

At the end of their journeys, it is true to say that both groups suffered immeasurably.  Yet, for those who made it to the promised land, they could see the hand of the Lord in it.  The Lord does keep his promises.  In Exodus 13, Moses tells his people "remember this day, in which ye came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by the strength of the hand of the Lord brought you out from this place".  The saints knew this was also true for them and they established a headquarters in Salt Lake.  

It's incredible to study and compare these two groups of the Lord's faithful.  Both suffered immeasurably but in the end were blessed immeasurably.  We read account after account of these miracles in the lives of the saints who crossed west.  The Lord keeps his promises.

The Crandall Printing Museum

Did you know that the WORLDS most complete Guggenheim printing "shop" is in Provo Utah?  Seems random doesn't it.  Well, that is what I thought before I visited this little gem of a museum last week.  Mr. Crandall started printing when he was 14 and learned that trade from his father.  It was this apprenticeship that fostered within him a love for printing.  After trying his hand at the business and other business ventures such as building a theme park (half the size of Disneyland) the mayor of Provo asked him to come and start a similar theme park project in Provo which never came to fruition and he started his printing museum instead.

     This museum takes you through the history of printing from Guggenheim's printing of the Bible to the printing of the Book of Mormon.  Through the tour it becomes evident in the discussion of history that printing played an important role in religious and secular history.  Words printed on the page were expressions of spirituality, a means of exchanging ideas, spreading messages, and leading us in our first steps toward globalization.

   I enjoyed this experience most of all as it related to the restoration of the Christ's church on the Earth.  We looked at how the development of printing lead so beautifully and in perfect time for the printing of the Book of Mormon which would allow missionaries and church leaders a tangible set of doctrine to differentiate them from other faiths but also to build on the truths in the Bible.  The most incredible part of the museum experience is the way Mr. Crandall explained how nearly impossible it would have been for so many books to be printed in such a short amount of time but, they had a goal of 5,000 copies to make in a very short amount of time and the men in that print shop made it happen miraculously and, for those of faith, we believe it happened by the hand of the Lord.  It's incredible to think about and watch how long it would have taken to go through each of the steps necessary to create a book, even with all the technological advancements since Guggenheim's first printing of the Bible.  It was truly a miracle.  Another facet of my testimony of the Book of Mormon being a true and wonderful book, there was so much effort put into providing these precious words for the world to read and it is truly a blessing.

Teachings Becoming Scripture

Modern and continuing revelation is a subject of controversy when it comes to Latter Day Saints in the Christian community.  It's easy to question how the teachings of modern church leaders can be accepted as not only doctrine but as being from the Lord himself and worthy of being cannonized.  As a member of the LDS church, I feel that this modern day revelation is necessary and truly from God.  I've never had a prophet lead me in a direction that didn't feel right.  I've only seen good things from following the revelation and guidance given through religious leaders today.  

During Joseph Smith's time, there was no radio, no Ensign (a church magazine that is published and distributed world wide), no internet for reading talks or hearing podcasts, no television for recording and re-broadcasting church meetings where revelations were given.  We rely heavily on what was recorded by individuals attending Joseph Smith's sermons and meetings where he taught and revealed to the saints what the Lord would have them do.  At the time the Doctrine & Covenants was compiled, some of Joseph Smith's sermons were added into this set of scripture.  I can see that these teachings often explained things he had counseled with the Lord about and received answers to his own questions.  He was also teaching about things that may not be explained in other places in scripture or expounds on doctrine found in the Book of Mormon and the Bible.  It's a blessing to have these teachings preserved in the Doctrine and Covenants.

The Joseph Smith Papers

It's been an interesting experience to look at the Joseph Smith papers, to read the text, to ponder all that they imply historically and doctrinally.  This book is one of many in a planned series.  A compilation of Joseph Smith's notes and the notes of others as they documented the revelation that Joseph was receiving.  Many of the documents recorded in the Joseph Smith Papers are not found anywhere else.  Certain revelations from these papers were used in the Doctrine and Covenants but not all.  Thus, through the Joseph Smith Papers, we get a more complete look at all the doctrine and organizing that was taking place in the early days of the church.

I've particularly enjoyed noticing the consistent manner of speech used in the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Joseph Smith Papers.  Part of that I'm sure is due to conformities from writer to writer and the way of speaking in those days.  I like to see that the consistency in language makes the works more tied together.  Not that the Joseph Smith Papers should be cannonized but, they are certainly a valuable supplement to scripture.

In the particular sections I've read through, there is one about creating a court of justice for religious matters.  In reading about the organizing of such a court, I naturally compare this court to state and federal courts of justice.  It seems fitting that a court for spiritual matters would have more clearly defined "rights and wrongs" but so much more forgiving and justice.  Then  I compare the organizing of such a court to that of courts in heaven.  God is merciful and he gives us a lifetime of opportunity to come unto him and receive all that he has.  When judgment day arrives, the only thing that will matter is if we tried, followed Christ, and endured.