The Cultural Miracle of an Orchestra and Choir Concert

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Last night, I had the pleasure of witnessing a remarkable feat of cultural leadership—the annual Christmas Traditions concert of the Northwest University Concert and Chamber Choirs with our alumni choir Coro Amici and the Kirkland Civic Orchestra at Benaroya Hall in Seattle. As I watched and listened, I marveled at the leadership it takes to bring such an event to bear.

First of all, such a concert serves as a remarkable preservation of high achievements of Western culture in history. At a time when Western culture suffers constant battering for its moral failures over the centuries (as though other cultures had achieved a pristine record of moral excellence—a counterfactual assumption at best), a concert of sacred and classical holiday music reminds every reasonable person that America’s dominant cultural form has produced and still produces artifacts of exceptional beauty and spiritual power. The redemptive force of musical presentation continues to soothe and heal us.

At the same time, redemption and healing usually do not fare well in the economic world. A concert with more than 100 voices and 70 musical instruments would not be financially possible to achieve on the basis of paid tickets. Philanthropy enters the picture from the beginning, starting with the Benaroya family and others who gave millions of dollars years ago to establish a world-class concert hall with the impeccable acoustics required for voices and instruments to work their magic. Others gave generously to sponsor the concert itself and the receptions that accompanied it. Above all else, singers and instrumentalists invested untold hours of practice to perfect ancient skills and extend the legacy of music that would have died away many years ago if not for the labor of love musicians invest, at great opportunity costs.

Such a “concert” of giving and labor and love does not happen every day. In fact, it results from a miracle—the miracle of leadership. James MacGregor Burns, in his magisterial volume Leadership (1978), called attention to the fact that transformational leaders achieve their visions by creating and bringing along other leaders in their train. Choral conductor Bill Owen has accomplished precisely that miracle in achieving his vision (think of vision in Biblical terms) with the Northwest University Christmas Traditions Concert at Benaroya Hall. He created the choirs, including the alumni choir, enlisted the University administration to sponsor the event, contributed financially along with his wife Sherry to ensure the financial success of the concert, chose the music, enlisted our partner orchestra and instrumental soloists, and has consistently and flawlessly kept the tradition alive for ten years in a row. All out of a love for culture, a desire to bless his community, a conviction about the sacred value of art as worship and a commitment to the power of music to bind our culture and society together.

Every time a concert of classical music comes together, it represents a miracle—a work of love. When someone performs miracles over and over for years on end, something even more transcendent is at work, something akin to saintliness. To all of the leaders who participated in last night’s concerted efforts, on behalf of our whole community, let me say thank you.