Soli Deo Gloria

Project Uplift: Hungary 2010

home > Project Uplift

Delta David Gier rehearsing
with Crescendo students

In the work of Project Uplift, we usually seek to bring great works of sacred music to regions of the world where they are seldom heard. In 2010, however, Project Uplift went to Hungary, where there is already an abundance of music and arts in this center of Eastern European culture.

For two weeks, SDG had the opportunity to support the work of Crescendo International at their Crescendo Summer Institute of the Arts, August 2-16, 2010, in Sárospatak, just outside of Budapest. Something along the lines of the MasterWorks Festival in the U.S., the Institute provides aspiring young musicians a chance to work with master musicians in an atmosphere where creativity and exploration happen and in recognition of artists connections to the Creator, The Institute is organized by the Song for the Nations Cultural Foundation, whose aim is to discover talented young artists and strengthen them in their art and faith to help create a positive impact in post-communist countries.

Crescendo students singing
Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus

Two SDG board members actively participated in this year’s Institute. Conductor David Delta Gier joined the Crescendo faculty to prepare students and conduct the “Galaconcert” on Thursday, August 15, 2010, as part of the renowned Zemplen Festival, a two-week cultural event featuring classical and contemporary music by first-class Hungarian and international musicians. The program featured a new SDG-commissioned work by SDG’s Composer-in-Association, Peter Bannister—Hermosura de Dios, a song cycle for soprano, choir and chamber orchestra based on the poetry of Saint Teresa of Avila—along with Daniel Kellogg’s Mozart’s Hymn.

Peter Bannister and David Gier
after the premiere of Bannister's
Hermosura de Dios

One 22-year-old Hungarian student had this to say about the premiere of Hermosa de Dios (even with the odd incident of the electricity going out in the middle of the concert!): ”I was amazed at the world premiere of the Bannister piece. I really enjoyed it. At the concert, I sat back and was soaking in the music. And it could not have had a better closing at the end than the electricity cut off. It was if everything wanted us to calm down. It was fantastic."

In the words of the Insitute photographer, “The spiritual side of Crescendo Summer Institute is one thing that makes the course stand out from other master courses offered throughout Europe. We build relationships with students and through engaging our art forms together in the classroom, in performance, in chapel services and in small group discussion,”—Jonathan Bailey

The Institute received wide media coverage within Hungary, from the two largest national television stations, MTV1 and HIRTV, and several radio stations broadcast. Internet portals noted the Institute as the most prestigious masterclass in Eastern Europe. Shortly after the Institute’s conclusion, we received this grateful acknowledgement from the Crescendo staff for SDG’s support:

“We are very thankful for Delta David Gier’s work among the students and for Peter Bannister’s world premiere. It was an excellent performance with full house audience and a very focused, intense and rich concert. Thank you, Soli Deo Gloria, for the support and cooperation!”—Fruzsina Kovács, for the Crescendo Institute staff

While the experience was a world away from most of our daily lives, it was an inspiring two weeks that impacted students and professionals alike.

Click here to read our news report on the Crescendo Institute.

Click here to read our newsletter article on Crescendo.

Composer Peter Bannister offers
an inside view of the experience

It was a great joy to be present in Sárospatak, for a whole number of reasons, of which I'll mention just three here. Firstly, participating in the preparation of the first performance of a work is always a specially intense experience for me as a composer. Maybe it's my instinct as a performer and coach, but I regard hands-on engagement with singers and players in the process as an extremely enriching and integral part of what it means to translate music from the written page into living sound. For one thing it reminds the composer that the musicians are co-creators of the performance, each of whom brings a personal story to bear upon it.

Discovering those stories in community opens up a human dimension which isn't present when a piece is being written in the isolation of the composer's studio; indeed, there are certain aspects of the music which can only emerge communally. The sharing of artistic control that this kind of engagement with performers implies may be threatening to some composers, but I see it as liberating.

Secondly, it was wonderful to be able to converse with people at various professional levels who have an intuition of what's involved spiritually in the act of music-making. I was very impressed by the way in which musicians such as David Gier or Crescendo faculty members such as Ellen Rose (principal viola, Dallas Symphony Orchestra) and Julian Poore (trumpet, Chamber Orchestra of Europe) were able to pin-point and articulate the issues at stake in being a professional musician, inspiring the students to deeper personal reflection regarding vital and thought-provoking questions. Has our society lost the sense of transcendence upon which the classical musical tradition is built? How do we escape from the individualism and competition inherent in so much musical training that is at odds with what an orchestra is all about? How do we deal spiritually with the unhealthy ambition and the desire for fame or power that are omnipresent in the music industry? It is one thing to mull over things like this personally (or to mouth off about them on an internet blog), but quite another to do so in the context of a dynamic inter-personal exchange.

Thirdly, travelling to Hungary served to remind me of the great vitality and potential of Central and Eastern Europe. It was inspiring to see so many enthusiastic and talented participants not only from Hungary but also Romania, Poland and Russia; at a time when Western Europe seems to be going through a time of stagnation in so many ways, burdened down by a rich but fading cultural heritage, it is refreshing to realize that many young Europeans from behind what was the Iron Curtain still have a basic spontaneity and sense of initiative that looks forward rather than back. Things may not be as 'efficient' in this corner of Europe as in the West, but what may be lacking in 'slickness' is more than made up for in enthusiasm, energy and a basic humanity which so much mass-media Western culture has done its best to eradicate, to all our impoverishment. In this context I was reminded of some recent words of theologian Jürgen Moltmann in a discussion with international students here in Paris. Asked what it was like to be a professor in Tübingen, one of the world's most historically prestigious universities, he remarked 'Tübingen has a long past and maybe a short future. I prefer places with a short past and a long future.' The Crescendo Institute in Sárospatak is such a place. Or rather, it takes a great past (the Calvinist College where the institute is held dates back to 1531) that has been lying dormant for a while—Communism having tried to replace it with busts of Lenin in every classroom—and re-vitalizes it with an artistic and spiritual hope for tomorrow that is hope for us all.

Crescendo Report from Delta David Gier

Participating in the Crescendo Festival in Sarospatak, Hungary this past summer was such a privilege, not least because it was a wonderful cross-section of the body of Christ. It consisted of people from literally all over the world, coming together to create beautiful art and to explore the important question of how their artistic expressions intersect with faith. Not everyone was a card-carrying believer, to be sure - quite the opposite. During the discussion groups which convened each evening, the conversations were often hard-hitting, going right to the heart of the Christian faith and its relevance to our society. Most of the participants were European, having grown up under either atheistic communist regimes or in post-Christian western European societies. But far from people being antagonistic, everyone came to these sessions with open minds and willing to share from their experiences, which made for very lively interactions, often quite personal in nature. I came away wanting more, asking myself if I shouldn't be engaging in those kinds of conversations more regularly.

Musically it was rewarding on several different levels. The members of the orchestra I conducted were not so used to playing in a large ensemble, most of them coming to the festival to focus on solo and/or chamber music. Our rehearsals were intense and quite thorough, as the program included a Beethoven symphony (No. 4), a world premiere and another contemporary piece with which no one was familiar. These last two were both Soli Deo Gloria works, Daniel Kellogg's "Mozart's Hymn" (formerly Praegustatem, premiered by John Nelson and the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris) and Peter Bannister's new song cycle "Hermosura de Dios," on texts of Teresa of Avila. The performance was quite a success, despite a particularly nasty storm which moved the concert from the courtyard of a castle into the Reformed Church. (The electricity actually went out right at the intermission, following Peter's premiere, but fortunately was restored in time to play the Beethoven!)

Rehearsals were also an opportunity to focus on how our faith and art intersect. We kept coming around to the question of why we do what we do. The principle has applications in any field, but for musicians in an orchestra it is essential to come to rehearsals and performances grounded in who you are and why you are a member of the orchestra. Orchestras are full of unhappy people who blame their unhappiness on their circumstances - conductors, stand partners, administrators - and who seem to be waiting for someone else to make them happy. As Christians, it is vital that we come offering our talents as a gift to God and to others, maintaining that perspective as we encounter each challenge. Without it, we will succumb to the same pressures and will end up having our gifts diminished. After the performance in Sárospatak (the final concert of the festival), one violinist came up to me and said, "I realized tonight for the first time why I am sitting here." That made the whole trip worthwhile in itself.