the gift of open space music from chris

[Penny Scott]

Check out what our friend Chris Corrigan is gifting Bowen Island with on
Sunday nights.. an excerpt from Kathryn Thomson's letter in our local paper,
The Undercurrent, this week.


On Sunday I experienced something extraordinary - a choir of angels was
singing in the United church. This choir must be Bowen Island's best kept
secret but this intimate music is too inspirational to be kept a secret for
long.


The music is contemplative, consisting of plainsong (Gregorian chants) and
hymns. The vocal harmony is beautiful - each voice responding to the others
with great sensitivity, even delicacy. The simple service combines
candlelight, silence and scripture with these simple chants to help build
awareness of Spirit in our selves and in community. Alison Nixon explains
"The chants are meant to be sung for at least seven minutes and ideally for
15 to 20 minutes. It takes at least that long for the chant to penetrate the
heart."


William Allen, Cantor of St. Barnabas Anglican Church explains Gregorian
chant this way: "the vision of creation expressed in by this music is one in
which the life of humanity is ever more surely becoming the divine life. It'
s sound is unified, loving and merciful, pointing to healing and wholeness."


As I listened to this music, I experienced a deep sense of the sacred and a
mood of stillness and reverence. T.S. Eliot contemplated this experience in
Four Quartets: "To apprehend the point of intersection of the timeless with
time, is an occupation for the saint.for most of us there is only the
unattended moment, the moment in and out of time, the distraction fit, lost
in a shaft of sunlight.or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply that it is
not heard at all, but you are the music while the music lasts".


thanks chris.

penny scott

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