“If you don’t like it, just wait five minutes and it will change,” quotes the acclaimed soprano, whose husband hails from Kiwiland.

It’s a tongue-in-cheek adage applied to any region that sees variable weather, but Bender says it can also be used to describe her upcoming musical extravaganza: “If you don’t like what’s happening, wait five minutes and it’ll be a completely different experience,” she says. 

The operatic superstar is performing, directing and producing the Music Celebration Concert: An Evening with Madeline Bender on Friday. She promises everything from jazz and Great American Songbook standards to “very serious” French and German pieces, beloved opera arias and even some musical sketch comedy.

“It’s going to be a zany night of a lot of different kinds of things,” she says. “It’ll be like a tasting menu, except with music and theater.”

The 91����Ƶ Chamber Singers will feature at the event, as will the drama department, jazz ensemble and local actors and performers of all ages, resulting in what Bender calls “a cast of thousands.”

“I think people need to expect the unexpected,” she says. “There are so many people involved in this concert.”

“My favorite part of music-making is collaborating, and I would rather make it a party,” she adds. “The more, the merrier.”

The concert, held at Lehman Auditorium at 8 p.m. on Friday, Oct.13, helps kick off 91����Ƶ Homecoming and Family Weekend 2023. 

Tickets to the show are $10 in advance, $15 at the door and free for 91����Ƶ students with ID or for children 12 and younger. They can be purchased .

Email alumni@emu.edu for instructions on how to access a free Facebook livestream of the event.

A complete list of events and activities is on the Homecoming and Family Weekend website.

Bender is an accomplished opera singer, arts entrepreneur and educator. She is the founder of Creative Stage, which teaches children across Manhattan programs in music, theater, dance and filmmaking. She is also the founder and director of Creative Stage Collective, a not-for-profit theater company that develops musical sketch comedy based on the imaginative ideas of children.

She has been praised by The New York Times for her “charimatic stage presence,” “voluptuous soprano” and “theatrical flair.”

Finding her voice at 91����Ƶ

Bender, who lives in New York City with her husband Paul Whelan, a baritone and bass-baritone singer, and their 14-year-old son, may have been destined to attend 91����Ƶ.

Her parents, former educators Jon Scott ’62 and Nancy Shank Bender ’64, were 91����Ƶ alums, as well as many of her friends and neighbors around Harrisonburg, and later, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

The choice to attend 91����Ƶ may have been an easy one for her to make, but the decision to major in music was not quite as simple.

Bender arrived at 91����Ƶ intent on graduating with a health professions degree. At the time, she says, a career in the performing arts felt like it wouldn’t help others. 

But her involvement in the Chamber Singers under then-Professor Kenneth J. Nafziger — as well as nearly every other ensemble on campus — provided her a supportive environment that helped her realize she could also serve others with her voice.

Back in the early ’90s, 91����Ƶ may not have had an opera program or a diction coach or “all the bells and whistles,” she says. But it taught her to be resourceful. 

“I put on two opera programs, I learned to produce, I learned how to cast and direct a show, and now, that’s my job,” she says. 

After graduating from 91����Ƶ, Bender earned her master’s degree from the prestigious Manhattan School of Music.

And although she hasn’t performed professionally for about a decade, she says she’s thoroughly enjoyed practicing for Friday’s big event.

“The engine is back and running again.”

In August, she’ll begin as Tim and Gail Buchanan Endowed Chair of the Fine Arts Division at Friends University — “an incredible opportunity,” she says, to do similar collaborative work in the far larger and more varied arts community of Wichita, Kansas.

At a reception this week in her honor, Professor James Richardson praised Griffing’s mentorship, her abilities as an “exceptional musician,” and “her compassion for the whole person, whether that be a colleague or a student.”

“She brings to everything she does a concern for the soul and the whole student,” he said. “When I think of Joan, I will always think of what I have heard her say many times, and I’m sure many of you have heard her say it as well: ‘At the end of the day, it’s all about the student.”

Professor Emeritus Kenneth J. Nafziger, longtime colleague in the 91����Ƶ music department, commented that he had “seen many musicians come to 91����Ƶ with significant gaps in their learning and grow as accomplished performers under her careful guidance, experience both solo and ensemble work and play in a variety of settings, all of which are exactly what music is supposed to do.”

Nafziger and Griffing have also spent many years working together with the . The conductor thanked the concertmaster for expanding his own understanding of strings instruments and string players to the benefit of all. “She has been able to translate my musical wishes into sounds I had hoped for and I am most thankful.”

Also in attendance were Bach Festival President Michael Allain and board member Ming Ivory, both of whom shared anecdotes and wished Griffing well on her new endeavors.

The reception was attended by several former students, four of whom now work for 91����Ƶ (two as violin instructors), but also representatives of community arts organization that Griffing has supported and promoted, including the .

Making music more accessible to area youth

When asked to identify her own accomplishments, Griffing lists two more programs for youth.

“B�dzٳ� Sharon Miller and I started to play violin in public schools programs,” she said. “That was something that was missing here that she and I wanted to start, and I’d have to say that’s something I am proud of.”

The Harrisonburg City Schools Strings program, a program of 91����Ƶ’s Preparatory Music program directed by Miller, began 11 years ago and is now offered at all six elementary schools and both middle schools.

Griffing also helped start the , a partnership of Harrisonburg City Schools with the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. to provide equal access to arts for students in K-8th grade.

“That’s been fun to work with dancers and visual artists, to get to know artists of different stripes and think about ways we can bring them together,” she said.

An advocate for music at 91����Ƶ

At 91����Ƶ, Griffing championed the interdisciplinary major, an inventive redesign of the music curriculum to broaden accessibility and encourage students to combine a music major with a second major in a different field.

Hearkening back to her own roots, the outreach string quartet class remains a favorite offering, as “a way for students to learn to take their music out to marginalized communities,” she said, such as the Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind and Gemeinschaft Home for ex-offenders.

Reluctant to single out one or two of her many students over the years for individual accolades, Griffing says she’s most proud of her performance majors. “To a one, they have each accomplished more than they thought they could achieve in their four years,” she said. “All of them won our semi-annual concerto/aria competition.��To eventually play a concerto with the orchestra takes guts and preparation and hard work, and to get to the performance level they do is really quite an achievement.”

Of her administrative work, which included fundraising, planning, mentoring, scheduling and more, Griffing says that choice of involvement enabled her “to help more than just my violin students.”

“I enjoy helping my colleagues do their jobs,” she said. “To me, that’s servant leadership: supporting my colleagues so they enjoy coming to work every day. Ultimately that helps the students, too.”

(To this, she adds that she is also doesn’t mind getting into “the nitty-gritty, which arts people sometimes don’t much care for, understandably so, because they’d rather do their arts.”)

A widely-traveled professional

All this while, Griffing has led an active professional career, performing as first violinist with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra and Eastern Music Festival, and concertmaster with the AIMS Festival Orchestra in Austria and Italy, as well as with the Coronado, Grand Teton, Norfolk and Spoleto festivals.��She’s performed in Taiwan, Brazil and Australia, and spent a sabbatical at the University of Otago, New Zealand, studying the role of music in peace and conflict issues.

As founding member of the chamber music group Musica Harmonia, she regularly tours to promote peace and cultural understanding through musical collaboration. The group has recorded two CDs.

Griffing says she intends to keep many connections alive from her new home in Kansas. She and her husband, clarinetist Leslie Nicholas, will return to Harrisonburg every June to play with the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival.

And she’s looking forward to making new connections, too.

“I have always had a strong interest in the bigger picture of all the arts, how they connect and the possibilities of collaboration. The arts can and do change people’s lives for the better,” she said. “By overseeing all the arts at Friends and embedding them across campus, I’ll be able to have a broader impact than I am able to have here. That’s very exciting to me. Without the many years of experience at 91����Ƶ, this new opportunity would not be possible.”

For arts more broadly, until the late 20th century, many North American Mennonites limited the arts to purposes of functionality, as in hand-crafted quilts for beds or pottery to contain foodstuffs, or education, as in artistic creations with explicitly Christian themes.

As early as the 1920s some tentative steps were taken towards permitting visual and performing arts on campus, but that tension was not fully resolved until the 1970s. (This approximation is a venture based on this timeline, but perhaps alumni of that era may provide other evidence to the contrary.)

During mid-1960s through the 1970s – encompassing 15 years of great social change within Eastern Mennonite College and beyond – president and theologian Myron Augsburger BA ’55, BTh ’58, guided the institution from insularity into full acceptance of activities that undergird a liberal arts college, including art, instrumental music, drama and intercollegiate athletics.

Now at 91����Ƶ, students learn to study and use art transform the world, discover purpose, deepen faith, reach across generations and enter into healing spaces.

This timeline of the arts at Eastern Mennonite was created by Randi B. Hagi ’15 and editor Lauren Jefferson. It was reviewed by professors Jerry Holsopple, John Fast, Joan Griffing, John Horst, Heidi Winters Vogel, Stephen Sachs and Barbra Graber, as well as by Gretchen Maust ’73.

We welcome additions or comments. Please use the comment box at the end of this article.

***

1913

The first constitution specifies that was to be taught, and no instruments were permitted.

1918

Noah D. Showalter joins the faculty as the first music teacher. He has a certificate from the American Normal School of Music in Harrisonburg, and had studied voice under renowned teacher J.D. Brunk.

1920

Students form music groups for entertainment: duets, quartets, choruses, trios, octets and double mixed quartets.

1921

Commencement includes music.

1922

The first president, J. B. Smith, resigns because he has a piano in his home, which his oldest daughter plays. (Instrumental music was officially banned from Mennonite churches.) The Smith family returns to Ohio. He was replaced by A.D. Wenger, whose wife Anna May Wenger then gave up her pump organ in support, although she was later chastised for subsequently playing at someone else’s home.

C.K. Lehman directs “The Holy City” at commencement, which becomes an annual performance until 1970.

1923

The first issue of the Eastern Mennonite School Journal is published, as well as the first annual.

1924

A faculty quartet is formed. Seniors were allowed individual photos in the school annual.

1927

Virginia Conference forbids bishops, ministers and deacons from possessing musical instruments and urges all members to do the same. (This is rescinded in 1947).

“Any instrument playing rag-time music had to be deposited with the business manager or sent home,” says the student handbook.

The first visual art classes are taught at the high school level by a home economics teacher.

1930

The “X-Hall” or “Guild,” a small building behind Northlawn Residence Hall, is built as an exercise hall, but is eventually used as a . It is now a storage space.

More than 70 percent of the student body (148 at the time) belonged to one of three campus choruses, which sang only hymns and only a capella (without instrumental accompaniment).

1937

The Mixed Choir makes the first tour to Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

1939

Mark Stauffer ’35, Juilliard-trained and a Madison College graduate, is the first full-time music instructor and first faculty member with a music degree. He expands offerings beyond the previously offered two courses, to appreciation, voice, introduction to music, history of music, church music, theory and choral conducting. Stauffer will lead choirs through the ’60s.

The Christmas Cantata, first offered by faculty as a gift to students, becomes a tradition.

The Weather Vane newspaper begins as a one-page mimeograph, growing to a two-page pamphlet by its third issue.

1943

Lehman Chapel is built as an all-purpose space for chapel, music and theater, among other activities.

1944

becomes the first art professor. She also teaches physical education until her retirement in 1987, but then continued teaching a watercolor class until 1996.

Skits are allowed but must be “purposeful rather than merely entertaining.” Costuming is not allowed, but draping (wearing of clothes over regular attire) is.

1945

The Shenandoah annual is established.

1947

A second touring choir is formed by 24 members of the mixed chorus. They visit Ontario churches.

The original farmer’s cottage, located near the current seminary building, is converted to EMC’s first art building.

1948

The faculty council expresses mixed concerns, but not consensus, about student attendance at opera and Shakespeare productions.

Guitars, phonographs and other instruments are allowed to be played in the recreation room in the basement of Northlawn Residence Hall.

Earl M. Maust joins the faculty. He teaches until his death in 1969.

1949

A faculty committee recommends allowing the use of motion pictures for teaching.

1952

The record player for instructional purposes is allowed.

1954

WEMC begins, with singing and spoken broadcasts. No instrumental music recordings are allowed. .

1955

The faculty adopt a statement about dramatics that limits productions to less than full performances, with costuming and props kept to a minimum.

1956

The merge, and the Weather Vane changes to a newspaper format, including halftone photographs.

1958

The Phoenix, 91����Ƶ’s literary and visual arts journal, is founded by Professor��I.B. Horst ’39. Literature professor J. Herbert Martin ’59 serves as its first editor.

1959

Films are shown once a month for entertainment purposes in the assembly room.

1960

The first full-length theater production, sponsored by the Smithsonian literary society, is The Diary of Anne Frank.

A Festival of Fine Arts features plays, lectures on the arts, art displays and musical presentations.

1961

The Windsock, the Eastern Mennonite High School newspaper, separates from the Weather Vane. The first are run in the Weather Vane.

1962

A piano is permitted in the music department for “technical studies.”

Instrumental music is no longer banned on college radio broadcasts.

A piano is accepted as an alumni gift for the student lounge.

1963

The Piranha, the first underground student newspaper, forms in the face of administration censorship of the Weather Vane. Censorship was dropped the following year, and the Piranha died with it.

1965

A small student instrumental group forms, which soon grows to an orchestra led by music professor Ira Zook.

1968

The new opens, and with that, the largest classroom on campus is used as a recital hall, theater, and general performance space.

Faye Garber Yoder graduates as EMC’s first piano concentration under the music major.

1970

“Rebirth,” a student group, releases their first album after first playing together during the 1969 Miracle Fund Drive for the new Hartzler Library. The group eventually went on two tours and in 2016, released a third and final album. Read more .

The Board of Trustees approves the commission of painted portraits of the five college presidents, to be placed in the new Hartzler Library. This building is dedicated in October 1971, with the portraits, painted by Oliver Schenk, hanging in the second floor “President’s Room.”

1972

graduates as the first art major, earning a degree in secondary art education. The current art building is named after her, and her sculptures can be found around campus, such as the Love Essence white figures by the seminary. She founds the EMHS arts program, which she runs until 1980.

1976

Lehman Chapel is for essentially the first time, becoming EMC’s first performing arts auditorium, with sound equipment, side stage exits, dressing rooms, and a rehearsal hall.

1981

Barbra R. Graber ’76 becomes the first theater professor (specifically, assistant instructor in drama)

1981

The 91����Ƶ JAZZ, a big band ensemble, and Swing Sisters, a female vocal ensemble, begin under the direction of Professor Stephen Sachs.

1983

“Basileas” forms, an eight-member traveling drama and music group which performs in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania church and schools.

Also in 1983, a cast of eight actors in “Storm: An Improvisation on the Theme of the Sexes” bring in poetry, monologues, sketches and skits, scenes from larger plays, even cartoons that are then woven together into an original show that introduces the larger culture’s discussion of feminist ideas through humor and improvisation. “It was quite an undertaking!” Barbra Graber remembers. “The audiences were enthusiastic. Sociology professor John Eby and his wife pulled me aside after the show to say, ‘We wish we had seen this show about 20 years ago!'”

1985

Bradley Swope graduates as the first organ major.

1986

The Weather Vane switches to desktop computer publishing.

1991

Working with Ted Swartz ’89, M.Div ’92, Professor Barbra Graber ’76 co-founds and directs AKIMBO, an award-winning community-based professional theater with Mennonite themes and participants. The group continues until 1998. Members included Lee Eshleman ’86, Suzanne Kiblinger ’91 Kratz, Jeremy Frey ’92, Pamela Frey ’92, Rose Stauffer ’85, Ingrid DeSanctis ’88, Duane Sider, Nancy Good and Joy McIlvaine ’88.

1992

The , a week-long summer music festival, begins.

AKIMBO is commissioned to create the 75th anniversary theater production. Barbra Graber, Ted Swartz and Duane Sider collaborate�� in the playwriting.

Also in 1992, “HomecomingHome,” a collaboration of Kenneth J. Nafziger and Barbra Graber, presents dramatic and musical segments “on the theme of coming home��to the Body, as sacred temple;��to the Earth, where all things are connected;��to the Family, with the tragedy of abuse and dysfunction as well as the joy of togetherness;��and to Death, our natural place of rest.”

1996

“Drippings of the Honeycomb” is a theatrical multi-media performance based on portions of the Psalms and Proverbs. Barbra Graber says of this production that she may have never experienced “a more profound creative experience. We would begin each rehearsal going into quiet prayer and guided meditation on the chosen Psalm or Proverb. Then we would get up and begin to embody what came to us during the quiet time. It was truly profound. I had the distinct feeling that the text was somehow infusing us with creativity.”

1998

The first digital media classes are taught by Jerry Holsopple, then a part-time instructor.

2000

A communication major is created within the Language and Literature Department, with an emphasis on digital media. (The first full-time faculty member, in 2001, is Jerry Holsopple).

2002

Previously housed under the expansive Language and Literature Department, communication and theater become autonomous departments, moving along with art into the newly renovated University Commons office suite.

2003

Professor Ken J. Nafziger leads the along with Ysaye Maria Barnwell, a member of the renowned gospel group Sweet Honey in the Rock. From 1999 to 2003, when President Bill Clinton opened the doors to Cuba through education-centered travel permits, Nafziger made 11 music-centered trips.

2004

The jazz band plays its final season.

2006

Digital media and photography majors are added. The Visual and Communication Arts Department, known popularly as VACA, is the result of a merger between the communication department and the art department.

2007

WMRA picks up the WEMC broadcast, retaining Mostly Mennonite, Mostly A Cappella, hosted by emeritus professor John Horst, from 8-9:30 a.m. Sundays (encore at 8 p.m. Wednesdays). Also retained is the Park View Mennonite Church worship services, from 9:30-10:30 a.m. 91.7 FM and online at.

2008

Theater professor Heidi Winters Vogel and student Pam Mandigo ’08 found , a summer high school theater workshop. This program is supported by Arts Council of the Valley and 91����Ƶ with students from area high schools.

2009

Professor Cyndi Gusler introduces to 91����Ƶ. The biannual Mennonite Church convention begins featuring the show.

2009-2010

Renovations in the older part of the University Commons create two new theater spaces, a new digital media lab and the Margaret Martin Gehman Gallery.

2010

Into the Window is the first exhibition in the new Margaret Martin Gehman Gallery, featuring icons painted by Jerry Holsopple during his year in Lithuania as a Fulbright Scholar.

Phase II construction of the University Commons is completed, including the renovated 200-seat MainStage Theater, the relocated Lee Eshleman Studio Theater, the new Margaret Martin Gehman Art Gallery and the new Kenneth A. Longacre Sr. Advanced Media Lab. The facility is in the spring of 2011.

2011

The Bus Stop by Chinese Nobel Laureate dramatist Gao Xingjian inaugurates the new . ��This production was directed by Heidi Winters Vogel and featured original music by Frances Miller.

The new Studio Theater space is to actor Lee Eshelman ’86, who also worked in the 91����Ƶ print shop and as a graphic designer.

2011

Theater professor Heidi Winters Vogel co-founds the “Inside Out Playback Theatre” group, which employs a form of improvisational drama based on audience storytelling, after participating in informal Summer Peacebuilding Institute workshops led by .

2013

by playwright and immigration lawyer Kara Hartzler ’94, directed by Heidi Winters Vogel, is invited to the Mennonite National Convention in Phoenix, Arizona.

Visual and Communication Arts Department merges with the Theater Department.

2015

Emulate, a touring ensemble, forms under the direction of Professor Ryan Keebaugh.

Jonathan Drescher-Lehman ’15 is the first 91����Ƶ student to win entrance into the prestigious North American Nature Photography Association College Scholars program. He produces a , with other scholarship recipients and professionals, about the San Diego Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

2016

Professor Justin Poole and his wife, Amanda, lead the first in Central Europe. The group of 22 students attended 35 plays, visited 38 theaters, and produced their own dramatic piece about the different stages of cultural integration.

Professor Steven David Johnson’s conservation photography course is one of two in the United States highlighted by ; the other is taught at Stanford University.

2017

Jazz band with the help of student saxophonist Harrison Horst ’17 and director Greg Curry.

Macson McGuigan ’17 is the to win entrance into the prestigious North American Nature Photography Association College Scholars program. He produces a film, with other scholarship recipients and professionals, about a proposed Florida wildlife corridor.

“,” a 400-ton sculpture by Esther Augsburger ’72 and son Michael ’80, is mounted at 91����Ƶ after years of display in Washington D.C.

During Homecoming and Family Weekend, Ingrid De Sanctis ‘88 and Ted Swartz ’89, MACL ’92, are joined by alumni actors to debut��What we bring. What we take. What we leave.

The 10 x 10 x 100 , curated by Ashley Sauder Miller ’03, features six prominent alumni artists and their 100 works measuring 10 inches x 10 inches. A percentage of the sales will be donated to the 91����Ƶ arts program.

��

Do They Have a Future?

What makes the same hymn inspire one individual to heroism and lead another to boredom cannot be calculated. It has to do with the mysterious way in which song connects us to our past, our soul, our future, our Savior. And because God intended us to be different, our uniqueness is caught up and reflected in our response to the music of the church.

John L. Bell in his introduction to Singing – A Mennonite Voice by Marlene Kropf and Kenneth J. Nafziger, 91����Ƶ professor of music

Musical Revolution

Students entering 91����Ƶ today may not realize that in their grandparents’ generation, this institution offered one option in terms of music. Singing. Usually in four-part harmony. A cappella only. Hymns.

But it was beautiful singing, by all accounts. And almost all of them did it. In daily chapel for sure, but also in choral groups. In 1930-31, of the 148 students who were enrolled in Eastern Mennonite, 72% belonged to one of three campus choruses.��[1]

“From morn till night the halls of EMS [Eastern Mennonite School, as it was then called] fairly resound with music,” wrote student Ida Mae Brunk in 1933. “It is a very part of our atmosphere – EMS without its music would no longer be our same beloved school.”

In 1944, Elton L. Martin wrote:

Music is the heart of the school [Eastern Mennonite]. It revives our spirits when they are at a low ebb. It puts hope into our hearts when worry would invade them. It unites us in purpose. Every chorus practice means relaxation from classes. We forget ourselves, our work, and our grades, as we listen for harmony and beauty.

In contrast to singing wafting through campus from morn to night 70 or 80 years ago, 91����Ƶ students in 2011 will, or can, partake of almost any type of music – if not every day, then at some point during the week. Jazz ensembles, orchestral performances, auditioned and open choirs, individual training in keyboard, stringed, wind and percussion instruments, as well as vocals. Gospel, rock and folk groups. And, yes, a cappella singing.

An 91����Ƶ student can aim to be a performer, conductor, music educator, minister of music, or combination of these. He or she can do music as a wonderful way of praying and worshiping God, or purely out of love for it, or because making music is a way of balancing out one’s life as a student or as (say) a future scientist, business person, or full-time parent.

After graduation, many former students join other alumni in forming ongoing groups, like the six-member men’s a cappella group Sons of the Day and the eight-member women’s a cappella group Shekinah. Based in Harrisonburg, both groups are eight years old and composed mainly of alumni. Cantore in Harrisonburg consists of 10 men, seven being alumni from the ’80s or earlier.

Daphna Creek in the Broadway area of the Valley had four alumni as core members (and three alumni who rotated in) when it performed Christian-themed folk music from 2001 to 2009.

More recently, we’ve seen alumni forming folk or “Indie” music groups, such as Trent Wagler & the Steel Wheels (named “Best in the Valley” by the Daily News Record in 2010), Dear Wolfgang, Mild Winter, and Preacher.

Many music majors become private instructors, as Faye G. Yoder ’68 did upon graduating as 91����Ƶ’s first piano major, or they become schoolteachers. (More on this topic later).

Some move into music ministry. Bradley Swope ’85, for instance, was 91����Ƶ’s first organ major, mentored by our longest-serving music professor, John Fast. Swope is now music director of the First United Methodist Church of Clearwater, Florida, where he plans entirely different music for two Sunday services – a contemporary one and a traditional one. He jokes that between services he sometimes has to do a costume change, switching from jeans to a suit and tie. For the traditional service, he conducts the choirs and the handbell groups (one for children, one for adults) and leads congregational singing. The contemporary service requires him to be adept at working the audio-visual and sound systems. He has been classically trained, finishing a master’s degree and coursework for a doctorate in organ music from the University of Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. Yet his training did not include guitar, which he would find handy for his contemporary service. His main objective for both services is to “take the pastor’s point and hit it over the fence with music,” he says. “When everything comes together, people leave feeling changed.”

In the Beginning

Today’s rich diversity in music would have stunned the founders of this university. In 1913, the first constitution for what became Eastern Mennonite College (EMC) specified that only vocal music was to be taught and that no instruments were to be permitted. As odd as this proscription may sound to 21st century ears, the founders of EMC were not being arbitrary. They saw unaccompanied congregational singing as essential to staying true to the Mennonite form of worship.

EMC’s first full-time music instructor, J. Mark Stauffer ’38, articulated the founders’ concerns (which he shared) in a 1947 booklet Mennonite Church Music—Its Theory and Practice. In its introduction, Gospel Herald editor Paul Erb wrote:

… Christian churches in general have handed over, so far as any real effective singing is concerned, the entire musical service to the choir and its soloists. What congregational singing there may be is usually very dependent upon the organ or other accompanying instruments. To hear good, unaccompanied congregational singing in America today, one is practically required to go to a Mennonite Church, or to some other of the few smaller groups which have retained similar musical practices.��[2]

Stauffer noted that beginning under Emperor Constantine in the 4th century, Christians spent about 13 centuries unable to have a full voice in their churches. Instead of participating in congregational singing, they were expected to listen to trained choirs singing in a language they didn’t understand (Latin) and to obey clergy chosen without their consent. The Anabaptist movement that gave rise to Mennonite churches was filled with people who wished to worship God in the manner of their own choosing, with no intermediaries. Singing hymns themselves—with understandable words that came from their hearts or directly from the Bible—was one of the worship choices they wished to make.

As participants in a small religious movement that did not conform to the dominant Catholic and Protestant churches of their day, Mennonites were persecuted almost everywhere they lived in Europe and Prussia. When imprisoned, many early Mennonites wrote new devotional words for the popular tunes of the day. They sang these songs in their final hours and moments before being executed in torturous ways.

Years later, these songs became the basis of a hymnal used to this day by cousins to the Mennonites, the Amish. Called the��Ausbund, the hymnal includes 51 hymns written by Swiss-German Anabaptists who were imprisoned, and often killed, before the year 1540.��[3]��The hymns spoke of great sorrow at living in a wicked world, but stressed that God would not forsake his children. Early Anabaptist hymnals simply stated the name of the tune at the top and then offered the words to go with it. It was assumed that everyone would know the then-popular tunes.��[4]

In these early days, Anabaptists gathered in secret. They rejected the hierarchy, icons, statues, tithing and rituals of the state-approved churches, as well as—and this bears on EMC’s much-later rejection of musical instruments—the pipe organ, which was often one of the most expensive, elaborate items in the officially sanctioned churches.��[5]

In this early history, we can see the roots of Stauffer’s advocacy for preserving the purity of congregational singing:

“If we fail to teach, develop, and encourage our congregational music as we should, it is only logical to conclude that in the course of years, we, the Mennonite Church, will be spending money for, and listening to pianos, organs, orchestras, soloists and trained choirs,” he wrote in his booklet. “…[T]his would be tragic.”

Stauffer argued that the Bible favored vocal music: “The musical emphasis in the New Testament is on singing; the instruments in the Old Testament worship should be considered a part of the Law which was forever swept away by Christ as He instituted the age of Grace in which we live.”

Stauffer played a pivotal role in the college’s music program from his arrival as a faculty member in 1939 through the 1960s. Alumni from his era appear unanimous in praising him for the choral leadership and training he offered. Every year, for instance, Stauffer gathered hundreds of singers to rehearse and perform the “The Holy City,” an oratorio, and “David the Shepherd Boy,” a light Sunday school cantata evocative of a Gilbert and Sullivan musical. These events began being held in the early 1920s and continued after Stauffer’s time, through the 1970s.

Mennonites came from significant distances to partake in these events. Carroll J. Lehman ’64, a well-known voice professor and choir conductor in New Hampshire, recalls his father driving their family from the Chambersburg area of Pennsylvania to EMC to see “The Holy City.”

“When I came to EMC in 1956,”��John L. Horst Jr. ’60��told��Crossroads��recently, “the Holy City was done annually at homecoming in the spring of the year. The large Collegiate Chorus rehearsed it extensively and alumni would join us for a two-hour Saturday morning rehearsal, followed by a packed Lehman Auditorium performance on Saturday night.” Horst is a retired 91����Ƶ physics professor.

In the 1950s, instruments had to be played off campus, in homes. In additional to musical instruments, secular music was officially discouraged until the 1960s. “We must guard against using any type of music that may interfere with true divine worship,” Stauffer wrote in 1947. “Inferior gospel choruses, rhythmed music, secular tunes, modernistic songs, and songs which appeal only to the emotions are to be avoided.”

Stauffer’s desired alternative was to ensure that every young person learn to read music and be encouraged to sing hymns. “Congregational music does not progress and develop of itself; it tends to deteriorate as does almost everything else here on earth. Someone must sponsor it, guide it, and be entrusted with its improvement and security.”

The last 50 years have proven Stauffer to be both right and wrong. Right, in insisting on the necessity of quality musical instruction.��[6]��But Stauffer appears mistaken in thinking that other forms of music inevitably lead to less devotion to God.

Park View Mennonite Church, a church physically near 91����Ƶ that is heavily populated by 91����Ƶ-linked congregants, has managed to retain the strength and beauty of its congregational four-part singing while adding regular organ and piano playing, along with periodic chamber and folk musicians, gospel choirs, percussionists, and songs from other traditions sung in unison or even chanted.

Long-time 91����Ƶ music professor��Kenneth J. Nafziger, a member of Park View, says ideally a church should weave its music into the liturgy, ritual and message of the entire service, so that the worship experience is just that: an all-embracing experience, supported and elevated by various forms of musical expression.

Usually led by music director��Judy Bomberger ’73��or choir director��Karen Moshier-Shenk ’73, some of the singing at Park View is a cappella, but much is not. Park View does not sponsor “singing schools” for its newcomers and musically challenged members, as some Mennonite churches did a century ago. Nevertheless most of its congregants clearly know how to sing, as exemplified by their periodic unrehearsed singing of portions of Handel’s Messiah.��[7]��With dozens of 91����Ƶ-trained singers and musicians, Park View offers a vibrant answer to Stauffer’s mid-century concerns about the future of Mennonite worship music.

Roots of Singing Tradition

The a cappella multi-part harmony singing associated with Mennonites is actually not that old. The tradition dates to the mid-1800s among Mennonites in Russia and to the late 1800s in the United States.

Seeking a better life and religious freedom, Mennonites in Prussia moved to Russia in the 1700s. They took with them the tunes of Lutheran hymns, to which they put their own words. They apparently sang these hymns in unison for several generations, but by the late 1800s, some in their communities realized the singing was becoming abysmal.

One Russian Mennonite, Heinrich Franz (1812-1889) produced a Choralbuch in 1860 in an effort to upgrade the quality of singing among his people. He likely would have agreed with Margaret Loewen Reimer’s 1995 comments about the quality of Mennonite singing in the mid-1800s:

Transmitting unwritten melodies through the generations had reduced singing to ponderously slow repetition of corrupted tunes. They [Mennonite educators interested in quality music] felt it was urgent to recover the original melodies and rhythms, as well as to train people in singing.��[8]

Such changes were resisted by many, which explains why the Amish and some Old Order Mennonites sing in unison to this day. In their eyes, four-part singing fosters individualism and pride instead of humble obedience to God.

When Russian and Prussian Mennonites began to migrate to North America after 1870, they brought Franz’s Choralbuch and their revitalized choir-singing tradition with them. Once in North America — where they mostly settled in the mid-western states and eventually in Manitoba, Canada — they proved open to adopting musical and worship practices they saw in neighboring Protestant churches and to incorporating instrumental music into their churches. This more liberal group of Mennonites became known as “General Conference.”

Mennonites directly descended from the Dutch, Swiss and Germans had arrived in North America earlier, from the late 1600s through the 1700s, in search of greater religious freedom and economic opportunity in the resource-rich colony established by William Penn. These Mennonites, with whom the Amish share roots (Anabaptist elder Jakob Ammann led a split from the main body of Mennonites in Switzerland in the 1690s), brought recent memories of martyrdom and oppression with them from Europe. Thus they made a point of establishing communities that were self-protectively separate from encircling society and civil institutions. They also made a point of maintaining their adherence to unaccompanied singing in non-ornate buildings. This more conservative group of Mennonites became known as the “Mennonite Church.”

Both the General Conference (GC) Mennonites and the Mennonite Church (MC) Mennonites eventually founded colleges, with the GC group leading the way with the establishment of Bethel College in Kansas in 1887. The MC group then founded Goshen College in northern Indiana in 1894 and Bluffton University (initially named Central Mennonite College) in Ohio in 1899.

At Bethel, Bluffton and Goshen colleges, organ and piano music and choirs were accepted for teaching music from the beginning, though participatory a cappella singing remained the favored approach.��[9]��At Goshen, however, all musical instruments were banned from worship services until around World War II.��[10]��At EMC, instrumental music was banned on college radio broadcasts until the early 1960s. The first musical instrument owned by EMC, a piano, appeared in 1962 for “technical studies,” but authorized classes in how to play other musical instruments and a music education major did not evolve until the late 1960s.��[11]��In 1966, under the direction of a new professor,��Ira T. Zook Jr., a piano was used for the first time as accompaniment for “The Holy City.”

Joseph S. Funk

With Mennonites avoiding instrumental music until the 1900s, there was much space and energy for developing the voice and for congregational singing. Joseph S. Funk (1778-1862) stepped into this space.

Funk was born into a German-speaking Mennonite family in Franconia, Pennsylvania. His pastor-father moved the family to the Shenandoah Valley in 1786. Funk grew up to be the patriarch of a family famous for publishing four-shape-note and, later, seven-shape-note, tunebooks. They also published one of the South’s first music periodicals, the 16-page monthly��Southern Musical Advocate and Singer’s Friend, from July 1859 to April 1861.��[12]

The Virginia Mennonite Conference appointed Funk to the three-man committee that published the first Mennonite hymnal in English. First printed in Winchester, Virginia, in 1847, the 364-page hymnal was reprinted on the Funk-owned press in Singers Glen near Harrisonburg in 1851, 1855, 1859, 1868, and 1872 (as well as reprinted elsewhere in other years).

Funk’s most famous book,��Harmonia Sacra, has remained in circulation for 177 years. It is now in its 25th edition, published by Good Books of Intercourse, Pennsylvania, with nearly 100,000 copies sold.��[13]

Stephen Shearon wrote in the��Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music��that Funk appreciated use of instruments in sacred music, but he also “believed strongly that music should be sung by all members of a congregation as a participatory form of worship . . . as a kind of musical democracy.” Thus Funk, like most of his fellow Mennonites, was opposed to having a paid or select choir.��[14]

By 1890, four-part singing was sufficiently accepted by North American Mennonites that they furnished each hymn of their hymnals with a four-part harmony, making the use of a separate choralbook superfluous.��[15]��Beginning in the late 1800s, Mennonites organized and attended singing schools, though generally it was not acceptable for these schools to be housed in churches. By the 1950s, singing schools had fallen by the wayside, probably due to competition from other entertainment outlets and due to opportunities to learn singing at Mennonite-sponsored schools and colleges.

In 1913, Bluffton became the first Mennonite college to select an a cappella choir and dispatch it into the community and on tour for performances.��[16]��Over the next several decades all Mennonite colleges began doing the same – a distinct change from the 19th century view that sacred music was not a spectator activity for Mennonites, but only a participatory one as part of communal worship.

Music educators

A final reason for Mennonite colleges to embrace change in the way they approached music stemmed from gaining accreditation to train music teachers destined for public institutions. To do this work, Mennonite colleges needed to provide a well-rounded music education that included competency in musical instruments, regardless of historical and theological reasons for downplaying instruments and emphasizing the voice.

Today, 91����Ƶ-trained music teachers – such as��Michael W. Miller ’82��of Boonsboro, Maryland, who teaches music to elementary-aged students��[17];��Bethany Blouse ’06, who is choral director at Stuarts Draft (Va.) High School��[18]; and��Janet Heatwole Hostetter ’87, choir director and pianist at Wilbur S. Pence Middle School in Dayton, Virginia��[19]��– are feeding the spirits of hundreds with their passionate musical service and leadership in public school systems.

91����Ƶ has a number of music doctorate-holding alumni teaching at the collegiate level, including:

Carroll J. Lehman ’64 teaches voice and opera at Keene State College (5,400 students) in New Hampshire. He holds master’s and doctor’s degrees in vocal performance from the University of Iowa. He has been on the faculty of Hope College, Holland, Michigan, and Western Washington University. As a bass-baritone, he has performed more than 20 principal roles in opera. He judges vocal competitions up through the national level.

Ronald Lyndaker ’78 is academic director of Lewis & Clark College in France, a consortial study abroad program. He is also an administrator and a humanities professor at the trilingual undergraduate program of the Institut d’Études Politics in Nancy, a branch of the highly selective “Sciences Po” of Paris. Finally, he is a tenor in the permanent chorus of the Opéra National de Lorraine. Lyndaker did a double major at 91����Ƶ – modern languages and music – followed by graduate work at Ohio University and University of Texas at Austin, where he earned a doctor of musical arts degree.

Karen Fix Rice ’95 teaches piano and sings at Winston Salem State University (6,000 students) in North Carolina, a public institution that was historically black. In 2009, she completed a doctorate in musical arts (piano) at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She has taught at four North Carolina universities. She recently performed at the College Music Society’s national conference in Quebec City.

Singing Today

In 2002, the two main traditions among modern Mennonites in the United States – the General Conference and Mennonite Church groups – officially merged, reflecting their increasing similarities and, some would say, their increasing assimilation into mainstream US society. The majority of Mennonites no longer live on farms, and they no longer spend as much of Sunday and Wednesday evenings in their churches, singing and otherwise worshiping as a group. Less than half of those enrolled at the six Mennonite institutions of higher education identify themselves as being Mennonite, reducing the pool of those trained in congregational singing.

Newer Mennonite churches consisting of recent converts, often in urban areas and serving ethnic or minority constituencies, tend not to sing in four-part harmony or to seek ways to learn the skill. There are even those church leaders (a minority, so far) who assert that any amount of sight-reading music and four-part harmonizing makes newcomers feel uncomfortable and thus should be avoided. “Contemporary-style” services generally feature songs sung in unison, often with words (but not musical notes) projected on a large screen in the front, with instrumental or recorded music carrying the singing.

Songs from other countries have been incorporated into the main Mennonite hymnal,��Hymnal: A Worship Book��(1992). Seven percent of the songs in it are not American or European in origin, and these often do not lend themselves to four-part harmony. Two supplemental hymnals,��Sing the Journey��(2005) and��Sing the Story��(2007) contain many contemporary or cross-cultural songs that are intended to be sung with accompanying percussion or other instruments. 91����Ƶ music professor��Kenneth J. Nafziger, who holds a doctor of music (conducting) from the University of Oregon, is one of two people who has served as an editor for all three hymnals. This work has spanned more than 25 years of his life. (The other long-time editor is Marlene Kropf, an associate professor at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary.)

A 2003 survey of 104 Mennonite congregations shows that they continued to do four-part harmony “more than anything else,”��[20]��but the time devoted to it is giving way to other forms of music, including singing international worship songs in unison, listening to select choirs, and being accompanied by various forms of instrumental music. Is this an enrichment of the Mennonite choral tradition, or an erosion of it?

Nafziger, who has pioneered bringing fresh songs from foreign lands into Mennonite hymnbooks and who has produced CDs of choirs modeling how to sing these new songs, argues for both embracing new ways and taking conscious steps to preserve the beautiful congregational singing of the last century or so. He says:

Most of us in our churches sing much less than we used to. Not only do we meet each other less frequently, but we also sing less when we are together. Other aspects of worship have found space in worship, often at the expense of congregational singing… If singing is as important as we claim it is in our tradition, we will need to find ways of making more time for singing, of teaching our children to sing, and of strengthening the abilities of many of us to sing more confidently.��[21]

Writing in 1998, Gary Harder (then pastor of Toronto United Mennonite Church) argued that the “participatory community” of the Mennonite church was nourished by its style of congregational singing. “As much as I enjoy and am often led to encountering God by a good choir, an instrumental ensemble or solo, or a well played piano or organ, these, in my mind, are not the center of a church’s musical ministry; congregational singing is.”��[22]

Synthesizing the views of experts on the Mennonite choral tradition, it appears that 91����Ƶ and the other Mennonite colleges need to keep working at preserving the positive elements of their religious tradition, while simultaneously being open to change. The experts suggest that preserving implies:

• Continuing to sing, and teaching the next generation to sing, regardless of the quality of anyone’s voice, an impulse which goes against today’s drive for “professionalism” and perfectionism in most walks of life.
• Possibly reinstating a modern version of “singing schools,” or at least offering optional (and fun) practice sessions, for newcomers to the tradition.
• Retaining a core group of songs that people are able to sing from memory for critical moments in their lives, such as singing to calm oneself during a scary situation or singing as a family at the bedside of a dying loved one.
• Factoring in the acoustics when planning for new churches and auditoriums. The old rectangular meetinghouses used by Anabaptists in the 1700s and 1800s, with their unpadded seats and non-carpeted floors, lent themselves acoustically to congregational singing in a way that fan-shaped sanctuaries, with their typically thick carpeting and upholstery, do not. In fact, J. Evan Kreider calls many contemporary churches “dead sanctuaries,” where the “voice of the people” is literally silenced.��[23]��(Unfortunately, 91����Ƶ’s own Lehman Auditorium is acoustically dead. Music faculty have been praying for donations toward overhauling the nearly 70-year-old building.)
• Considering whether instrumental music and technology might accidentally usher in theological changes. When amplified music overwhelms the singing, does this render the congregation more passive, with less “voice”?

Harder, a Canadian-Mennonite pastor for 38 years until he retired in June 2007, cherishes the “wholeness” that results when the worship team works well together, with the spoken word, silence and music seamlessly integrated:

It is immensely satisfying when music contributes to a particular moment in worship. Perhaps what is needed at a given moment is a Taizé short piece, or a Bach choral, or a guitar-led chorus, or folk hymn, or a song from Guatemala or Africa, or a chant, or an African-American spiritual, or a gospel song, or a Brian Wren or Bradley Lehman contemporary hymn.��[24]

Surely it is easier for the Amish, who cling to their slow a cappella hymns with countless verses sung in unison, from the Ausbund of the early martyrs. They don’t have to choose from the wide array of hymnal possibilities – some better sung a cappella, others better with just percussion instruments, still others requiring orchestral music – for their communal experience of sacred music. Yet few Mennonites, not even J. Mark Stauffer who counseled against instruments in Mennonite church services, would want to revert to Amish-style dirge-like singing. Most realize that the Anabaptist choral tradition has been enriched by permitting new influences to seep into it. As Nafziger puts it:

‘Where there is devotional music, God with His grace is always present’ (Johann Sebastian Bach). Perhaps this is the issue for all music in worship… Perhaps we need to reclaim wholeheartedly a belief that indeed sound in worship is the shaping force we have sometimes claimed it to be. And maybe the music of the church of the next generation will be an eclectic mixture of old and new, familiar and foreign, experimental and safe, the much-loved and that which waits to be loved.��[25]

Toward the end of Singing – A Mennonite Voice, the authors quote Sue Williamson, who became a Mennonite as an adult. She wonders whether those born into the Mennonite tradition fully grasp the awesomeness of their style of congregational singing:

I am always amazed, during these last four years spent worshiping in the Mennonite church, to go to other denominations and find that this singing and what it offers is just not as present in their worship services. It is something which is delegated to the professional musicians and the choir. It is a wonderful gift, and I wonder if Mennonites realize that.��[26]

— Bonnie Price Lofton, MA ’04, editor

[1] Roth, Daniel Roy. “A Curriculum for a Proposed Church Music Major at Eastern Mennonite College,” his master’s thesis at U. of Oregon. September 1972. Source of this quote and following two paragraphs. It and other materials referenced in this article can all be found in 91����Ƶ’s library system.

[2] Stauffer, Mark J. Mennonite Church Music—Its Theory and Practic, a 46-page booklet. Mennonite Publishing House, 1947. All Stauffer quotes herein come from this booklet.

[3] Friedmann, Robert. “Ausbund.” Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online, 1953. https://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/A8995ME.html

[4] Friedmann.

[5] Sharp, John. “The Devil’s Bagpipe or God’s Voice? The Organ in Historical Context,” a 2008 speech covered by Hesston News Services. www.hesston.edu/ newsport/archives/spring2008/080310sharp.htm newsport/archives/spring2008/080310sharp.htm

[6] J. Mark Stauffer surely would like the excellence of the music instruction offered at 91����Ƶ today, where faculty, staff and advanced students cater to all skill levels and ages with well-subscribed programs. The programs are overseen by musicians with graduate degrees, usually doctorates. In addition to their academic credentials, they have been hired for their ability to both make and teach music beautifully. a rare combination.

[7] Go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRwpcTTfYb0 to view Karen Moshier-Shenk leading the Park View congregation in the singing of the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah during their Easter worship service on April 4, 2010. The organist is 91����Ƶ music professor John Fast.

[8] Reimer, Margaret Loewen. “Mennonites & Music. Footnotes on the way to four-part harmony.” The Christian Leader, Nov. 1995, p. 13.

[9] Maust, Earl M. “The History and Development of Music in Mennonite-Controlled Liberal Arts Colleges in the United States.” Doctoral dissertation, School of Music of the George Peabody College for Teachers. August 1968, pp. 80 & 98.

[10] Maust, pp. 61-62

[11] Pellman, Hubert R, Eastern Mennonite College, 1917-1967—A History. EMC, 1967, p. 240.

[12] Hostetler, John A. “Funk, Joseph (1778-1862).” Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online, 1956. https://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/F87ME.html

[13] Hostetler. See also The Harmonia Sacra, Twenty-Fifth Edition at www.goodbks.com

[14] Shearon, Stephen. “Funk, Joseph.” Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music. Ed. W.K. McNeil. Routledge, 2005. p. 134.

[15] Neff, Christian. “Choral-Books (Choralbuch).” Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online, 1953. https://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/C463ME.html

[16] Maust, p. 110.

[17] Michael W. Miller ’82 was a voice major at 91����Ƶ, who also played trumpet. He has since learned to play the baritone, violin, cello, clarinet, saxophone and flute sufficiently to teach these to children in his school band. In his 7th year as a teacher in 2010-11, he is working on a master’s in educational leadership. at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland.

[18] As an undergraduate, Bethany Blouse ’06 toured with the Chamber Singers, had a role in a musical (Music Man), took three opera scenes classes, and frequently performed in 91����Ƶ’s noon recitals.
[19] Janet Heatwole Hostetter ’87, former director of music ministries at Harrisonburg Mennonite Church, has a master’s degree in choral conducting from James Madison University.

[20] Jacoby, Stephen. “What Are Mennonites Singing in Sunday Morning Worship?” Sound in the Land – Essays on Mennonites and Music. Eds. Maureen Epp and Carol Ann Weaver. Pandora Press, 2005, p. 186.

[21] Kropf, Marlene and Kenneth Nafziger. Singing, A Mennonite Voice. Herald Press, 2001, pp. 160-161.

[22] Harder, Gary. “Congregational Singing as a Pastor Sees It.“ Music in Worship – a Mennonite Perspective. Ed. Bernie Neufeld. Herald Press, 1998, p. 109.

[23] Kreider, J. Evan. “Silencing the Voice of the People: Effects of Changing Sanctuary Design.” Music in Worship – a Mennonite Perspective. Ed. Bernie Neufeld. Herald Press, 1998, pp. 212-225.

[24] Harder, p. 114.

[25] Nafziger, Kenneth. “And What Shall We Do with the Choir?” Music in Worship – a Mennonite Perspective. Ed. Bernie Neufeld. Herald Press, 1998, p. 193.

[26] Kroft & Nafziger, p. 163.

Nafziger stepped to the front of the crowded room and, as he has for countless times over the last 40 years, asked his 91����Ƶ (91����Ƶ) colleagues to sing. This time, it was “Amazing Grace,” the first two stanzas together and then the first stanza in rounds.

As the last notes diminished, he said, “In those very simple words, there is a biography of sorts.”

Then he asked for the second stanza “slow and in harmony,” and gestured for the final line to be drawn out: And grace will lead me home.

“When Ken makes music,” said colleague later, “he carves out a space for everyone: for our selves but also to transcend ourselves.”

The reception culminated Nafizger’s final academic year at 91����Ƶ, which included two other events, both featuring alumni musicians: a Chamber Singers reunion during Homecoming and Family Weekend and a spring concert with alumni guests titled “A Few of My Favorite Things.”

Contributing music and so much more

Nafziger arrived at 91����Ƶ in 1977, after undergraduate studies at Goshen College and graduate studies at the University of Oregon, where he completed his DMA in 1970. He was a post-doctoral conducting student at Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Germany and then taught at the University of Minnesota.

Besides teaching duties and leadership of vocal ensembles, Nafziger contributed to the form and shape of such 91����Ƶ curricular distinctives as the Honors Program, senior seminar and the cross-cultural program.

Linda Burkholder, assistant to the cross-cultural program, pointed out Nafziger’s role as “one of the founding fathers,” leading to “91����Ƶ’s profound commitment to liberal arts cross-cultural education and for that, we have hundreds of alumni who are deeply grateful.”

Nafziger’s legacy stretches far beyond campus, noted Griffing, who praised his “recognition of the role of the arts in the larger world.”

“He and I share the opinion that the role of arts has never been more important as a response, illumination and offering of a way forward to our fractured world. Artists are able to exact societal change through their creative expression, artistic creation and empathetic connection with others. Ken cares deeply about connecting his music with the issues of the day. This makes his work more than just notes and touches people in deeply meaningful way.”

Bach Festival celebrates 25 years this summer

Twenty-five years ago, Nafziger founded the , an annual event hosted by 91����Ƶ that draws musicians and listeners from around the country. The silver anniversary event, previewed , is June 11-18.

Many musicians return year after year. In a 2014 Crossroads magazine article, musician Sandra Gerster shared sentiments that have commonly expressed since about working with Nafziger. She has joined the festival from her home in Baltimore, Maryland, since 1983.

“I come back every year because the trust, respect and integrity that Ken Nafziger brings to the festival is unsurpassed,” she says.”He cultivates a safe environment where we are encouraged to take artistic risks, to try to perform something in a new way, where the musical process is valued and where the performances are truly expressions of emotion, not plastic displays of static perfectionism. I return because my colleagues have become my family, and I am constantly inspired, awestruck, heartened and buoyed by them.”

Honored for area arts involvement

For his varied endeavors, including leadership of the independent chamber ensemble Winchester Musica Vivica, Nafziger was awarded the 2015 . The honor recognizes “outstanding accomplishments and sustained contributions in the arts, improving the cultural vitality of the Shenandoah Valley.” The award was given by the Forbes Center for the Performing Arts, the Valley Arts Council, and the College of Visual and Performing Arts at James Madison University.

In church music, Nafziger’s influence has been both national and international in scope. He was the music editor of Hymnal: A Worship Book, popularly known as the “blue hymnal,” published in 1992, used in Mennonite churches across the United States, and assistant editor to two auxiliary Mennonite hymnals, Sing the Story and Sing the Journey.

Nafziger’s unique way of creating community through music was noted by several speakers at the reception, including colleague .

Richardson recalled being asked, while a high school student in the Eastern Mennonite High School choir, to drop down an octave and hit an “ungodly note meant for an Russian basso profundo but I remember being able to hit that note and his thumbs up, which made my day. Some of you know that thumbs up.”

Read on for more memories of Professor Ken J. Nafziger, shared by former students and colleagues, and share your own in the comment box at the end of this article.

Chamber Singers alumni reunite

Braydon Hoover, a former Chamber Singer, offered this introduction before the Chamber Singers alumni sang “Dona Nobis Pacem” by Johann Sebastian Bach at the October 2016 Homecoming and Family Weekend worship service. [Listen to the .]

As many of you may already know, Ken J. Nafziger is retiring at the end of this academic year after more than 40 years and innumerable lives transformed here at 91����Ƶ. Yesterday, over 50 Chamber Singers from each of those decades reminisced about our experiences singing under his direction. The responses ranged from the humorous to the sacred and more than a little of both. One person recounted a program error that stated, without any punctuation that the next song would be “Under the shadow of the almighty conductor Ken Nafziger.” Another told of a moment of transcendence, weeping as the music we made together washed over him.

And by the end we had all graduated in the same year.

That time of sharing could have gone on the rest of the day, but we couldn’t very well all be together in one place and not sing. The next song we’ll be singing is Dona Nobis Pacem by Johann Sebastian Bach and while it wasn’t sung every year, it has particular themes and threads that link Chambers Singers from 1977 to 2017.

Just as Bach transformed the world with his music, so to has Ken in this space, in this time, in this community. Ken and Helen, Dona Nobis Pacem translates to Grant Us Peace and from all of your Chamber Singers past and present we wish you both peace in this next chapter of your lives.

The concert will be the choir’s last under the baton of Dr. , who retires this spring after 39 years as a member of 91����Ƶ’s music faculty.

For it, Nafziger has purposely sought out musicians in Central Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley who can augment the more traditional selection of material offered in previous years.

The result is a highly eclectic program that employs the talents of a wide variety of performers with connections to 91����Ƶ’s , and to the Chamber Singers – past and present.

“I wanted to do something special for this concert – something unique,” said Nafziger. “It became an opportunity to include all kinds of people.”

Among them are several 91����Ƶ graduates, as well as current and former colleagues of Nafziger’s ranging from , founder of the Charlottesville-based baroque ensemble Three Notch’d Road and newly named executive director of the , to Trent Wagler ᾽02, who fronts Steel Wheels, the nationally celebrated roots band.

Others include:

• , concert pianist and coordinator of keyboard studies at 91����Ƶ;
• Katie Derstine ’05, 91����Ƶ staff member and co-founder of local a cappella ensembles Good Company and Shekinah;
• , violinist and chair of 91����Ƶ’s Music Department;
• Anne Gross, formerly of 91����Ƶ’s music faculty, and now assistant professor of voice at Elizabethtown College;
• Les Helmuth, executive director of the VMRC Foundation, and a 1978 product of the undergraduate program in Vocal Performance at 91����Ƶ;
• , noted baritone and assistant professor of voice at 91����Ƶ;
• Jeanette Zyko, who instructs in oboe at James Madison University’s School of Music and serves as the school’s director of undergraduate admissions.

“Going through old programs while clearing out my office,” reflected Nafziger, “so many memories came flooding back to me – the people, the repertoire, the communities for whom and with whom we sang.”

Hence, the appellation “Communities of Song,” testifying to Nafziger’s belief that “it takes a village, a community, for music to exist.”

The concert begins with a processional piece borrowed from an African-American church in Washington, D.C. It will be followed by a Bach cantata, with strings and oboes.

Bridging the middle portion of the evening is a section titled “Hope,” which takes its inspiration from the words of the late Martin Luther King Jr., who in a speech the night before his death observed that, “Only in the darkness can you see the stars.” It consists of spirituals and popular songs in which can be found, according to Nafziger, “reasons for hope in dire circumstances.”

The concert’s concluding segment is titled “Great Prayers,” and features settings of prayers attributed to Jesus, St. Augustine of Hippo, and St. Francis of Assisi.

Admission to the concert is free. However, any donations received will go to support the 91����Ƶ Music Department’s scholarship fund.��

Nafziger – who has earned renown not only for his choral and orchestral conducting, but also for his central role in the founding of the – will continue as the festival’s artistic director and principal conductor for its forthcoming 25th anniversary season.

The festival runs June 11 through 18 at 91����Ƶ and other venues in and around Harrisonburg.

After lofty choral anthems, congregational singing and Bible readings, the audience of several hundred listened to the 2016 alumni award winners, who reflected on the words of the prophet Micah — Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God — on their life and work.

Harvey Yoder: “Live in a way that justice will ‘roll down’”

, ’64, SEM ’99, was the first speaker, his theme of “do justice” an apt choice. Yoder is a pastor, counselor and social justice advocate in Harrisonburg and the broader community.

“Thanks for the opportunity to speak to a sometimes neglected aspect of ‘what God requires of us,’ and to what Richard Stearns calls ‘the hole in our gospel,’” Yoder said. “I can’t thank 91����Ƶ enough for its part in being the kind of alma mater, nurturing mother, in addressing that issue of justice in a way that’s made a huge difference in my life from the time I enrolled here 56 years ago.”

Yoder named his father and mother, as well as experiences in 91����Ƶ classes and chapel services and special events, as “transformative.” Relationships with friends, including his future wife Alma Jean Wert ’63, and professors “enlarged my world and impressed the words of Micah, the prophets, and of Jesus ever more indelibly on my life.”

One such experience at 91����Ƶ, visiting inmates in a local jail, led to a lifetime of advocacy for criminal justice reform. Yoder named , Charles Zellers Sr. and John Bennie Williams, and shared of their repeated denial of parole requests.

“These are just a few of the things that have motivated me … to keep using whatever influence and whatever means I have left to encourage everyone to love justice as God does and to keep praying daily that God’s upside-down kingdom would come and that God’s will truly be done right here on earth as it is in heaven.”

Donna and Wayne Burkhart: ‘Love mercy’

Among the experiences of life that made him “wonder and reflect,” Wayne Burkhart ’67 said, was the loss of his son 22-year-old son Christopher. , recipients of the Distinguished Service Award, were recognized for their years of dedication to Gould Farm, a therapeutic residential community for those learning to manage psychiatric disorders in Massachusetts.

“Fortunately I came out on the other side with love … and seeing the beauty of the universe,” Wayne recounted. “Mercy is something I’ve thought about a lot. To live in mercy is to be calm and confident that I should continue life’s journey in faith.”

For me,” Donna said, “mercy has been a simple opening of the heart. It’s what God did in standing with his Son on the cross … it is what of each of us does for a way forward in a fragmented, struggling world not knowing the answers. Not building walls and not solving all the wrongs, but person to person with our hearts wide open embracing what we cannot bear, not pushing it away, embracing God’s mercy in our lives. Whatever we hope we have done has been our path to everything we have received.”

Grace: ‘Walk humbly as we follow’

Grace has for the past six years among the urban poor. Grace first answered Jesus’s call to “follow me” into the slums by listening to a small girl. “Jesus gives each one of us the same invitation follow me. The logistics look a little different for each follower, but we are called to follow humbly…”

Grace compares the journey of walking with Jesus to walking as a baby learns, step by step under the watchful eye and helping hand of a parent.

“Part of my job of following God is to teach my son how to follow, too,” she says. “…The irony is that often my children teach me about humility, about how to love others and about God. [My son] is not afraid to get dirty and run through puddles and play with mud for hours. He forms friendships across economic and religious and social barriers without even realizing it. Jesus gives us each the same invitation today. Follow me, follow me.”

This is not a clean or comfortable calling, but it is a way to God, she says.

“In the bittersweet knowledge that all of my efforts to make this community a better place are nothing but a drop in the ocean, it is the truth that God was in this place before I came, God loves these people more than I ever can and God has a plan that I cannnot fathom but that I know is good. And the great news is that Jesus invites us all to follow.”

Professor Ken J. Nafziger

Professor Ken J. Nafziger led the service, weaving together congregational and choral singing, scripture and reflection in a way he is known for across Mennonite Church USA and beyond.

Nafziger will retire this May after 40 years with 91����Ƶ’s music department, which includes founding the annual Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival more than 25 years ago. He is of the festival.

Saturday afternoon, he was joined by 50 former Chamber Singers for a time of reminiscing — both funny and profound — about experiences as members of the choral group. And they also sang together.

At Sunday’s service, advancement associate Braydon Hoover, a former Chamber Singer himself , shared a few anecdotes and thanked Nafziger for his dedication to music excellence, student musicians and a lifetime of service to 91����Ƶ, as well as the broader church.

“It’s a profoundly moving and exhilarating experience to gather representatives of 39 years’ worth of Chamber Singers experiences at the same time and place to hear what threads were constant throughout those 39 years,” reflected Nafziger later. “I was pretty much blown away! And, without a doubt, it was also profoundly moving and exhilarating to see lots of friends with whom I’ve shared music and experience and life. Thanks to all who organized that event, and to all those who attended, and to those who sent me notes saying they wished they could have been there.”

The Chamber Singers alumni provided the final selection of the worship service, “Dona nobis pacem” [Grant us peace], the concluding chorus of the Bach Mass in B Minor. In the group were five sets of parents and children: Kendra Good ’85 Rittenhouse and son Steven ’11, Michael Bishop ’81 and son Jonathan, Andy ’90 and Tina Martin ’89 Grove with son Dylan; Fred Kniss ’79 and sons Mike ’06 and Steve ’11; and Pam Risser ’80 with daughter Leah ’11.

Nafziger was presented with a fall bouquet in appreciation by Jeff Shank, director of alumni relations and parent engagement.

He will continue his journey and passion in that field with a new call as the executive director of the , based at 91����Ƶ in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

“David clearly brings a tremendous amount of energy to this position,” says Dr. , vice president of the festival’s advisory board. “If his success with [musical group] in Charlottesville is any indication, he will surely bring a fresh and lively vision to the Bach Festival.”

McCormick, a native of nearby Charlottesville, Virginia, says he attended his first Bach Festival concert in Harrisonburg this summer and fell in love.

“From that brief encounter, one concert, I saw this is a festival with a lot of heart,” McCormick says. “It’s a great opportunity to join a festival that embraces what I think is some of the best music out there. I’m pleased to be a part of it.”

There is a “tradition of great Bach festivals around the country,” McCormick says, and he hopes to use that network to build up the Harrisonburg event, “giving it more of a regional or even national reputation.

“I think there’s a real potential in this area to encourage tourists to be part of this festival,” he adds.

McCormick brings a diverse background to the position. He holds a degree in medieval Renaissance and Baroque music from Case Western University in Cleveland, Ohio, and three degrees—in music education, violin performance and chamber music—from Shenandoah University.

He also performs medieval music on the vielle (a violin-like stringed instrument) with New York-based and founded the Charlottesville-based baroque music group . His work has been primarily as an educator, teaching violin and viola students in the Charlottesville and Waynesboro areas. He says he plans to bring that educator’s perspective to the festival, as well, helping audiences more deeply understand the music they’re hearing.

McCormick follows , who served as executive director for the past decade. Adams, a flutist, has also played with the festival since its beginning and plans to continue in that role.

Another key member of the festival leadership, artistic director and conductor , will continue in his role. McCormick says that Nafziger’s presence was a factor in his decision to accept the executive director job.

“One of the strong points that brought me here was definitely Ken,” McCormick says. “I’ve seen from afar that his leadership of this festival is unbelievable. He’s the heart and soul of this festival. I worked with him professionally a few years ago, and he’s just such a great musician and a great human. He embodies a lot of the values that are important to me.”

Nafziger, professor of music at 91����Ƶ, had similarly good things to say about McCormick. “I’m delighted that David has accepted the position of executive director for the Bach Festival. His broad wealth of experience in management and in performance will find a warm welcome within our organization as we prepare for our 25th season and beyond. I look forward to working with him: as a planner, as a dreamer of the future, and as a performer.”

McCormick enters his duties at a particular noteworthy time, as the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2017. The festival will be June 11-18 in Harrisonburg.

To catch a few of the highlights, read on.

New Events

• The traditional Friday evening concert at 8 p.m. in Lehman Auditorium features, for the first time, the A Cappella Voices Celebration, with alumni and student vocal groups Shekinah, Good Company, Bellaccord and Emulate.

• “We are Family” Black Student Union Network Soiree: On Saturday from 1-2:30 p.m., come to a networking dessert and discussion with BSU alumni. Share your 91����Ƶ experience and make new connections.

• 91����ƵTenTalks. Impact. Influence. Inspire.: Stop by the Main Stage Theatre Saturday at 2 p.m. for 91����ƵTenTalks:��Impact. Influence. Inspire, 10-minute impactful talks to inspire and generate ideas. Based on the popular TED Talks, this premiere event features Shirley Showalter ’70, author and president emeritus of Goshen College; Leonard Dow ’87, lead pastor and board vice-chair of Mennonite Central Committee; and Erik Kratz ‘02, major league baseball player. They’ll give an inspiring talk for 10 minutes and answer questions afterwards.

• Fall Festival: A time and place where alumni, parents, and students can meet, mingle and celebrate. Saturday’s fall festival on the front lawn will be fun for all ages from 3-7 p.m. Tailgate, listen to live music, enjoy lawn games, face painting and inflatables for the kids. Local food trucks will have delicious options, as well as a cookout provided by Pioneer College Caterers for students with meal plans and ticket-holders. Parents, visit the reception tent on the front lawn from 4-5 p.m. for your special gift. Also, stop by the admissions booth to learn more about enrolling at 91����Ƶ.

• Special reunions: The Chamber Singers reunite in honor of retiring professor Dr. Kenneth J. Nafziger, from 3-5 p.m. The ’84-’85 Middle East and the ’89 France cross-culturals will also host reunions. Additionally, class reunions for classes ending in 1 and 6 will meet.

• Athletics events: Homecoming is always a chance to showcase fall sports: field hockey at 1 p.m., women’s soccer at 4 p.m. and men’s soccer at 7 p.m. The women’s basketball team hosts an alumni game. Men’s basketball hosts a Midnight Madness Blue/White Scrimmage at midnight.

Traditional Events

• Department Breakfasts and gatherings: Saturday kicks off with a number of traditional breakfasts and morning coffee sessions: the Suter Science Center breakfast and lecture with Christopher Longenecker ’01; nurses’ receptions; Haverim and seminary breakfasts; business networking with coffee and donuts; and the Jesse T. Byler education lecture with Jesse Rodriguez ’05 and Kendal Swartzendruber ’07, education coordinators with the Virginia Office of Education.

• Hall of Honor: Field hockey star Jonalyn Denlinger ’06 and pole vaulter Megan Mlinarchik ’06 will be inducted in the .

• Fun Run: The Campus Canvas Fun Run returns for its second year. Jog a 2-mile route through campus and finish covered in color.

• Jubilee Alumni Reception, for those who attended 91����Ƶ 50 or more years ago, is at 3:30 p.m in Martin Chapel.

• ���ܲԻ岹��’s Homecoming worship service will celebrate the contributions of Alumnus of the Year Harvey Yoder ’64, Distinguished Service Award recipients Donna ’69 and Wayne ’67 Burkhart, and Outstanding Young Alumna Grace Schrock-Hurst Praseyto ’10.

Need a ride to Harrisonburg? Want to give a ride?

Visit to find a ride or give a ride to 91����Ƶ Homecoming 2016.

The site was developed by Jakob zumFelde ’11, a graduate student in city planning and engineering at Ohio State University. ZumFelde says his decision not to own a car is directly linked to what he learned about sustainability during his undergraduate years at 91����Ƶ. Yet the choice to be carless makes travel to and from events like Homecoming difficult. He created the site because he’s “passionate about making it easier to live without a car” and�� in hopes that intergenerational connections might occur between alumni of all ages.

“I hope this site encourages carpooling among people who could drive separately too, as people could save gas and money, and maybe meet someone new. I’m sure a lot of carpooling already happens with travel to Homecoming, but given the wide age range of people who will be there, I think this website would help connect people who don’t already know each other,” zumFelde said.

Chamber Singers

The Chamber Singers, led by Kenneth J. Nafziger, will perform in Advent services at Muhlenberg Lutheran Church, 281 E. Market St., at 9:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. Nafziger will lead the singers in a performance of one of the Bach Advent cantatas, joined by the 91����Ƶ string ensemble.

The choir will also perform during the 5 p.m. Evensong service at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 660 S. Main St. The Chamber Singers have sung in this series every year except one since the church began offering this service to the community, Nafziger said.

Children’s Choir

The Shenandoah Valley Children’s Choir performs “A Celtic Christmas,” its 23rd annual Christmas concert and the first with new director Janet Hostetter, in Lehman Auditorium at 4 p.m.

Several selections are specifically tailored for the Celtic theme, while Celtic dances –performed by choir members Matthew Long, Rebekah Long, Eve Manning, and Sydney Shaver, under the tutelage of JoAnn Carle –will open and close the concert.

A sampling of the afternoon’s selections by the Treble Choir includes “Taladh Chriosda” (The Christ Child’s Lullaby); “Celtic Gloria”; the Baroque piece “Alleluia! Sing! Rejoice!” based on a composition by George Frideric Handel; a Kentucky carol, “Hush, My Babe,” and two traditional French carols.

The Concert Choir will perform��Henry Purcell’s “Sound the Trumpet,” John Rutter’s “Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day” with soloist Cierra Sweet, “Le Sommeil de l’Enfant Jesus” (The Sleep of the Infant Jesus) performed by the advanced musicianship class, “Christmas is Coming” a lighthearted rendition of a traditional round, “Eatnemen Vuelie” (Fairest Lord Jesus) with soloist Ben Elliott, and “Mary Had a Baby/Joyful, Joyful” with soloist Sophie Wellington.

Guest instrumentalists will include Dr. Pedro Aponte on the flute, Tara Davis on violin and Brent Holl on percussion.

The audience will be invited to join in singing traditional carols, including “Silent Night.”

Resmini began playing flute at age 3, “determined to figure it out, and by the end of the first year, there was no holding her back,” says her mother Marilyn. Now 14, Resmini arrives on the stage of the as a seasoned performer, lauded a “rising star” by world-renowned flutist Sir James Galway.

“YouTube is terrific, and I hope more classical musicians become more comfortable with it,” said Resmini from her home in northern Virginia several days prior to her two Bach Festival performances. “The only distraction is that it can take a while to respond to people’s comments. And there are a lot of people who think I’m still 7 or 8 years old.”

Her comments to viewers, many of them flute students her age, reveal a budding helpful teacher: “The most important thing is to tell a story with the music and have fun telling the story. Don’t let your music exam be like a math exam. Show everyone why you love to play the flute!!!”

And to another student’s query about vibrato, she wrote online, “Try metronome work. Set it to 80 then do 2 vibrato pulses to a beat on a scale. Then 3 to a beat, then 4. Then every day make the metronome one click faster. In a few weeks your vibrato will be better!!! Let me know how it goes!!!”

Resmini also attaches three exclamation points to other interests in her life. She enjoys flying model rockets with her father, a scientist. Recently, “I’ve been getting into building and programming robots,” she said. “It can be tricky to get the coding and engineering to come together, but it’s so much fun when my little bot finally does exactly what I want.” And she adores Maxi, her maltipoo, a cross between a Maltese and poodle.

This is her second year to perform at the Bach Festival; last year she played at a noon concert. This Thursday, June 12, at noon in , Resmini and Lise Keiter will perform a Sonata for Flute and Piano by Erwin Schulhoff. “He was one of many Jewish musicians whose successful careers were cut short by the rise of Nazis in Germany,” said Resmini. “He was deported to a concentration camp where he died in 1942. His music then fell into obscurity.

“However, his sonata is an amazing work that deserves to be played more. It’s impressionistic with some hints of jazz. The mood is sometimes dreamy, sometimes playful. It’s a very demanding piece that gives both the flutist and the pianist a real workout!”

Finding musical gems like this sonata and stringing together a diverse musical repertoire is a hallmark of the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival, under the artistic direction of Kenneth J. Nafziger for the past 22 years. From Bach, a thousand flowers bloom.

Another festival distinctive is showcasing youthful talent. Seasoned musicians gather year after year, family-reunion style, under the festival’s dome of community music-making. Pairing that experience with a new stream of youthful talent gives the Bach Festival its growing edge.

Six gifted instrumentalists, named Festival Fellows, “are outstanding young musicians who apply to our youth program and are selected to play in the orchestra alongside the professionals, thus gaining valuable experience and mentoring,” says , the festival’s executive director and principal flutist, who has played in the festival orchestra for each of its 22 seasons.

Festival Concerts 2 and 3, Friday, June 13, and Saturday, June 14, at 7:30 in 91����Ƶ’s Lehman Auditorium, will showcase this pairing of talented youth and experienced professionals.

On Saturday’s stage, 13-year old treble Augusta Nafziger joins Canadian bass-baritone , New York soprano (no relation), Texas tenor and New Jersey mezzo-soprano . The five soloists with the festival chorus and orchestra will reprise Mendelssohn’s Elijah, previously performed at 1995’s Bach Festival. Lichti sang the title role in that performance as well.

Emma Resmini and the festival orchestra will perform Ibert’s Concerto for Flute and Orchestra, after the intermission of Friday’s concert. “The concerto is a masterpiece of the flute repertoire and a real tour-de-force,” said Resmini. “It is treasured by flutists for its masterful orchestration, virtuosic writing and fiendish technical challenges for the soloist.”

Nothing quite matches hearing a live performance of the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival. But if you can’t attend, you can soon watch Resmini’s two performances on her YouTube channel. (Views of her now stand at 22,566 and rising.)

The festival, founded by 91����Ƶ professor , has become a Valley tradition. The weeklong event begins at 3 p.m. on Sunday, June 8, in Lehman Auditorium of 91����Ƶ and closes one week later with The Leipzig Service, a musically oriented worship experience in Lehman. The festival allows both musicians and audiences the opportunity to explore the music of Bach, those who influenced him, and those he inspired.

Bach is just the beginning

Since 2012, the festival’s tagline has been “Bach is just the beginning.” The theme of Bach as a starting point or base for the festival’s exploration will be on display again this year as the program features pieces by Bach contemporaries like Handel, Telemann, and Vivaldi, as well as instrumental sections from an opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau and more recent pieces by Gwyneth Walker and Kyle Lane.

, executive director of the Bach Festival and an 91����Ƶ music professor, said the musical diversity of the Bach Festival makes it exciting. As an example, she cited “phenomenal featured artists” performing Mendelssohn’s Elijah, “a masterpiece in choral and orchestral literature.” That performance is set for Saturday, June 14, at 7:30 p.m. in Lehman Auditorium.

Despite the festival’s musical diversity Bach is always at the center. The performances of three Bach Cantatas, 51, 82, 180, along with several of his organ pieces, will keep the festival solidly grounded in the musician who inspired it.

Quality performers

In over two decades, the festival has become a gathering place for acclaimed national talents. This year’s featured performers will include prodigy flutist , who at age 14 has already soloed at the Dallas, National, and Pittsburg Symphonies and on the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center. She has been reviewed by the New York Times, and is the youngest member of the program.

Other notable performers include Maryland-based organist , who has been a featured performer at three national conventions of the ; harpsichordist , sought-after performer and teacher of Baroque music across the United States; and .

The festival also features more local, though no less dynamic, talent in violinist and 91����Ƶ professor . An extraordinary musician, Griffing has previously performed with the AIMS festival orchestra in such non-local destinations as Austria and Italy. She also completed a three-week performing tour in Taiwan and is a founding member and regular performer with Musica Harmonia, a group which seeks to promote peace and culture through music.

Tickets and information

Discounted tickets for the festival can be purchased in advance from the 91����Ƶ box office (540-432-4582), or from . Tickets will also be available for purchase at the door at a non-discounted rate.

For those wishing to experience the festival outside of the ticketed concerts, a lunch-hour chamber music series will be held at First Presbyterian Church on June 9-14 at noon. Organizers of the Chamber music series will request donations, but tickets are not required. In addition, the annual Baroque workshop will be held from June 8-14, giving participants the opportunity to study Baroque music and dance under the instruction of several acclaimed artists. More information is here (emu.edu/bach/baroque/).

All information about the festival can be found here (emu.edu/bach/).

“It adds a beauty and an enjoyment [to life]. … It touches the deepest part of our soul in a way not much else does,” she remarked.

As the executive director of the 22nd annual ��(SVBF), Adams is looking forward to sharing her passion for classical music at the week-long event to be held June 8-15 at 91����Ƶ.

Adams, who estimates the event draws a crowd of roughly 4,000 annually, says the festival is respected nationwide for its high-quality performances, and even attracts some international audience members. According to Adams, the even called the SVBF the “jewel in Harrisonburg’s crown.”

“It’s such an intense week,” she added. “The musicians are playing from the moment they get to town until they leave 10 days later.”

This year’s featured musical artists include , , , , , , , , and .

Adams says that Nafziger — the artistic director/conductor — keeps the shows fresh from year to year.

“He makes a point of making it new,” she praised.

Though the SVBF will offer classical music from six different eras, the festival is named in honor of Johann Sebastian Bach, a German composer born in 1685.

“Most of the composers who came afterwards, to this day, use his music as a model,” explained Adams, adding that Bach’s works are at the event’s “heart.”

Adams encourages all locals to attend the festival, and says there’s no need to be a musical expert. With the help of program guide notes and explanations from the stage, she insists that even a novice can enjoy the experience.

“The music lover is really going to understand and appreciate everything going on with this … but we really do try to get people who don’t know much about classical music in there, too.”

Three-concert ticket packages cost $60 for adults; $50 for seniors ages 65 and older, and $15 for youth ages 22 and younger.

Advance single tickets cost $25 for adults; $20 for seniors and $5 for youth; tickets cost $2 more at the door.

Tickets for groups of 12 or larger cost $20 for adults; $15 for seniors and $5 for youth.

Donations collected for leipzig and noon chamber music series.

Tickets may be purchased at the door, online at emu.edu/box-office or by calling 432-4582.

Schedule of Events

• Concert 1: 3 p.m. June 8 at the Lehman Auditorium on 91����Ƶ campus.
• Concert 2: 7:30 p.m. June 13 at the Lehman Auditorium on 91����Ƶ campus.
• Concert 3: 7:30 p.m. June 14 at the Lehman Auditorium on 91����Ƶ campus.
• Leipzig Service: 10 a.m. June 15 at the Lehman Auditorium on 91����Ƶ campus.
• Noon Chamber Music Series: 12 p.m. June 9-14 at the First Presbyterian Church in Harrisonburg.
• Father’s Day Brunch following the leipzig service June 15 in the Northlawn Dining Hall. Make reservations online by June 1.

For a complete list, visit schedule.

Courtesy of the Daily News Record, May 14, 2014

One of the soloists, Canadian bass Daniel Lichti, sang in the first performance of Elijah at the Bach festival in 1995. This year’s Elijah is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, June 14, in Lehman Auditorium.

The oratorio about the Old Testament prophet will be conducted by , a long-time 91����Ƶ professor who helped establish the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival in 1992.

The festival honors the music of prolific 18th-century German composer Johann Sebastian Bach, as well as works by other composers.

Among them this year is Mendelssohn, another German composer who worked a century after Bach. He wrote Elijah for the 1846 Birmingham Music Festival in England, where it premiered to an enthusiastic audience and glowing reviews.

Lichti, singing the title role in Elijah, has established himself as one of Canada’s finest bass-baritones, performing with many of North America’s major orchestras and choirs. He appears regularly at festivals and performs oratorio and opera internationally.

This year, he is celebrating 40 years of professional performing with concerts in Canada, the United States and Europe. His debut was in an opera in 1974 at the Stratford Festival in Ontario. Lichti is a voice professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. During a recent sabbatical from his teaching, he performed Franz Schubert’s epic Winterreise in Paris, Vienna and Lyon.

The other soloists for Elijah this year at 91����Ƶ are soprano Sharla Nafziger (no relation to Ken J. Nafziger), who performs throughout her native Canada and the United States; mezzo-soprano Barbara Rearick, a performer who teaches voice at Princeton University; and tenor Kenneth Gayle, the producing director for an innovative musical non-profit organization in Houston.

While the orchestra is made up of professionals invited to the festival, the choir is composed of volunteers from near and far. (Anyone interested in singing in this year’s choir should contact at mathewsl@emu.edu.)

The 2014 festival begins on Sunday, June 8, at 3 p.m., with organist Marvin Mills performing Bach’s “Prelude and Fugue in A Minor.” That afternoon’s concert will also feature music by composers like Handel, Rameau, Telemann, Zelenka and Bach’s son, C.P.E. Bach.

“In our 20^th season, we unveiled a new tag line – ‘Bach is just the beginning’ – as a way of understanding more completely what this Bach festival is all about,” said Ken J. Nafziger.

From June 9-14, the festival includes daily noon chamber music concerts at First Presbyterian Church on Court Square in Harrisonburg. No tickets are required, but donations are requested at the door. A complete schedule is available on the .

The noon concert on Monday, June 9, will feature the faculty of the annual , which is part of the Bach festival. The academy, held June 8-14, offers solo master classes and ensemble coaching by internationally acclaimed artists Arthur Haas, harpsichord; Martha McGaughey, viola da gamba; and Linda Quan, baroque violin.

A second major concert on Friday, June 13, at 7:30 p.m. will feature the festival orchestra performing two of Bach’s cantatas and music by Maurice Ravel. Emma Resmini, an acclaimed 14-year-old flutist from Fairfax, Va., will also play a concerto by Jacques Ibert.

Yet another component to the festival is the Road Scholar Program, which offers classes throughout the United States. From June 11 to 15, participants will enjoy the history and culture of the Shenandoah Valley while attending the festival’s concerts and interacting with the musicians, conductor and musical scholars. More information is available from .

On Sunday, June 15, at 10 a.m., Nafziger will lead the annual Leipzig service, inspired by the worship services at Bach’s church in Germany. He will be joined by the festival orchestra and choir as well as the featured vocal soloists and organist Marvin Mills. The homily will be delivered by Lara Steinel, music director at a progressive Jewish congregation – Kol Ami – in Kansas City, Mo.

The final event of the festival is a Father’s Day brunch in 91����Ƶ’s Northlawn dining hall. must be made by June 1.

Advance tickets to the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival are available at the 91����Ƶ box office – 540-432-4582 or-. They will also be available at the door at slightly higher prices.

For more details, visit .����

Find out more at: www.emu.edu/music