Growing up was like having all of Spotify on shuffle. As the youngest of four siblings, I was subjected to all of their (and my parents’) musical tastes: the Beatles, Shakira, the Cranberries, Backstreet Boys, Gaelic Storm, the Grateful Dead, etc. As one can imagine I developed quite an eclectic ear. I watched my siblings make music of their own: trombone, bass guitar, choir. While waiting to reach the age where I could be in band, I settled for plastic recorder.
Jump to age 11, when I first picked up a clarinet in band. My aspirations were to play jazz baritone saxophone (thanks to Lisa Simpson). I rushed home as if I had a new puppy and practiced as long as my face would let me.
Jump to two weeks into that school year. A dusty flute case lay untouched in the corner of our house’s sunroom. Bored of my clarinet exercises, I put the tarnished silver flute together and huffed out some notes for fun.
Jump to 10 years later, 2017. In the spring I will have a bachelor’s degree in classical flute performance. Tempus fugit, as they say.

My musical roots are anything but conventional. Many of my peers began studies on their instrument by as early as age three and as late as age nine. Beethoven symphonies and Mozart concerti were their families’ roadtrip music of choice, as opposed to the “O’ Brother, Where Art Thou?” soundtrack in mine.
I picked up music simply because it was fun.
Perhaps it’s no surprise that the music I most often perform is not by Beethoven and Mozart, but by contemporary composers. When I say “contemporary,” I’m essentially referring to classical music written after the year 1940 through today, though this is admittedly a fairly blurry distinction.
Now, contemporary classical music has a reputation. Picture a Jackson Pollock painting. The casual viewer, discerning no clear subject in the noise and density of the endless smatterings of paint, says, “That’s not art.” Much of contemporary classical music (often referred to as just “new music”) comes under the same pedestrian scrutiny. When music deviates from harmony, melody, even conventional instrumental “sounds,” we say, “That’s not music.”
As a Christian artist, I find this reputation problematic.

There is a gulf in the Christian community between sacred and secular art and culture. Sacred music and art is safe to interact with — no chance of upsetting God or becoming too immersed in the world there. What the Christian community fails to realize, however, is that secular art and culture and God are not mutually exclusive.
At my school, a music conservatory, not only am I actively involved in the new music community, but also our InterVarsity Christian Fellowship chapter. I serve on the executive board and am in my third year of small group leading. In my four years, I have been the only chapter member involved in the new music community.

When we discuss sacred music, we think of J.S. Bach. Bach was not only a Christian, but a church musician, who tirelessly composed cantatas for the weekly liturgy. “Soli Deo Gloria” (“Glory to God alone”) was inscribed to his scores, linking much of his compositional output to his faith. On a basic level, Bach’s compositions have all the makings of what we associate with music: melody, harmony, counterpoint, a beginning, middle, and an end. Signed Soli Deo Gloria. Clearly worship music. But even Bach wrote secular music. BWV 211, otherwise known as his “Coffee Cantata,” is a humorous story about, you guessed it, coffee. “Ah! Just give me some coffee!” the deprived soprano cries in desperation. Secular though the piece is, however, the composer is still a Christian.
The real gulf seems to appear when the focus turns away from God, when the composer is not a follower of Christ, when the music becomes “unharmonious,” for lack of a better word. For example, Luciano Berio’s Sequenze, a series of pieces written between 1958 and 2002 to test the musical and technical capabilities of solo instruments and their performers. They are ferociously difficult, and laugh at the conventions of melody and form. Paula Robison, a legend of flute in her own right and a Christian with whom I was fortunate enough to share a recent correspondence, had this to say about the Sequenza for Flute: “[The Sequenza] is about the here and now; it scoffs at any thoughts of the eternal...it depends on the virtuosity and daring of the performer...and yet?? Why is it immortal? Why is ‘Sequenza’ a work of art destined to outlive us all?”
What was so exciting about hearing these words from Paula was that her intimate knowledge of the Sequenza came not only from a lifetime of performing the piece, but from her identity in Christ. She acknowledges that the piece was not written to glorify God, that it perhaps even mocks his authority, and yet understands that there is a greater, timeless quality to the piece than perhaps the composer understood. The Sequenze speak to parts of the human experience that are chaotic, frantic, relentless. Can they not glorify our God?
Flutist Jennie Oh Brown, a mentor of mine and a Chicago freelancer and professor of flute at Wheaton College, shared with me her thoughts. “[God] is omnipotent, having created everything that is part of our existence...He uses all of it to His purpose and glory. So, in essence, it is impossible to separate anything in art from God.” Our God is the ultimate creator. By his grace he has endowed to us free will and limitless capabilities to create and express. When we snuff the abstract and secular and bolster only the familiar and sacred, we miss out on seeking the fullness of God’s glory.
As a Christian, to create is to praise. As David says in Psalm 139:

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”

Our God is the artist above all artists. For several years, because I was the only member of my Christian fellowship playing new music, I feared there was a conflict of interest at hand. Would the secular elements associated with new music impede my walk with Christ? Performance after performance, this remains true: God’s works, all of them, are wonderful. True, I play new music because it is fun and perhaps unconventional; my musical path has been such since birth. But every artist, from J.S. Bach to Luciano Berio, is fearfully and wonderfully made, creating art by the love and grace of God. My duty and privilege as an artist is to engage: first with God, and then with art. Our art cannot be only beautiful and sacred (which is not to say that all new music is ugly or secular; that’s a topic for another post). Nor is it to say that we should interact heedlessly with art regardless of its message. As I said: engage first with God. From there, our art can strive to engage with the whole, the bad and the good, the earthly and the divine. That is seeking the fullness of God’s glory.
I’ll be graduating in the spring. However, before I walk, there’s one thing I have left to do. My senior recital in April will feature five composers, three of which are still living: Jacob ter Veldhuis, Thea Musgrave, and Joseph Schwantner. Of the first composer, popularly known as JacobTV, I will be performing a piece entitled Lipstick for flute and electronics. This will feature myself playing off of a score, while an electronic track plays from speakers. The track is largely comprised of excerpts from the Jerry Springer Show, and an interview with Billie Holiday. I may or may not have lipstick smeared across my face for dramatic effect. Come one, come all (but really, come! April 4th, 7PM, Hatch Recital Hall, Eastman School of Music, Rochester NY).
Soli Deo Gloria.

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