Concert series facilitates interfaith perspectives on life

Music facilitates interfaith dialogue in the Jay Phillips Center’s latest concert series, “Echoes of the Divine.” The two concerts in the series, the first of which occurred last Monday, feature music from prominent Christian and Jewish artists, including J. S. Bach, Ernest Bloch, Max Bruch, Arvo Pärt, Nikolai Kapustin, Paul Ben-Haim, Isabella Leonarda and Felix Mendelssohn.

The final concert of the series will occur on April 20 at 7:30 p.m. in the chapel of Emmaus Hall at SJU. The concerts feature pianist Amy Grinsteiner, a professor of music at CSB+SJU, and cellist Thomas Schönberg, a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute. David Jordan Harris serves as moderator and artistic consultant for the events, having spent many years as a vocalist across a variety of ensembles and acted as the founding executive director of Rimon: The Minnesota Jewish Arts Council. The concerts aim to create a space in which audience members and musicians alike can enter into conversation about the cultural significance of music, something that has the power to transcend the boundaries commonly associated with religious practice.

In today’s world especially, Harris finds it important to learn from those around you, creating a community that is understanding of all cultures and backgrounds.

“Part of your education is actually to embrace that variety [and] difference—to learn how to be an articulate exponent of your own background but also a sensitive listener,” Harris said. “The arts are the preeminent form of listening in the world.”

Unlike many classical music concerts, the “Echoes of the Divine “series is presented salon style, encouraging audience members to actively participate whether through asking questions or sharing how a particular piece of music spoke to them. Discussion at Monday night’s concert surrounded the stylistic choices of the composers as well as how musical compositions can aid in one’s understanding of religious struggle and joy.

“Music speaks to a different part of us as human beings. There is a certain cohesion and opportunity when being moved in a new way,” Harris said. “That comes from making music with people from different backgrounds or hearing new types of music that have been passed back and forth between different communities.”

John Merkle, the director of the Jay Phillips Center, worked alongside Harris, Grinsteiner and Schönberg to select compositions that fit the theme of the series as well as exemplified interfaith connections between Christianity and Judaism.

“Max Bruch is a Christian composer who happened to lift up one of the most well-known Jewish melodies that dates back to the Middle Ages,” Merkle said. “He, alongside many other composers, created a classical orchestration or rendition of folkloric and liturgical music.”

The concerts are unique in that they showcase instrumental music. In focusing on classical compositions rather than traditional hymns, the concert encourages audience members to actively think about the ways in which the melodies speak to them, a unique challenge especially in the realm of interfaith music.

“There are many reasons why not using words is considered an elevated form of expression, but that is one of the challenges we’ve given ourselves [as] the cello and the piano are not using liturgies or texts,” Harris said. “And yet we have this experience in hearing this music, of feeling transported in a way that we are saying is an echo of the divine.”