Music
Sisters set prayers of human heart into
song
By MATT STOULIL
Christian faith is supported by
prayer. Each one of us communicates with God in widely different ways, though
prayer in song is a popular vehicle.
New York-based sisters and musicians Suzzy and Maggie Roche have
collaborated with others on a work of song and spirit called Zero
Church, an album containing prayers that the Roches have set to
music.
When we began our search for prayers, I wasnt sure
what we were doing, Suzzy Roche told NCR. Its amazing
because [the prayers were] just randomly collected, but [the album] comes
together as one piece. These works are wrought with emotion, as are most
prayers offered up on a daily basis from the trenches of work, family life or
ministry.
Anyway is a famous prayer that can be found hanging on
the wall at Mother Teresas Missionaries of Charity orphanage in Calcutta,
India. It was originally written by Kent Keith in 1968 and titled The
Paradoxical Commandments.
People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self
centered Forgive them anyway
What you spend years building,
someone could destroy overnight Build anyway
The good you do
today, people will often forget tomorrow Do good anyway.
Sounds was written by Karen Bashkirew in response to
the murder of Matthew Shepard in October 1998 in Laramie, Wyo. An openly gay
student at the University of Wyoming, 22-year-old Shepard was robbed,
pistol-whipped and left for dead tied to a fencepost by two men who had posed
as homosexuals. The lyrics describe how sounds of despair hang unerased in
time. This reflection was based on Shepards mothers grieving as
seen in television coverage of the event.
Can you imagine the sounds she made when she
heard what they did to her child These sounds are streaking through
space forever.
Zero Church was conceptualized by the Roches
and compiled at the Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue at Harvard
University during the summer of 2001. The album is a collection of prayers
written mostly by participants in the institute community, with some
traditional pieces also included. Once the prayers were selected, the Roches
composed nearly all the music to accompany them. The prayers were recorded at
the Shinebox in New York.
The album draws its name from an address. Zero Church Street in
Cambridge, Mass., is the address of a church where many of the institute
meetings and rehearsals took place.
Founded by Anna Deavere Smith and funded in part by the Ford
Foundation, the institute focuses on artistic collaboration and discovery while
exploring issues of race, identity, diversity and community. Visiting artists
come together with an audience at the institute to work on various projects,
and the Roches saw this as the place to begin their prayer collection.
The album does not focus on a certain type of prayer, nor does it
center on any one religious denomination. Zero Church contains
traditional spirituals, as well as prayers in poem form, life reflections and
prayers of Hispanic and Jewish origin.
Teach Me O Lord is a traditional hymn for wisdom and
guidance, and Hallelujah is a prayer of an AIDS patient that has
seen the face of death and found hope along the way.
New York City is a prayer about Sept. 11. Suzzy Roche
composed the words and music for this piece.
New York City is down on her knees New York City is
praying
Can we push the clouds of fear apart and rest our sadness
on Thy heart?
The original release date of the album by Red House Records was
Sept. 11. It had been postponed, and the Roches were putting the final touches
on Zero Church that fateful week. On the morning of the
terrorist attacks, Roche was walking her dog. As she rounded the corner at
Ninth Avenue, she saw the World Trade Center transform into a fireball.
My mind couldnt make sense of it, she said.
A woman contacted Suzzy Roche and asked her to sing at a memorial
service for one of the firehouses: Squad One in Brooklyn. I just
couldnt think of anything I could sing. I said a prayer that day, and
asked for a song to sing for those people. The song New York
City, which she wrote, was the answer to that prayer. So many
people asked for a copy of that song that we figured we would just put it on
the record.
Suzzy, Maggie and a third sister, Terre Roche have been performing
music together since they were young. Weve been singing together
for our whole lives. We grew up in the Catholic church singing in choirs, so we
were very well-suited to do this project, said Suzzy Roche. Terre, as
well as David Roche, their brother, are guest vocalists on the album.
Suzzy and Maggie Roche, along with a group of about 30 others,
will be performing the prayers of Zero Church in New York
April 12-14 at Arts at St. Anns. The Roches are also asking people from
the community to contribute new prayers at the performance. The idea is to keep
the project constantly evolving. Said Suzzy Roche, Prayer is a huge
subject matter. You could go on for years.
So much religious music is sappy, sentimental or
irrelevant. These songs take the cries and whispers of the human heart and
raise them to high art and good listening. As one of the songs, a Shaker hymn,
puts it:
I know how to pray
for God has blessed me
with a broken heart and true godly sorrow for sin.
Related Web sites
Red House
Records www.redhouserecords.com
The
Roches www.roches.com
Matt Stoulil is NCR layout assistant. His e-mail address
is mstoulil@natcath.org
National Catholic Reporter, April 12,
2002
|