An interview with composer Sam Guarnaccia and and lyricist J. Philip Newell
By Tom Crenshaw and Trevor Harden
"As never before in the history of humanity we are becoming aware of the essential oneness of the earth. Increasingly we know that what we do to a part we do to the whole. And we are realizing that we will be well only to the extent that we live in relationship with one another and with all things. At the same time, we are experiencing the most horrific brokenness as an earth community. The violence that is being perpetrated by nation against nation, by religion against religion, by rich against poor, and by humanity against earth’s species is unparalleled.
A Celtic Mass for Peace: Songs for the Earth gives voice and sound to earth’s deepest yearnings for peace. These are not just religious longings or Christian longings. These are sacred longings from the heights and depths of humanity’s song. They are as vast as the universe and as intimate as the human heart."
-J. Philip Newell
The composition of music for the text of A Celtic Mass for Peace: Songs for the Earth by Celtic spirituality author, speaker, theologian, and poet J. Philip Newell, is a result of a collaboration born of the meeting of Dr. Newell and Vermont scholar/composer/teacher Sam Guarnaccia. This collaboration has resulted in a trans-Atlantic journey during which the work has evolved from its simple beginning of seven song/chants into its present form of ten sections, a full overture with nine songs and eight musical interludes. It has been performed and celebrated in many forms on both sides of the Atlantic, from simple liturgical settings on the island of Iona, Scotland, to concert settings in Nashville, Cincinnati, Lexington, and Edinburgh among others.
The present recording of A Celtic Mass for Peace, Songs for the Earth with musicians and singers from both Scotland and the United States of many diverse heritages, was made in the Vermont landscape where both words and music were written, and is a reflection and expression of the theology/spirituality of liberation and inclusiveness far beyond the confines of any single tradition. From an unusual blend of classical and Celtic instruments, a distinctive harmonic space and melodic texture emerge, a mystical Celtic vocabulary of sound and feeling, beautifully recorded on location by the renowned jazz pianist and recording artist Chuck Eller.
RockOm: Sam, when did the inspiration for the music for the Celtic Mass of Peace first come to you?
Sam Guarnaccia: I met Philip Newell at a retreat in Pennsylvania in 2004 and then at another retreat in Vermont in the following year. I had just been improvising some music with a Scottish friend around that time, while Philip, separately, had been writing the words that would later be used for the Celtic Mass for Peace . I wrote to him when I was in Scotland and asked if he’d be willing to at least respond because I was deeply moved by his work. He sent me the whole text and invited me to write music for it. It was a wonderful conjunction of creativity between the two of us and it started our collaboration.
RockOm: Philip, is this the first time you’ve composed lyrics for this kind of endeavor?
Philip Newell: Of this sort of scale, yes. I’ve done some collaboration with musicians in relation to meditative chants, but this was the first time I’ve written anything on the scale of a full mass. One of the things I’ve realized is that Sam is gifted at conveying through sound what I have been trying to communicate through words. There was an awareness when I was writing the words for the mass that I wanted to both strike out a deeply personal note, an intimate note, as well as a vast and cosmic note as a way of speaking of the sacred presence that is at the heart of everything in the universe. But, this is also to be found in the personal depth of our own being. That combination of the personal and the cosmic was what I knew I wanted to put into words, and that’s precisely what Sam has done through the music. This has been very moving for us but it’s also been wonderful to see people respond to it in those terms… opening them into a sense of presence in the universe but also moving them very personally – often in tears.
RockOm: Philip, you say that A Celtic Mass for Peace is written for all, including those well beyond the bounds of our own religious traditions. What is it about A Celtic Mass that will carry it beyond Christianity to be understood by other faith traditions?
Philip Newell: One of my convictions that grows increasingly out of dialogue and relationships with teachers in other traditions and people well beyond the bounds of our Christian household is that I think many people are looking to us to bring our most central treasure for the healing of the world. I am thinking of a native leader, a Pueblo teacher, in New Mexico. During one of our conversations a number of years ago, we were standing on the edge of the courtyard at the little spirituality center in New Mexico where I do a lot of teaching. Looking on to the courtyard and imagining this would be a place where there would be a dialogue between the great wisdom traditions of the world, a place that would focus on a healing for creation, I said to him, “This is sort of like a table of humanity that we’re trying to create here. If that is what this place is, what should I bring to the table?” And he spoke to me with a sort of simple but profound directness that I’ve now come to expect from native teachers, “Well, Philip, bring your treasure. Bring Christ.”
These words found their way deeply into my heart because I realize there are many of us in the Christian household who are not quite sure how to bring our treasure because our treasure, Christ, is so often used to beat people over the head and give them the impression that they need to become like us, all in the name of the truly humble One. Somehow we’ve created this arrogant tradition that we are somehow supposed to triumph or dominate other traditions. These words, “Bring your treasure; bring Christ” helped me realize that what many of us are struggling to find ways to do is to bring something back to the heart of our Christian household, not in terms of saying you must join us to receive our treasure or you must confess certain propositional beliefs about God in order to receive our treasure, but an awareness that we are to offer our treasure freely and openly for the sake of the healing of the world. For example, I think the way we’ve often celebrated communion is along the lines of putting all the conditions in place before we can actually share something from the heart of our Christian household. So that’s been close to the initial conception and birthing of this project… that we want to find not only a new language of expressing the ancient wisdom of Jesus but also find new ways of sharing this wisdom and to do it in ways that speak right into the heart of this point in time - especially to the longing for peace that we find in all of the great traditions.
RockOm: Sam, this music that you’ve composed has such a profound healing effect and essence to it. Can you take full responsibility for it?
Sam Guarnaccia: Oh, Tom… [laughs]. No, no. I really feel that God, or whatever word you want to put to it, but that God uses us, puts us together and finds ways, in spite of ourselves, for releasing these wonderful things. It’s been a great surprise for me. I’ve been thinking and feeling music deeply for much of my life to have found words that start to unlock melodies and unlock feeling. I’ll give you one specific example. All creative people, I think, struggle with themselves and tend to make things overcomplicated. But with this music there has always been something that has been shaping it and keeping it very simple. It’s a very humble feeling. One ends up being swept up and privileged to be a part of. You can’t really explain it.
Philip Newell: Sam has the gift of humility. I don’t feel quite so humble, but I’d like to set that in context. One of my favorite teachers is the 14th century mystic Meister Eckhart. Eckhart says that God is to be found in the human soul, not by addition but by subtraction. Namely, we don’t need to add anything to the human soul to find God. What we need to do is get the self-serving, dividing ego out of the way to find God. I think that’s my reading of what’s happened in Sam. He’s gotten himself out of the way enough to allow the One who is within us to be creative. So he is both totally responsible and not at all responsible [laughs].
RockOm: Philip, why does the mainstream Christian church know so little about Celtic mysticism when there’s obviously a long and rich history there?
Philip Newell: A couple of things. One is to say that there is a tremendous openness in much of mainstream Christianity as we’ve known it. I think there’s a great turmoil happening in which people are looking for ancient wisdom to speak in new ways for today. So while many will not necessarily be aware of the Celtic stream as a major resource, it’s right to say that many, many people are becoming aware of it as of the source. That’s not to say that we all need to become Celtic Christians, which would be as absurd to say that we’d all need to become Presbyterians, but it is to say that it is a significant resource.
There has been a long history of rejection of the ancient insights of the Celtic world. This began early on in the 4th century when Christianity became the religion of the empire. There was a weeding out or rejecting of what the empire deemed as incontinent truths. From the 4th century on we see the Imperial Church feeling threatened by many of the ancient wisdoms of the Celtic traditions about reverencing Creation, reverencing women or openness to the realm of the mystical and of dream life. All of these realms, the mystery of matter or the mystery of the feminine, all of these realms are not usually controlled by Empire. So I think a lot of the fear of what the Celtic tradition embodied and tried to give reference to was a sort of threatening to the holders of power.
Very close to the heart of the Celtic tradition has been celebration of the well of Wisdom that is deep within us - not just to be accessed in a subjective or individual way, but accessed together and in community as part of the healing of the world. The way in which imperial religion developed, it was convenient for the Empire to say that wisdom and truth was more like a possession or a type of deposit which would be distributed from above – that is from those who would, in a sense, tell us what to believe, or what the boundaries were. The Celtic tradition was often feared for reasons that were related to power and to the manipulation of power. Some of that continues to be the case today. In any tradition where ultimate power is situated - either with the Vatican, for instance from one end of the Christian spectrum, or the Biblical literalism on the other end – there’s fear around a stream of spirituality that takes seriously our responsibility to access the well of Wisdom within ourselves.
RockOm: Sam, there’s many collaborators on A Celtic Mass for Peace but two stand out. Tell me about the contributions of vocalists Suzanne Adam and Elisabeth von Trapp.
Sam Guarnaccia: Suzanne is an absolutely wonderful young Scottish woman from Edinburgh who is a friend of Philip’s and who did a recording with him called Sounds of the Eternal, which is a gorgeous album of meditative chants of a different sort than the Celtic Mass for Peace . When Philip invited us to Edinburgh to celebrate the mass as far as it had been composed at that point, Suzanne was part of the group of singers. We got to know her and when it was time to finally record the mass this past summer, an important part of the budget was to make it possible for Suzanne to come and share her glorious voice, and more than that her spirit to that project. Elisabeth von Trapp is, as you may know, the granddaughter of Maria von Trapp of The Sound of Music fame. She has several albums and is very spiritually oriented, with most her music having some relation to bringing peace and love and joy into people’s lives. So when I called her and asked if she’d consider being a part of this, she was happy to do it. She’s on three of the songs and was a wonderful addition to the mix of voices and players on the album.
RockOm: The question we ask almost everyone we interview, and to which we get a diversity of answers, is what is it about music and the arts that overcomes barriers between people with such ease?
Sam Guarnaccia: Music bypasses the cerebral cortex in a wonderful way. It’s truly a language at the heart of emotion, of the nervous system, of the body. It’s visceral and it’s truly spiritual. It works its way past the thinking and the analytical mind straight into the heart and so it has a magical way of helping us all to be free of inhibition. The music helps us to be truly honest with our feelings, to ourselves and to other people.
Philip Newell: I agree entirely. Edwin Muir, a Scottish poet, in one of his poems says that truth is not too complicated for expression; it is too simple for expression. The simpler we can be in our language, the closer we’re coming to the profound truths of the human mystery and of creation. Art and music often access much more immediately that realm of profound simplicity within us. Words often take us in the direction of what distinguishes or separates us. Words can lead to that less profound realm of differentiation and analysis while I think music and art are the gifts of expression that take us to the place that is profoundly intuitive because they come much more immediately after the heart, the soul or that deepest well of energy within us. For me, there’s nothing more wonderful than the combining of these faculties of word and sound and image. I think it’s often when there’s a convergence of these things that we find ourselves most deeply moved.
RockOm: Will the Mass be touring? Will the world be able to hear this wonderful work?
Philip Newell: I need to ask my wife about that [laughs]. I hope the Mass will be in many ways made available in many, many contexts. I’m not sure Sam and I will always be able to be physically present, but it would be wonderful because we have so loved being together at different points in the unfolding of this creativity. But part of what we want to set in place is the musical resources around enabling other people to access this without us being present.
Sam Guarnaccia: It’s a wonderful opening for me to say that the score on at least two or three different levels – a complete version as in the recording, as well as simpler versions for smaller groups that would like to do all or part of it – are going to be published and available electronically as well as in hard copy. It’s being worked on right now. There is one manifestation that may be coming fairly soon and that is this fall around the International Day of Peace. In Vermont and possibly around the country, there are a number of churches interested in using the Mass for Peace , as a way of celebrating the same thing together at the same time and with that common united purpose of being conscious of our deep longing, our deep need to move toward peace. This will encourage spiritual communities in being helpful to the greater communities around us and in being able to move in that direction, really creating a culture of peace.
ABOUT PHILIP AND SAM:
Sam Guarnaccia - Composer
Samuel Guarnaccia, a Vermont native, studied classical guitar in Spain and has performed throughout parts of Europe and North America. Having taught at The University of Denver and Middlebury College, he is now on the faculty of the University of Vermont, a Spanish scholar, player, and composer with deep ties to the history, struggle, traditions, and spirituality of ancient and contemporary Indigenous peoples.
www.samguarnaccia.com
J. Philip Newell - Lyrics
John Philip Newell is an Edinburgh poet, scholar, and teacher. Formerly Warden of Iona Abbey in the Western Isles of Scotland, he is now Companion Theologian for the American Spirituality Center of Casa del Sol at Ghost Ranch in the high desert of New Mexico.
www.jphilipnewell.com
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