Editorial: Singing drowns out ‘War on Christmas’

12/26/2005

Twin Cities’ choral music tradition shines in December.

Star Tribune
Last update: December 23, 2005 at 4:21 PM

To endure the bleak midwinter of 2005-06 in Minnesota, to escape the frosty wind by finding a cozy spot amid hundreds of others now shedding their coats in the silent, darkened nave of the Basilica of St. Mary in downtown Minneapolis, then to feel from deep in the vast church a low chant growing steadily louder ("Of the Father’s love begotten Ere the worlds began to be ..."), and moments later to see in long procession the black-robed National Lutheran Choir flowing up the center aisle as candles appear, lights rise, the organ thunders and everyone stands to sing a carol, to experience all of these things is to doubt profoundly the truth of Fox News’ drumbeat about a War on Christmas.

What war? Everywhere in the Twin Cities we’ve gone in this magical season a chorus has been singing—at the mall, in the atrium of an office building, at a concert hall, in a church, on the radio. More than perhaps any city in the country, ours is marked by a tradition of fine choral music.

“There’s a special convergence here,” said Susan Palo Cherwien, herself a noted hymn writer. Most often mentioned are composers like Stephen Paulus, conductors like Philip Brunelle (see below), legends like Dale Warland, and groups like Cantus, Rose Ensemble, Twin Cities Gay Men’s Chorus, VocalEssence—but even to compile a list does injustice to the dozens of national figures who make choral music here, and to thousands of singers.

“This is the center of choral nation,” said Brian Newhouse of Minnesota Public Radio, “not only for the density of it, but for the quality.” But why here? Newhouse credits the choral tradition that Lutherans brought from northern Europe and cultivated in their local colleges—most notably at St. Olaf—and then exported to other religious and secular quarters.

Audiences are growing. For some, choral music brings a profound spiritual connection; for others a deep artistic appreciation totally apart from religion; and for still others a warm, fuzzy tie to celebrating the holidays.

There’s also a surprise factor. A generation of Minnesotans has grown to adulthood without the musical foundations once offered in public school. Even in churches, especially mega-churches, the trend has been toward a “dumbing down” of musical forms to the point that a good classical choir can easily astonish those who have never heard one.

But Minnesota’s choral tradition is more than just about listening. One recent evening a ragtag group of neighbors gathered almost spontaneously to sing carols, house to house, in St. Paul’s Macalester-Groveland neighborhood, even daring to serenade Warland’s home. Meanwhile, nearby, a group of 50 partygoers, drinks in hand, gathered around a piano in a living room while the hosts passed out sheet music for the King’s College-Cambridge Lessons and Carols Service, and the impromptu choir held forth in four-part harmony and, occasionally, in canon.

Singing, even if you can’t do it well, is therapeutic on many levels. It transforms the body into a musical instrument, and, if done with many others, creates something far greater than the sum of individual parts. That the celebration of Jesus’ birth compels choral music—whatever one’s faith or lack of it—is a gift to everyone and belies the resentful notion that there’s a War on Christmas.