Looking Up
On music, sore hearts, and remembering to hope
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Performing last week with baroque ensemble Theotokos at St. John the Divine for Carnegie Hall’s Well-Being Concert series
A MARCH 2026 Newsletter
The horoscopes say that Mercury has turned retrograde this week, which tends to be an astrological period of chaos. Whether or not the predictions of the zodiac hold water or not, this last week of the year’s shortest month felt like a maelstrom. On the east coast of the US, it felt like the anger of our abused environment was unleashed as entire states were covered in feet of snow. Then just days later, the United States leapt into yet another unjustified war in the middle east that a majority of the populace does not want nor consent to.
The thing about these times in which we live is that they feel increasingly chaotic. Part of this is the speed with which information is delivered in our technological age. Adding to the rapidity is the exponentially increasing pace at which our technological means are advancing. Rather than year to year, now that the tech can reinvent itself, it increasingly feels as though change happens millisecond by millisecond. Our despotic narcissist rules the “free” world erratically according to mood swing, blindly following the counsel of whichever advisor is loudest in their flattery, making him mostly an agent of chaos instead of the heroic leader he fancies himself to be. Nothing feels stable and the only constant is rapid-fire change. War without provocation, misinformation spreading like wildfire, alliances that buttress the world order collapsing, unceasing torrents of scandal…the headspinning pace of all this feels like a dark maelstrom of chaos.
Krista Tippett with Theotokos at St. John the Divine
Paradoxically–perhaps crucially–last week saw me flying headlong into that historic blizzard to perform a concert as part of Carnegie Hall’s Well-Being concert series last Thursday. Our program was hosted by journalist and author Krista Tippett, whose calm and beatific energy felt like a much-needed balm to the agitated collective soul of the world. The venue for our concert was one of the world’s largest Gothic cathedrals, St John the Divine. Counterintuitively, in a whirlwind time where it might feel like we need to find grounding, our program asked people to look up.
Another symptom of surviving the whipstorm of our moment is that we are conditioned to look down for all sorts of reasons. Whether it’s gluing ourselves to the tiny screens in our hands with their infinite scroll, ducking for cover out of fear of whatever blow is coming next, or hanging our heads in shame and sorrow at the latest atrocity in the news, we are conditioned to keep our eyes focused on the floor. Krista, Bach, Buxtehude, Pachelbel, the musicians of the baroque ensemble Theotokos, and I asked our audience to consider looking up instead. Carnegie Hall’s Well-Being concerts invite the audience to seat themselves in all sorts of ways, with some people opting for traditional chairs, others choosing meditation cushions, and some even laying on some yoga mats on the floor. Those lying on the floor perhaps had the most ideal view as the music reverberated around them as they gazed up at the soaring buttresses of the ceiling of St John the Divine.
Audience members at St. John the Divine
Krista led us all in a focus on our interconnectedness, noting that music is not only a beautiful metaphor demonstrating the power of collaboration and communal effort, but also that it can physically bring us together, uniting the rhythms of our heartbeats and breaths as we collectively listen. She meditated on how we are learning that in cellular and cosmic ways, we are all not just individuals, but also are connected as a superorganism.
In her spoken notes about the interconnectedness of humanity, something Krista said really stuck with me as the newscycle has sucked us into the mire with renewed vigor these past few days: "I believe that across all of our fractures and differences, most of us are walking around with hearts that are sore." I share that belief, and it is the magnet that draws me to music, to the sharing of narratives, and to sacred music, specifically. At their core, the music of the likes of Bach and Buxtehude reminds us that for eons, whether it's a Holy Trinity or the stars of the Zodiac, we have collectively also hoped and dreamed of forces larger than ourselves watching over humanity, praying that those forces can and will offer salvation in our darkest moments.
Performing with Krista Tippett and Theotokos at St. John the Divine
Looking ahead, despite being a month somewhat associated with the burgeoning of spring, March contains more meditations on this cycle of sore hearts seeking to nurture the flame of hope. First, I will indulge in hanging my head in sorrow again as I dive into Hans Zender’s orchestral re-imagining of Franz Schubert’s epic immersion into the dark abyss of grief and loss, Winterreise, in Boston with Emmanuel Music. Then I will revisit the hopeful music of Bach and Buxtehude with Santa Fe Pro Music, this time paired with music by Barbara Strozzi and other Italian contemporaries.
Wishing you a peaceful March ahead. As always, I hope to see you somewhere online or in person. In the meantime, take good care and remember to keep looking up as we nurture the flame of hope in our hearts.
Performing with Krista Tippett and Theotokos at St. John the Divine