Chapel View Magazine | Summer 2019

CHAPEL VIEW SUMMER 2019 magazine

DUKE CHAPEL NATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD CHAIR Charlie Berardesco, T ’80 VICE CHAIR C.B. Richardson III, T ’92 EMERITUS MEMBER William E. King, PhD, T ’61, G ’63, G ’70 ADVISORY BOARD Zoila Airall Robin Barefoot D. Michael Bennett, T ’77 John A. Bussian III, T ’76 M. Keith Daniel, T ’90, D ’05, D ’16 Ellen Davis Thomas Felgner, T ’94, B ’95 Cathy S. Gilliard, D ’97 Elizabeth Grantland, T ’20 Zach Heater, T ’17 Sara Elizabeth Hyre, T ’89 Grace Lee, T ’79 and Kenneth Lee, T ’74 Jeffrey Nelson, D ’13 T. Walker Robinson, MD, T ’00, G ’01, M ’09 Max Sirenko, T ’11 Valerie Henry Sirenko, T ’11 Amanda Wright Smoot, WC ’63 Kathryn Watkins, T ’19

CHAPEL STAFF OFFICE OF THE DEAN The Rev. Dr. Luke A. Powery, Dean of Duke University Chapel Ava West, Assistant to the Dean MINISTRY The Rev. Bruce Puckett, Assistant Dean of Duke University Chapel The Rev. Joshua Lazard, C. Eric Lincoln Minister for Student Engagement and Interim Director of Religious Life The Rev. Breana van Velzen, Community Minister Gale Pettiford, Staff Assistant for Ministry MUSIC Dr. Philip Cave, Associate Conductor for Chapel Music and Interim Director of Chapel Choir Dr. Robert Parkins, University Organist Christopher Jacobson, FRCO, Chapel Organist John Santoianni, Curator of Organs and Harpsichords Michael Lyle, Office Coordinator for Chapel Music ADMINISTRATION Amanda Millay Hughes, Director of Development and Strategy Joni Harris, Business and Facilities Manager James Todd, Communications Manager Kevin Goldfarb, Communications Specialist Mark King, Hospitality Coordinator Lisa Moore, Accounting Specialist and Office Coordinator Erica Thomas, Staff Assistant for Development David-Michael Kenney, Visitor Relations Assistant and Wedding Coordinator Blanche Williams, Wedding Director Ann Hall, Visitor Relations Assistant Wanda Cobb, Visitor Relations Assistant Antoinette L. Bethea, Visitor Relations Assistant Jane Kelly, Visitor Relations Assistant Keshia Perry, Visitor Relations Assistant Oscar Dantzler, University Housekeeper Beverly Jordan, University Housekeeper Duke Schools Abbreviation Key: D (Divinity School) E (Pratt School of Engineering) G (Graduate School) MD (School of Medicine) T (Trinity College of Arts & Sciences) WC (Women’s College)

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BRIDGING FAITH & LEARNING

This semester seniors in the Chapel Scholars program applied to be Dean’s Scholars.

The Dean’s Scholars group met with Chapel Dean Luke A. Powery for meals and discussion.

Left to right: Aidan Workman, T ’19; Melanie Park, T ’19; Anna Balas, T ’19; Kate Watkins, T ’19; the Rev. Dr. Luke A. Powery, dean of the Chapel; Samuel Zhu, T ’19; Nikhil Pulimood, T ’19; and Idalis French, T ’19. Photo by Samuel Zhu, T ’19.

All photos are by Chapel communications staff unless otherwise indicated.

A GIFT OF PENTECOST: UNIFIED DIVERSITY The Rev. Dr. Luke A. Powery [@LukeAPowery]

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arely do people refer to Duke Chapel as “Pentecostal.”

Given our liturgical practices, I understand that, but even without the label “Pentecostal” Duke Chapel can still reflect the gifts given by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2).

One of those gifts is being a God-centered community that exemplifies unified diversity. The French theologian Yves Congar puts it this way in his book I Believe in the Holy Spirit: “The distinctive aspect of the Spirit is that, while remaining unique and preserving his identity, he is in everyone without causing anyone to lose his originality. This applies to persons, peoples, their culture and their talents. The Spirit also makes everyone speak of the marvels of God in his own language.”

As Congar says, the work of the Spirit at Pentecost is really about the unity of a diverse people, and we can only unify when we diversify because there has to be diversity in order to have unity. Otherwise, all we have is uniformity, not unity.

Cultural specificity is important, but in the Spirit, it is decentered.

God dethrones cultural or ethnic hegemony at Pentecost. But it is also necessary to say that cultural identity is not erased or obliterated either.

Cultural identity is fully present and fully inspirited yet the Spirit leads proclaimers to speak about and praise God, not the self.

I have this view in mind for preaching at the Chapel: Pentecost privileges God as the universal content of proclamation through particular cultural means. The style, cadence, accent, and even language may change in the pulpit but the object of preaching is always God. This lens of Pentecost can be brought to bear beyond the pulpit to the music of the Chapel too. In this 2 CHAPEL VIEW magazine

The unified-diversity issue of Chapel View Chapel community. magazine, you will revealed at Pentecost is one The Gospel can be find referenced proclaimed through of God’s gifts that can be sacred music from mission trips to Costa offered through and beyond Rica or the desert of the prolific German the Chapel to a campus and New Mexico (page classical composer J.S. Bach (pages 4) or through the world that so deeply values 12–13) to the cultural (and other) identities discernment and Gospel songwriter service of PathWays and yet so often sees those Kirk Franklin (page Fellows in Durham identities in conflict.

5). This range of (page 7). music is pitched The unifiedin different cultural keys, but it gives diversity revealed at Pentecost is one glory to the same God. of God’s gifts that can be offered The same is true of our liturgies. through and beyond the Chapel to This past year, the Chapel’s Sunday a campus and world that so deeply morning liturgy has included prayers values cultural (and other) identities and Scripture readings in Spanish, and yet so often sees those identities Mandarin, and Korean, in addition to in conflict. Seeing difference united, English. One service even included even imperfectly, would surely be an artist’s live painting as a visual a compelling witness in our place language of praise. The Sunday and time. morning service itself stands in May the Holy Spirit come over relationship with the Chapel’s Choral us, infuse us, ignite us, and breathe Vespers, Choral Evensong, and Jazz upon us, so that we may embody a Vespers services, which each have God-centered community of unified their distinctive traditions—and yet diversity. Come, Holy Spirit! are oriented toward the same God. Even beyond the walls of the Chapel, the Spirit works through the

FAITH & LEARNING PROFILE

Carefully Reading Texts and People A

s a double-major in English and African American studies, Duke student Liddy Grantland spends a lot of time with books.

“Most of what I am doing in school is analyzing texts, paying close attention to the words and phrases and references as a means of finding understanding,” explains Grantland, who recently finished her junior year at Duke and is a Chapel Scholar and member of the Duke Wesley Fellowship (the Methodist campus ministry).

“That’s not necessarily something preprofessional, but it is preparing you for life where what is important is how we pay attention to each other,” she says. “I believe that paying attention is a practice of loving, and that when we pay attention to something, we are loving it.”

It is in this type of paying attention—this close reading—of books and people that Grantland, a native of Columbia, South Carolina, finds a connection between her faith and her studies.

From reading Scripture in Sunday Morning worship services, to helping lead a mission trip to Costa Rica,

Liddy Grantland, T ’20

to serving on the Chapel’s National Advisory Board, Grantland is deeply involved in the work of the Chapel.

“Through the Chapel I have been able to pay attention to my community,” she says. “The Chapel is also a place where people have paid close attention to me, and where friends and mentors have really guided me in my academic pursuits and in my life pursuits—have taken the time to ask careful questions.”

After participating in the Chapel’s worship service on Sunday mornings, on Sunday afternoons, Grantland joins the Wesley Fellowship for a meal and worship in Goodson Chapel in Duke’s Divinity School. As the student pastor for the group, she seeks after the welfare of the other members of the fellowship.

“In Duke Wesley, I am able to pay attention to my friends, to ask them questions, and follow up on them— to be in intentional and prayerful community with each other,” she says.

Another connection between her faith and learning arose for Grantland last summer. She participated in a research project, sponsored by Chapel Dean Luke A. Powery, that examined

how sermons preached in Duke Chapel from 1960 to 1964 spoke about (or did not speak about) the Civil Rights Movement. The project, part of the Story+ program at Duke’s John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, drew upon materials in the Duke Chapel Recordings digital archive on the Duke Libraries website.

Grantland will continue her research into the Chapel’s preaching archive during her senior year as part of a project titled “Minoritized Bodies in the Pulpit at Duke Chapel,” which is funded by Duke’s Bass Connections program (see story on page 14).

“It’s such a cool tie-in to my studies,” she says. “I am getting to use the archive and draw connections to history in a way that is academic, but also spiritual. What they are talking about are issues that come up now.

How much do we engage with the world around us? How do we best serve our neighbors?”

“I learned that our words matter,” Grantland says. “Those words linger.”

Watch Liddy’s faith-and-learning video profile at chapel.duke.edu/student_ministries.

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STUDENT MINISTRIES Through the Chapel, students have many ways to deepen their faith and make connections with their studies.

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group of students spent their spring break on a mission trip in the town of Sierpe de Osa in Costa Rica. Along with Chapel ministers Revs.

Breana van Velzen and Bruce Puckett, they helped to install ceilings in the Sunday school classrooms of a local church. In addition to serving, they also tried out salsa dancing! The students had prepared for the trip by participating in a Duke House Course called How We Do Mission: Sustainable, Informed, and Relational Christian Service Abroad. The course was advised

by Rev. Puckett and led by junior Liddy Grantland (see story on page 3).

Top row (left to right): Kassidy Gales, T ’21; Elizabeth Smithwick, T ’21; Jordyn Blake, T ’21; Ryan McMutry, T ’21; Katy Hitchcock, G ’22; Liddy Grantland, T ’21; the Rev. Bruce Puckett, assistant dean of the Chapel; Paulos Muruts. Bottom row, second from left: Olivia Nillissen, P ’19. Bottom row, third from right: the Rev. Breana van Velzen, Chapel community minister.

Photo from Rev. Puckett.

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ver spring break a group of students, accompanied

by Chapel minister the Rev. Joshua Lazard, went on retreat at the secluded Monastery of Christ in the Desert in New Mexico. The five students participated in some of the regular prayers of the monastery and took time to rest and reflect.

Chapel Scholars at the Monastery of Christ in the Desert in New Mexico.

Top row (left to right): Samuel Zhu, T ’19, and Noah McKee, T ’22.

Bottom row (left to right); Emma Friesen, T ’22; Tatayana Richardson, T ’22; and Eyram Klu, T ’19. Photo by the Rev. Joshua Lazard, C. Eric.

Lincoln Minister at the Chapel.

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nited in Praise is a student gospel choir and praise dance ministry. They are advised the Rev. Joshua Lazard, the Chapel’s C. Eric Lincoln Minister for Student Engagement. During the Chapel’s worship service on February 17, they sang two songs: “I’ll Stand Until”

by Kirk Franklin and “Melodies from Heaven” also by Franklin.

Janie Booth, T ’19, preached in the Chapel on February 17.

Photo by Samuel Zhu, T ’19.

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The student gospel group United in Praise sings during a Chapel worship service. Photo by Samuel Zhu, T ’19.

enior Janie Booth, an art history major from Charlotte, delivered the sermon during Duke Chapel’s 11:00 a.m. worship service on Sunday, February 17. Her sermon, Coming Down the Mountain, was based on a section of the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Luke, which describes Jesus coming down from a mountain to proclaim a series of blessings and woes. Earlier in the semester, Booth and other students in the Duke Wesley campus ministry visited the U.S.-Mexico border outside of Tucson, Arizona—something Booth recounted in her sermon. While there, they walked a mountainous desert trail traveled by migrants. Along the way the students left jugs of water at humanitarian aid stations. During another part of the trip, which was funded in part by Duke Chapel, they met with migrants who had made the trek and heard about the hardships and hopes of their journeys. “If the message of the Sermon on the Plain were delivered by Jesus today, it would take place in the land around the border,” Booth said in her sermon. “Like the crowds assembled on the plain in Luke’s Gospel, these immigrants had assembled on the mountain in order for their wounds to be healed and to hear promises of good news.”

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RELIGIOUS LIFE AT DUKE Religious Life at Duke, overseen by the Chapel, comprises staff members from twenty-three campus Religious Life groups. The various campus ministers, chaplains, imam, and rabbi meet every-other week at the Chapel for updates and fellowship. Through their various campus groups, they aim to support students in their faiths and in their learning. Here are a couple of scenes from Religious Life this past semester.

Interfaith Roundtable

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his year a new Interfaith Roundtable, funded by the Faith Council at Duke Chapel, met four times with the goals of building fellowship within the group and better understanding each other’s faith traditions. The theme of the discussions was disagreements within various faiths. The group, chaired by Rabbi Elana Friedman, comprises sixteen Religious Life staff members.

Members of the Interfaith Roundtable (back row, left to right): Francesca Morfesis, Buddhist Meditation Community; Libby Sapp, Presbyterian Campus Ministry; Catherine Preston, Duke Catholic Center; Rabbi Elana Friedman, Jewish Life at Duke. Front row (left to right): Jeff Nelson, Housing and Residence Life; Sister Mary Peter Ryan, Duke Catholic Center; Ali Tranvik, Duke Lutherans; the Rev. Dr. Carol Gregg, Congregation at Duke Chapel.

Roundtable members not pictured are: Angelo Cho, Asian InterVarsity Christian Fellowship; Charlie Densmore, Cru; Chuck and Ilace Greenyer, Acts2; Lawrence Powers, Cooperative Baptist Student Fellowship; Ken Rogerson, Latter-day Saint Student Association; Imam Joshua Salaam, Muslim Life at Duke; and Madhu Sharma, Hindu Life at Duke. Photo by James Todd, Chapel communications manager.

Living Learning Community

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his year eight students sought to better understand one another’s faiths as they lived, studied, and learned together through the Eruditio et Religio livinglearning community. The students lived together in the Blue Ridge House residence hall in Keohane Quad. They studied together in a Duke “house course” on Religious Traditions and Interfaith Dialogue: Engaging Difference in the Community. And, they learned together about different faiths by visiting services of worship in the Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, and Sikh traditions.

The group was advised this year by Dr. Laura Lieber, a professor of religious studies, and Jeff Nelson, a Residence Life coordinator and Chapel National Advisory Board member. Eruditio et Religio received financial support from the Chapel, Student Affairs, and the Interfaith Youth Corp.

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Eruditio et Religio students attend a Hindu Diwali celebration (left to right): Alexandra Fisher, T ’19; Callie Keen, T ’20; Devri Adams, T ’19; Aidan Workman, T ’19; and Mahnoor Nazeer, T ’19. Students in Eruditio et Religio who are not pictured are Nicholas Chrapliwy, T ’21; Heather Zhou, T ’19; and Lily el Naccash, T ’20. Photo by Alexandra Fisher, T ’19.

PATHWAYS FELLOWS Four recent graduates of Duke are wrapping up a year as PathWays Fellows.

Through the fellowship, they lived together in a house in Durham’s West End neighborhood, gathered regularly for meals and prayer, served in community organizations, and sought discernment about God’s call for their lives.

Here they share reflections on their year as PathWays Fellows.

Reflections on a Year of Community and Service Maria Luisa FrassonNori, T ’18

Community Organization: StoryDriven PathWays has helped me develop an everyday prayer life that has transformed the way that I let God into my life. I am constantly spiritually stimulated by our practice of morning prayer, meeting Christian leaders in the community, and retreating into silence or into teaching programs like Racial Equity Training or the Durham Pilgrimage of Pain and Hope. Because of PathWays, I have gotten to meet Jesus in people who have many different theologies, practices, and approaches to their faith.

I am still discovering my vocation, but now I feel like I at least know how and where to listen for God’s voice and how it feels when I embrace Him more fully.

Sara Yuen, T ’18

Jonathan Osei, T ’18

My year has been focused on my work placement at Senior PharmAssist, which helps Durham seniors with their medicines, coverage, and rights. I continue to be awed by the depth of knowledge and dedication of my co-workers, who are mostly women. I cannot help but imagine a trajectory for my life through their example—to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God. I have felt strengthened in the call to a career in physical therapy. While having this much confidence in a path is BIG for me, through working with both my co-workers and older adults, I have seen firsthand that discernment is a process that lasts a lifetime.

I have found the PathWays House community to be a great place for bonding over prayer, daily life, meals, and experiences. I have been practicing meditation and am working on journaling and building a better spiritual awareness and self-awareness. I am still in the vocational discernment process but plan to do work around housing, social, economic, and/or community development.

This year has contributed to my passion for serving a variety of underserved communities and has re-emphasized for me the power of community and God’s calling.

Community Organization: Senior PharmAssist

Community Organization: StepUp Durham

Sarah Beaverson, T ’18 Community Organization: Duke Community and Family Medicine One of the biggest lessons I have learned this year is a framework for community engagement.

Often, underserved communities are assessed in terms of their problems.

However, this perspective disempowers the community and makes the community feel like they are undervalued.

Alternatively, the community health empowerment theory emphasizes that no external entity should assume a community’s need or try to enforce unwanted changes by the community. This theory advocates for assessing communities in terms of their own assets, resources, and skills.

Summer 2019 7

A MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR, DUKE CHAPEL NATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD Charlie Berardesco, T ’80

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often think our shared love of Duke Chapel means that we know one another.

The Chapel has this effect on people – it brings us together in ways we might never have imagined.

But allow me to take a moment to tell you a little more about myself, my history, and my plans for the future.

I arrived at Duke never having set foot in a space like Duke Chapel, never having heard a pipe organ, never having heard the kind of music and preaching I experienced at the Chapel.

Even though I grew up attending church, my experience with Duke Chapel changed me profoundly – it enhanced my spirituality, broadened my perspective to include biblical study, and started me on a lifetime

engagement with both church service and choral music. It literally changed the path of my life.

Today, I am also moved by what the Chapel is accomplishing as part of the life of the Duke community – from engaging directly with students, to sponsoring faith-based dialogues, to reaching out to the greater Durham community and a now international community. The Chapel, under the leadership of Dean Luke Powery, has enhanced its position as a bridge between faith and learning not only at Duke, but across the globe. For these reasons, Duke Chapel is not only a significant recipient of my annual giving, but also a substantial beneficiary of my estate plan.

I encourage you to join me in considering another way to ensure the future success of Duke Chapel. By making a “planned gift”—a gift made

through a will, retirement account designation, or life income gift—you will help support the future of Duke Chapel for years to come while accomplishing your own personal and financial goals.

If you have already included Duke Chapel in your estate plans— thank you! I invite you to share your confidential and non-binding estimate by contacting my liaison in the Office of Gift Planning, Anne Morrison Bradley, at (919) 613-5224 or anne. bradley@duke.edu. Anne is also available to help you consider your options for the future.

Thank you for all you have done for Duke Chapel. Your support is key to furthering our mission of bridging faith and learning on the campus, in the community, and around the globe.

Sincerely yours, Charlie Berardesco

All three Chapel choirs perform Bach’s St. Matthew Passion on March 31.

Photo by Chris Hildreth, Rooster Media.

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Passing on a Tradition of Music Education

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arbara J.R. Jones, WC ’65, began singing as a chorister in the second grade at First United Methodist Church in Westfield, New Jersey. When she arrived at Duke in the fall of 1961, she brought with her an affinity for choral music. In a recent phone interview, Jones remembered her first days on campus.

“At Duke, I asked, what was the next logical choir to sing in?” she says. “It was the Chapel Choir.”

Under the direction of Music Director Paul Young, Jones says she quickly found the Chapel Choir to be a comfortable fit.

“The level of expertise was high,” she says. “It was an intense program— a program that was designed to achieve high-quality performances.”

Into her adult life music has remained important to Jones. After graduating from Duke, she went off to Winchester, England, to teach school, then to Washington, D.C., to work for a U.S. Congressman. She later moved to California where she earned her law degree from the University of San Francisco, and then began to practice law.

Her first dates with her late husband John B. Auerbach, MD, were to classical music concerts. Jones calls him her “musical soulmate.” Now Presiding Justice in California’s First District Court of Appeal, Jones says classical music, and particularly organ music, continues to be a great source of solace and stimulation in her life.

“Music is second in my life only to family,” she says.

Jones has taken a major step in passing on the music that has enriched her life. In 2018, Jones established a new endowment fund at Duke Chapel.

With income from current and future gifts, The Barbara-Jean Ross Jones Music Education Fund will be used to support the Chapel Organ Scholars program, training a next generation of organists in worship service playing and choral accompaniment. The fund may

also be used to support Chapel partnerships with community-based programs that encourage elementary and high school students to learn and perform classical and sacred choral work.

Chapel Dean Luke A. Powery says, “The Chapel is grateful to receive this remarkable gift. Church music is sonic theology, a theology that reminds us we are better when we sing, play, and resonate together as the gathered community of faith. It is a privilege to steward BJ’s lifelong love of music into the future.”

Because music is a thread that has run through Jones’s life, her gift to the Chapel will create new opportunities to introduce young people and emerging professional musicians to the power of “church music.”

Jones says of her own life, “We got our first musical training at church,” and shares a story of her early memories of the church organist. “I would run up during a thundering postlude and sit on the organ bench next to Mrs. Gould and watch her create her magic,” she says. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘Mrs. Gould is playing with her feet as well as her fingers!’”

Jones sang in choirs and operettas through high school and while at Duke sang not only in the Chapel Choir

but also in the Women’s Glee Club.

After college, Jones was a church choir member in Winchester, England, and an early chorus member of the New Jersey Opera Theatre, now the New Jersey State Opera.

On campus during the turbulent Sixties, Jones says she noticed that music from the Chapel reached beyond the choir members.

“With all of the stresses that present themselves when one is a college student, Duke Chapel was a place to go to take a deep breath,” she says. A big part of the effect of the Chapel was “the restorative power of the music that came out of that space.”

Living in San Francisco and an avid cyclist, Jones regularly attends operas, symphony and chamber concerts, and organ recitals with friends.

This enduring appreciation of, and nurture from, music is what Jones seeks to perpetuate with her gift. Especially important to Jones is encouraging young, talented musicians—including those of modest means—to take up the organ.

In crafting her gift, she named the Benjamin N. Duke Memorial (Flentrop), Kathleen Upton Byrns McClendon (Aeolian), and Brombaugh organs specifically, recognizing their potential to facilitate teaching and learning.

“The organ is a marvelous instrument that not a lot of people can play,” she says. “There aren’t very many grand organs in the country; to the extent that a permanent program can be developed to train young organists as masters of the Chapel’s grand organs, I think that’s absolutely in need of support.”

While her devotion to the music program at Duke Chapel is evident, Jones also seeks to encourage Duke’s young musicians and organ scholars to develop programs to bring music to local churches and other smaller venues to better reach and train the next generation of musicians—to give other young people the gift of music.

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Organ Scholars Learn Musical Skills in Context

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n Evensong worship service this past semester featured the anthem Evening Hymn by the modern British composer Henry Balfour Gardiner. The choir sang the Latin text, Te lucis ante términum, rerum Creátor, póscimus… (To Thee before the close of day, Creator of the world, we pray…) under the direction of Chapel Organ Scholar Abraham Ross and with accompaniment at the Aeolian organ by Organ Scholar Joseph Fala. Throughout the service Fala and Ross led the choir through intricate pieces by composers Gardiner, Maurice Duruflé, Herbert Brewer, and others.

The service is just one example of the kind of training Fala and Ross received this year as organ scholars, as well as the contributions they made to the life of the Chapel. They also participated in weekly rehearsals and

other worship services, as organists, conductors, and singers. They play the Chapel’s organs for weddings, memorials, and funerals, as well as during rehearsals open to the public on weekdays. Both Fala and Ross gave solo recitals this year, performing music by composers Joseph Ermend Bonnal, Dietrich Buxtehude, Felix Mendelssohn, Josef Rheinberger, and others.

“In a space like Duke Chapel, the large acoustic provides a lot of feedback as you play,” Ross says about his experience playing in the Chapel. “Often, organists speak about the acoustic as obscuring the final result of your work at the console; however, I now listen to information the reverberation provides regarding my performance; whether or not I am together with the choir, and the effect for the listener fifty pews away.”

Chapel Organ Scholar Joseph Fala plays during a Choral Evensong worship service.

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Chapel Organist Christopher Jacobson, a Fellow in the Royal College of Organists, leads the program and teaches each of the scholars in weekly lessons. Begun in 2015, the program has so far trained six musicians with each scholar spending one or two years in the program.

Jacobson compares the Chapel’s Organ Scholar program to a medical residency, in which knowledge gained in the classroom is honed and practiced in the clinic.

“It’s very much the old-school model of apprenticeship,” Jacobson says. “It’s how I was trained as an organ scholar at National Cathedral.

“You’re training the holistic musician,” he says. That includes musical skills such as transposing, sight reading, accompanying, and score reading, Jacobson explains, but it also includes “the social aspect of music.”

Fala says in his two years as an organ scholar, he has gotten much better at learning new music quickly and understanding how the music will intersect both with the church’s liturgical calendar and with other musicians and singers.

“My time here has pointed out many of the deficiencies I had as a collaborative musician, skills that were less prioritized in former studies that had been more solo-performance focused,” he says. “I’ve learned that mastery of certain musicianship skill sets are the key to being able to learn and process new music quickly in order to stay afloat while maintaining the high standard of quality.”

For the organ scholars, learning the context of organ performances means they are challenged to help plan services, to give musical guidance during rehearsals, and to relate to singers of varying experience levels.

It also means that both Ross and Fala served in local churches. This year, Ross served as music director for St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church, a small congregation in Durham where he led the choir and played most all of the service music.

Fala served as organ scholar at Chapel

of Cross Episcopal Church in Chapel Hill, which is adjacent to the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill, where he assisted the church’s music director, Dr. Joseph Causby, with organ playing and choral rehearsals.

Fala says interactions with community members outside of regular rehearsals provided some of his most memorable experiences.

“Over the course of my time at the Chapel, I’ve brought elementary school groups up to the organ, led demonstrations for university classes, and even played for terminally ill hospital patients,” he says. “These spontaneous acts of musical hospitality are among the more meaningful things I did as an organ scholar, and really embody the ministry of the Chapel.”

The breadth of the program is designed to equip the scholars to succeed in a range of roles from professional church musician to doctoral student in music to pursuing service in sacred music alongside a career in another profession.

This summer, Fala is pursuing opportunities as a church musician and Ross is preparing to study for a doctor of music degree in organ and church music at McGill University.

Abraham Ross, a Chapel organ scholar.

Celebrating the Carillon The Chapel’s carillon got a new name this past December when the university’s trustees met and officially dedicated the fifty-bell instrument in honor of J. Samuel Hammond, who played it for more than five decades before retiring at the end of last year.

In their resolution naming the carillon after Hammond, the trustees noted that “Sam has brought intelligence, excellence, humility, charm, and grace to his work every day, and has brought joy and meaning to the

Duke community through his deep knowledge of his craft and his superb musicianship, creating the unmistakable sound of the pealing of the bells across West Campus.”

The carillon continues to be played at 5:00 p.m. on weekdays. Chapel

Organ Scholar Joseph Fala and Paul Bumbalough, a senior advisor with Duke Visa Services, share the responsibility for playing the bells.

The music from the carillon can often blend into the background on campus, but it got extra attention one day this spring. On April 15 when news broke that the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris caught fire, Bumbalough closed the day’s carillon recital with a rendition of Frances’s national anthem, “La Marseillaise.”

An excerpt of a recording of that performance of “La Marseillaise” on the Chapel’s carillon was posted on the university’s Facebook and has since been viewed more than 50,000 times.

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THE MUSIC OF J.S. BACH

Light from the Castle of Heaven

By Dr. Philip Cave, associate conductor for Chapel Music and interim director of Chapel Choir

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million pieces of colored glass were used to make Duke Chapel’s stained-glass windows. There is satisfaction to be gained from analyzing the form and function of every particle; but the real appreciation of the craftsman’s art is in observing the whole—seeing how the tiny pieces of glass come together to tell biblical stories and to brighten the Chapel’s stone with constellations of blue, red, and green shapes that move with the sun.

The same is true of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. In just one of his works—the well-known Toccata in D minor for organ, for example— there are 3,978 notes. And every note has its place—nothing is superfluous or missing. The thousands of notes come together for a single purpose which Bach noted in many of his compositions with the letters SDG: Soli Deo Gloria, Latin for “Glory to God alone.”

Christopher Jacobson, FRCO, directs the Duke Evensong Singers in performing Bach’s St. John Passion on April 14, 2019. Photo by Grace Cai, T ’19.

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Hearing Bach in the Chapel beneath its stained-glass windows is especially fitting, as the architecture and atmosphere of the building comprise many thousands of details that move us from the quotidian to the sublime. This year more than 4,000 people heard Bach’s music performed by the Chapel’s musicians, guests artists, and soloists at four Bach cantata concerts, five organ recitals, and oratorio performances of the St. Matthew and the St. John Passions. Many more heard music by Bach during Chapel worship services and at Chapel concerts presented at Duke’s Nasher Museum of Art. Why so much Bach? One reason is the sheer extent and variety of his music. Bach’s compositional output was huge, much of it sacred, including cantatas for every Sunday of the church’s year, masses, and motets, as well as organ and other instrumental works. His compositional styles range from simple melodies to complex counterpoint evidencing extraordinary displays of intellectual skill.

We can hear Bach’s music at times of celebration—a grand organ postlude after a service or ceremony such as the Baccalaureate; or at weddings and funerals; in a cantata concert or an organ recital; or at performances of his famous Brandenburg concertos or his great Mass in B minor. His enormous

Dr. Philip Cave directs all three Chapel choirs, and soloists, in singing Bach’s St. Matthew Passion on March 31. Photo by Chris Hildreth, Rooster Media.

musical output provides suitable music for so many occasions. Bach’s music is remarkable for a man who, in his own time, was a rather obscure German town organist.

Another reason for featuring Bach’s music at the Chapel is its sheer brilliance. Writing at the end of the eighteenth century, one German music critic described the reaction of another musical genius to Bach’s music: “Hardly had the choir sung a few bars [of Bach’s motet Singet dem Herrn] when Mozart sat up startled, a few measures more and he called out: ‘What is this?’ And now his whole soul seemed to be in his ears. When the singing was finished he cried out, full of joy: ‘Now there is something one can learn from’” (Friedrich Rochlitz, Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, 1799).

Bach’s music is so intellectually rigorous it can be analyzed for its intricate complexity. If you are an architect, it will appeal to your sense of form, structure, and balance; if a mathematician, you may be engrossed in Bach’s use of numerology; for historians and theologians there is infinite material for study and reflection; for a musicologist, there are myriad angles from which to analyze and parse his music; and as a performer, there is an almost unattainable challenge for technical and expressive perfection on every page.

Bach envisioned his church cantatas as praise to God, but they had another, didactic role: to teach about, or reflect on, a particular theme or religious festival. At their

core is a chorale—a combination of a well-known tune and words. The same melodies are used in his organ preludes, and provided Bach with more opportunities to display his imagination and skill in the variety of his musical treatments.

Bach’s music is, of course, only a small part of what is offered at the Chapel, but it does provide a rich and expansive resource from which to draw inspiration. Pitched at the very summit of expressive rhetoric, his music shines with a sense of completeness, and listening to it, we can almost see the glow of the stained-glass windows of the Castle of Heaven.

Summer 2019 13

Duke Chapel Recordings Archive Brings Preaching to Life for a New Generation

W

ith the advent of online archives, more and more students are able to read, see, and hear the voices of the past.

The Duke Chapel Recordings digital archive offers scholars, students, liturgists, and preachers the chance to explore more than 2,740 audio, video, and manuscript sermons preached at Duke Chapel between 1946 and 2002. The Chapel continues to add material to this archive by recording services each week.

Funded by the Lilly Endowment, this archive allows Chapel history to come alive for online users through a generative partnership among the Chapel, the Divinity School, and Duke Libraries. Visitors to the site find simple instructions for use, including multiple approaches for searching the material. For some, this archive allows them to revisit their memories. For others, it represents their first encounter with the importance of the Chapel pulpit in the shaping of Duke’s campus and the surrounding communities. For still others, it offers a robust approach to teaching and learning across time.

In 2018, a small cadre of students and faculty members received funding for a Story+ project through Duke’s John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute.

Together, they investigated the relationship between the regular activity of Sunday morning preaching at the Chapel with the extraordinary public protest and social change between February 1, 1960 (the Greensboro, North Carolina, lunch counter sit in), and July 2, 1964 (the passage of the Civil Rights Act).

The Preaching and Protest project also supported Duke Story+ students as they created a model for the development of online resources that enrich appreciation of, and deepen engagement with, the Duke Chapel Recordings digital collection.

This summer, a new Story+ team will take a different approach in a project called #MyVoiceMyBody: Minoritized Bodies in the Pulpit of Duke Chapel.

The ordination of women continues to be a controversial issue in numerous Christian denominations. In 1939, Duke Chapel welcomed its first woman preacher (theologian Georgia Harkness),

paving the way for more than seventyfive illustrious women who guestpreached or served as associate ministers to the Chapel between 1963 and 2001. Who were they? What did they preach? How did they preach?

The #MyVoiceMyBody project will interrogate the intersections of body, place, and performance in the space of the Chapel. The project is led by Duke Divinity’s Dr. Jerusha Neal, assistant professor of homiletics, and project manager Peace Lee, a doctoral student in homiletics. Under their leadership, graduate and undergraduate students will work with the archival and digital contents of the Duke Chapel Recordings collection, conduct in-person and remote interviews with these pioneering women, and learn the basics of sermon analysis to reveal the connections between identity, rhetoric, and politics.

Simply, they will ask, what may be learned from the past that might shed light on the present moment, on the #MeToo movement, and the expanding opportunities for women in the performance of ministry?

In the fall, the #MyVoiceMyBody research will continue, with support from Duke’s Bass Connections program, and include analysis of preachers of color and any preacher who identifies as LGBTQ.

Women in the Pulpit Women have been preaching at Duke Chapel since 1939. Here is a sampling of three sermons preached by women at the Chapel: • Encountering Christ in the Form of our Sister preached by Rosemary Radford Ruether on May 31, 1987 • The Safari and the Lion preached by the Rev. Elizabeth Achtemeier on April 5, 1987 • His Name So Sweet preached by Bishop Leontine T. Kelly on December 18, 1983 Find these sermons and many more at bit.ly/DukeChapelArchives.

A presentation at Duke’s John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute on the Preaching and Protest project by Duke students Naomi Lilly, T ’20; Brennen Neeley, T ’20; and Liddy Grantland, T ’20.

14 CHAPEL VIEW magazine

A BRIDGE PANEL CONVERSATION

Chapel Deans Talk Preaching

If you have shown your congregation

that you can be trusted to speak truthfully about God and to speak truthfully about what it is to be a human being, then you might gain permission to speak about more sensitive and controversial things.”

—Vicar Samuel Wells

Preaching the Gospel has to do with

the intersection of the biblical text and context in our world—that somehow hearers, as they listen—there’s a resonance that this is pro nobis. This is for us. Whether it mentions the headline news or not, somehow it’s intersecting with our lives, our world, and there are many ways to do that.”

—Dean Luke A. Powery

One reason you come to church and

listen to a sermon, I think, is to pay attention to what’s important. Scripture sets the tone for the conversation and the subject matter. A lot of the things that the world says, ‘Oh, this is very important. This is a current event. You need to focus on this.’

Scripture might say, ‘Hmm, you know, it’s not that big in the scheme of things.’”

—Bishop William Willimon

A public conversation on February 27 brought together the current dean of the Chapel with the two most recent former deans for a discussion of “Preaching and the Public Square.” With WUNC Radio host Frank Stasio moderating, Dean Luke Powery, Vicar Samuel Wells, and Bishop William Willimon spent more than an hour at the Chapel talking about how they approach their vocations in the pulpit.

Find quotations from their conversation here and watch the full discussion at chapel.duke.edu/PreachingPublicSquare.

We don’t know everything that there

is to know. There’s a level of intellectual and spiritual humility that’s important in the Christian life. But at the same time even knowing that, we follow the path of faith seeking understanding.”

—Dean Luke A. Powery

The business of our gathering is: Who

is God? (A) And then (B) what is God up to? And then (C) how can we get on board with that?” —Bishop William Willimon

What the Holy Spirit does in the

heart and mind of a listener is actually sometimes so different, and almost completely unconnected with what was in the heart and mind of the speaker. And so the preacher can pray any prayer they want to pray in the introduction to their sermon, but the real prayer is that the Holy Spirit will do something with whatever people hear.”

—Vicar Samuel Wells

Summer 2019 15

Duke senior Lizbeth Leapo displayed her paintings of religious scenes from India in the Chapel from April 23 through May 6.

16 CHAPEL VIEW magazine

T

he Chapel selected Leapo, a biomedical engineering major, as this year’s C. Eric Lincoln Theology and Arts Fellow. Through the fellowship, she created five original paintings based on photographs she collected both online and in person, and then exhibited the paintings in the Chapel for two weeks.

“This collection of paintings explores the rich diversity of Indian traditions and beliefs,” Leapo wrote in the introduction to the exhibition. “It captures the ways in which faith is expressed in a nation where hope is often translated through a belief in something bigger than oneself.”

Leapo is a Christian who is interested in exploring artistically other faiths that are practiced in India.

“Religion in India influences so many things that are distinctive to Indian culture: The vibrant colors and style of Indian clothing, the preparation of different Indian foods, the intricate storytelling style of classical Indian dance,” says Leapo, who is from East Brunswick, New Jersey, and has extended family in the Kerala region of India.

A group convened by the Rev. Joshua Lazard, the Chapel’s C. Eric Lincoln Minister for Student Engagement, selected Leapo for the fellowship.

“The decision to select her was made clear by her attention to a global religious community,” Lazard says. “She also came highly recommended by art department faculty.”

Leapo has been drawing since she was a child and has been painting since high school. Although Leapo is an engineering major, she has taken two art classes at Duke—a drawing class with William Fick, a lecturing fellow in the Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies, and a painting class with William Paul Thomas, an instructor in the department.

“I’ve always been interested in art,” Leapo says. “I really love bringing that into engineering when I can, in terms of designing things that are not only functional and effective but also aesthetically interesting.”

The Chapel’s arts and theology fellowship, named in honor of the late Duke religion professor C. Eric Lincoln, provides funding to an undergraduate student for a sacred art project that employs theological concepts, illuminates one’s personal faith, and engages the topics of gender, race, and religion.

“This collection of paintings explores the rich diversity of Indian traditions and beliefs. It captures the ways in which faith is expressed in a nation where hope is often translated through a belief in something bigger than oneself.”

Original paintings by Lizbeth Leapo, T ’19 (left to right): Simran Meditation, Sunrise Ganga Aarti, and Rosary Prayer.

Opposite page: Photo by Grace Cai, T ’19.

Summer 2019 17

CHAPEL NEWS

Dean Powery’s Latest Book

I

n his new book, Were You There? Lenten Reflections on the Spirituals, Dean Powery leads the reader through the season of Lent and confronts the mystery of Christ’s death and victory over the grave. Each selection includes the lyrics of the spiritual, a reflection by the author on the spiritual’s meaning, a Scripture verse related to that meaning, and a brief prayer.

Valuable not only for their sublime musical expression, the African American spirituals provide profound insights into the human condition and Christian life. Many spirituals focus on the climax of the Christian drama, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the ways in which those events bring about the liberation of God’s people.

Habitat House Build

T

he Congregation at Duke Chapel, along with the Chapel and other Duke groups, participated in a dedication ceremony on March 30 for a house they helped build through Habitat for Humanity of Durham.

Photo courtesy of Durham Habitat for Humanity.

18 CHAPEL VIEW magazine

“It was a way to bridge worlds that don’t normally meet, where you bring the enslaved tradition, wisdom tradition, the understanding of God, the Bible—all of that life— together with this generally highchurch following of the liturgical calendar,” Dean Powery told Duke Divinity School’s Faith & Leadership website. “Underneath this is a reconciliation of sorts.”

In addition to publishing the book, Dean Powery gave two major addresses this semester: “Preaching and Pentecost” for the Wilson-Addis Lecture at George W. Truett Theological Seminary on March 5 and “Formation of Faith Leaders” for the conference Legacy and Mission: Theological Education and the History of Slavery at Princeton Theological Seminary on April 9.

Luke A. Powery is dean of Duke University Chapel and associate professor of homiletics at Duke Divinity School.

New Recordings by Chapel Musicians

University Organist Dr. Robert Parkins has released his latest album Salome’s Dance. Performed on the Chapel’s Kathleen Upton Byrns McClendon Organ (Aeolian), the recording features late German Romantic music and works by American composers, including two that were influenced by jazz/blues traditions. Learn more at www.gothic-catalog.com.

Chapel Organist Christopher Jacobson, FRCO, is releasing an album this summer titled Saint-Saëns - Poulenc Widor - Works for Organ and Orchestra.

It was recorded at the Victoria Hall in

Geneva, Switzerland, with conductor Kazuki Yamada and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. The album features music from composers Camille SaintSaëns, Francis Poulenc, Charles-Marie Widor, and others. Learn more at www.pentatonemusic.com.

Chapel Associate Conductor Dr. Philip Cave has released an album Cantiones sacrae with the English vocal ensemble Magnificat, which he founded and directs. The album features Latin motets by the seventeenth-century German composer Heinrich Schütz.

Learn more at www.linnrecords.com.

Renowned jazz pianist Cyrus Chestnut was the guest musician at the Chapel’s Jazz Vespers worship service on March 26. Chestnut joined Duke Professor John Brown, Chapel Dean Luke A. Powery, and Chapel minister Rev. Joshua Lazard in leading the service.

The music included songs such as “Goin’ Up Yonder,” “The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power,” and “Jesus, You’re the Center of My Joy,” as well as improvisational jazz.

Legendary Pianist Cyrus Chestnut Summer 2019 19

TRANSFORMATIONAL GIFTS

W

henever I think about transformational gifts, I am reminded of what it takes to complete the acrostic puzzle in the Sunday edition of The New York Times.

First you must work one part before you can do the other: clues must be answered and then broken apart, dispersing the letters into new locations, until suddenly (it seems) you have the final answer. But it is never sudden.

It never happens in a moment, and it never happens the same way twice.

Transformational gifts are always, like acrostic puzzles, lessons in humility and patience.

Certainly, Barbara J.R. Jones, WC ’65, remembered her time at Duke and her love for the Chapel music program for more than thirty-five years before making her transformational gift.

She was an undergraduate here in the early 1960s and the Chapel stood then, as it does now, at the center of the campus and her memories. Her consideration of our needs and her ability to meet those needs reflected a careful and patient study of what might be possible. You can read more about her on page 9 of this magazine.

The Chapel has received many transformational gifts. We are deeply grateful to the Lilly Endowment for their initial support of the PathWays Program and their current support of the Duke Chapel Recordings archive.

Other donors and foundations in the last year have also made transformational investments. New planned gifts, generous endowments, Charitable Remainder Trusts, and expendable cash donations have given the Chapel the funds needed for today’s work while laying the foundation for a

bright future.

In fact, I believe that every gift to the Chapel is transformational.

Your generosity makes it possible for us to purchase prayer candles and print Sunday bulletins. Your unrestricted annual giving supports the production of our visitor brochures and coloring books and enriches the experience of tourists and other “walk-ins” unfamiliar with our mission.

Your support is invested in the hard costs of recording and broadcasting our worship services and concerts so that those who are unable to attend

in person remain connected with the blessing and the beauty of our work.

These offerings transform lives. Isn’t that what a transformational gift is supposed to do?

The Chapel is transformed every day because of you and your generosity. We are grateful for the faithfulness you demonstrate with your support.

Sincerely yours, Amanda M. Hughes Director of Development and Strategy

Your gift today is 100% tax deductible. Please make your check payable to Duke Chapel and send it to: Director of Development and Strategy | Duke University Chapel | 401 Chapel Drive, Box 90974 | Durham, North Carolina 27708 For information about credit card or stock gifts, please contact Erica Thomas for assistance.

(919) 684-5955 | chapeldevelopment@duke.edu | gifts.duke.edu/chapel 20 CHAPEL VIEW magazine

Visitors walk the labyrinth at the Chapel on April 2.

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