Going through the Motions

I attended a concert at Segerstrom Hall in Orange County on Thursday.  The Pacific Symphony has been led by Carl St. Clair for nearly 30 years.  Thirteen years ago, when I was a Sophomore at the University of Southern California, Maestro St. Clair conducted us in Tchaikovsky's Pathetique.

Watching him from the "other side," as an audience member rather than an orchestra musician was very interesting.  He memorizes the entire concert and does away with the baton.  He conducts with us entire body, including his face.  His ethos is that of listening closely.

It may come as a surprise that not all orchestra conductors value listening in that way.  Many musicians rely on the baton for the beat, or sometimes, conductors have to adjust their beat to what musicians (often the loudest ones, like brass or timpani) have already set.

St. Clair achieves a kind of unity, drawing out sound from the orchestra as if it were a single organism with many parts.  Every note is meaningful, even notes that most conductors would pass through in order to get to the climax.

Carl St. Clair is not one to simply go through the motions.  In nearly a decade of orchestra experience, he was my favorite conductor, and playing under his leadership was a transformational, transcendent experience.

In life and art, do we go through the motions, or do we let the motions go through us?  In the journey of faith, do we do what's expected of mature Christians, or do we let faith take us wherever it needs to go?  Some people I know feel that Jesus has led them out of Evangelicalism.  Others may denounce such claims.  I wonder what Jesus would say to all of that.

In my Wednesday evening class on Contemplative Practices, our professor says, "We do the practice, but sometimes, the practice does you."  Few experiences in life allow for a feeling of transformation and transcendence.  But the arts the mysticism strive to.

Carl St. Clair is one of the longest tenured conductors of a major American orchestra.  Perhaps the secret to this longevity is the transformational, transcendent power of music, and his willingness to fully embody and channel its power.