One Body
Kennedy has crafted a work of truth and beauty more lasting than
even he knows
— Charleston Post and Courier, 1999
Upon hearing composer John Kennedy's chamber cantata One Body, one's first observation is curiosity: how many people are singing? The answer is only one voice—that of the extraordinary countertenor and baritone Bruce Rameker.
The second observation is how eclectic a musical experience it is, blending postmodern and soundscape evocations with beautiful melody, forging a unique stylistic aesthetic which is difficult to classify.
One Body unites poems and texts by several authors which consider and celebrate the interconnectedness of all things. The composer says:
"In recent years, ecobiologists such as James Lovelock have helped foster a view of the Earth as a single, living entity, Gaia, 'self-regulating and endowed with faculties and powers far beyond those of its constituent parts.' This scientific point of view complements the spiritual perspectives from many cultures and times, and offers the possibility of reinvigorating in contemporary culture a sacramental view of life. As one who shares this sensibility, I sought with One Body to express not only the spiritual dimensions of this notion, but also to address conflicting cultural conditionings, such as stereotypes of gender, division by species, and the fallacy of 'race.' I also wanted to unite a collection of texts by multiple authors, a modern liturgy of secular humanism which joins spirituality with intellectual freedom. The five movements of One Body are connected without break. Within these movements are instrumental transitions which serve as reflections or prayers: a viola solo (speaking to difference and ambiguity), cello solo (to the soul, anima), percussion duo (to the Earth), violin duo (to the great mysteries), and string quartet (to love and the ancestors)."
Interwoven throughout all of this is the clarion voice of Bruce Rameker, who has sung at New York City Opera and elsewhere, and who impressed Kennedy, along with much of New York, at a performance of Handel's Messiah in 1997.
"At the concert I attended," explains Kennedy, "Bruce filled in for an ailing bass soloist, even though he was already singing the role of alto soloist. He handled both parts masterfully. When I heard him switch seamlessly from countertenor to baritone and back again, I knew I had found the vehicle for One Body."
Rameker's voice, which ranges from the sonorous to the celestial, is combined with a string quartet and two percussion to amplify poems and texts by Gary Snyder, Walt Whitman, Kenneth Patchen, Joy Harjo, and Kennedy himself.
Kennedy says this about his musical aesthetic: "In the last 100 years we have wildly developed every technical parameter of music. I am most intersted in how those technical developments can be sublimated to refocus ourselves on the emotional parameter of music. Values, like art, can be created. I believe in the social function of music, and in music whose experimental integrity, either explicitly or abstractly, is directed to audiences of all kinds. John Cage said, 'it is the responsibility of the artist to imitate nature in its manner of operation.' To me, nature's generosity strives to feed many. Our art might strive to do the same."
One Body is the premiere release on SFNM Records.
Audio CD: SFNMCD000512
UPC Number: 809157 58922
Suggested retail price: $17.98
Available in Santa Fe at the Candyman, and also through Santa
Fe New Music.