A collection of pieces by Andrea Clearfield

Andrea Clearfield's Works

Buddhism

dharma

In this short guided meditation, Tibetan Buddhist meditation master Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche gives simple instructions for bringing awareness to the body, sensory experience, space, and finally to awareness itself. The main point of the practice is to fully embrace the present moment with mindfulness and awareness. 

To take a free, self-guided intro to meditation course, visit http://learning.tergar.org. Or, for more information about Mingyur Rinpoche and his teachings, please visit http://www.tergar.org, where you will find information about events and retreats, and also a free online intro to meditation course. Enjoy!

Guided Meditation - Body, Space and Awareness

The work is inspired by the composer's fieldwork in the restricted Himalayan region of Lo Monthang, Nepal, near the border of Tibet documenting indigenous folk song, 2008-2010. The seven movement cantata was commissioned by the Mendelssohn Club and Pennsylvania Girlchoir. The work, scored for SATB and SSA choruses, digital audio and chamber orchestra, was composed in 2012 and revised in 2013. This performance from Spring, 2013 is by the University of Austin New Music Ensemble and Choirs, directed by Dan Welcher. The cantata is based on rites of passage. Texts: Dr. Sienna Craig and traditional texts from the region of Lo Monthang in Upper Mustang, Nepal, initial translations by Karma Wangyal Gurung and Katey Blumenthal; poetic translations by Sienna Craig; transliterations by Katey Blumenthal and Andrea Clearfield.  Movements I and VI are sung in English, set to poetry by Dr. Sienna Craig. 
Prologue: At the threshold (I)
I Kye (Birth)
II Shar Ki Ri (Mountain to the East)
III Kusum (Queen Kusum goes to Ladakh)
IV Tse Go La (At the threshold of this life)
V Re Chung Tso (The performers)
Interlude: At the threshold (II)
VI Shi (Death)

TSE GO LA (At The Threshold Of This Life) - 30 minute cantata

This is the third movement of the cantata "Tse Go La" for SATB chorus and chamber orchestra.

This cantata is inspired by the composer's treks to the restricted and remote Himalayan region of Lo Monthang, Nepal, to study and document indigenous Tibetan music. The work incorporates 5 songs from the gar-glu (court) and tro-glu (common) traditions. Katey Blumenthal and Andrea Clearfield recorded over 130 songs that had not been previously documented. Their fieldwork is part of the World Oral Literature Project at the University of Cambridge.

Tse Go La (At The Threshold Of This Life)

Performed by Orchestra 2001 with James Freeman as the artistic director, and Gloria Justen as the soloist. For more information about this work, visit http://www.andreaclearfield.com/works/orchestral/romanza/.

Image credit: painting by Louise Clearfield http://www.stationgallery.net/LouiseClearfield.htm

Romanza (Excerpt)

Written by Andrea Clearfield
Commissioned by the Mendelssohn Club in honor of Alan Harler
Scored for SATB chorus

The score will be available for purchase from Boosey & Hawkes in Summer 2016. Prior to that, music may be purchased by directly contacting the composer.

To learn more about this work, visit http://www.andreaclearfield.com/works/choral/alleluia/

Image credit: painting by Louise Clearfield http://www.stationgallery.net/LouiseClearfield.htm

Alleluia

Written by Andrea Clearfield
Arr. for SATB chorus and piano by the composer

This song cycle, commissioned by Israeli soprano, Raya Gonen is set to texts by Sima Yashonksy-Feitelson, an inmate of the Kovno ghetto. The song cycle consists of three sings: “Farlorn Alemen” (Losing everyone), “Du bist Avek” (You are gone), “Mein Land” (My homeland), a poem that Ms. Feitelson wrote after having been liberated and immigrated to Israel.

Sima Yashonsky-Feitelson was 16 years old when she lost both her parents and sibling in the Kovno Ghetto, Lithuania, during World War II. Her young husband was taken to a forced labor camp near Kovno, in which all of the Kovno Ghetto Jews were shot. His job was to burn their bodies. Sima documented her life and experiences in the ghetto in a booklet of poems in Yiddish, which bears witness to the atrocities, her feelings of fear and loss, and her doubt as to whether she would ever see her husband again. She also documented her resistance activities in the underground movement, which was formed there against the Nazis.

Sima immigrated to Israel (with her husband, who survived the Holocaust) and reunited with friends from the Ghetto, including soprano Raya Gonen’s parents. As a token of their friendship, Sima gave an autographed copy of her poems to Raya’s parents. After reading the poems, Raya felt compelled to be able to sing them, and thus commissioned Andrea Clearfield to set these poems to music so that they could be included on Raya’s touring Holocaust songs program.

To learn more about this work, including how to purchase the score and parts, visit http://www.andreaclearfield.com/works/choral/farlorn-alemen-choral/

Image credit: painting by Louise Clearfield http://www.stationgallery.net/LouiseClearfield.htm

Farlorn Alemen

Music written by Andrea Clearfield
Text excerpted from "Song of Myself: No. 21" by Walt Whitman
Commissioned by The College of New Jersey Chorale; John Leonard, Artistic Director, "live" performance by The College of New Jersey Chorale, April, 2016
Scored for SATB chorus and piano

To learn more about this work, visit
www.andreaclearfield.com/works/choral…of-the-body/

To purchase the score, visit
http://seeadot.com/staff-view/andrea-clearfield/

———

I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,
The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me,
The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into new tongue.

I am the poet of the woman the same as the man,
And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,
And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.

I chant the chant of dilation or pride,
We have had ducking and deprecating about enough,
I show that size is only development.

I am he that walks with the tender and growing night,
I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.

Press close bare-bosom’d night-press close magnetic nourishing night!
Night of south winds-night of the large few stars!
Still nodding night-mad naked summer night.

Smile O voluptuous cool-breath’d earth!
Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!
Earth of departed sunset-earth of the mountains misty-topt!
Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!
Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!
Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake!
Far-swooping elbow’d earth-rich apple-blossom’d earth!
Smile, for your lover comes.

Prodigal, you have given me love-therefore I to you give love!
O unspeakable passionate love.

———

Image credit: painting by Louise Clearfield www.stationgallery.net/LouiseClearfield.htm

Poet.4.16.16

Poet of the Body and the Soul

Altruism. Empathy. Integrity. Respect. Engagement. These five psychological states are keys to living a compassionate, courageous life, according to Buddhist teacher, anthropologist, and social activist Roshi Joan Halifax. However, each has the potential to become counter-productive: altruism can become pathological, empathy can prevent you from seeing another’s situation clearly, and engagement can become an endless to-do list. In her latest book, Standing at the Edge, Roshi Halifax likens these states to ecosystems that are the most instructive when we work from their edges. Here, Roshi Joan Halifax speaks to author Sandy Boucher about how “edge states” have been vital to her work as a change-agent, and how they might help us nourish love and justice in society today.

Roshi Joan Halifax: Empathy's Double-Edge

In recent years, ethno-nationalist movements have had an apparent resurgence. What can we do to counter the hateful ideologies that have led to so much harm? Arno Michaelis, an ex-neo-Nazi, and Pardeep Singh Kaleka, whose father was murdered by a white supremacist, say that a combination of lovingkindness (Pali, metta) and relentless optimism (Punjabi, chardi kala) is the only path forward. The pair came together after the 2012 Sikh temple shooting in a Milwaukee suburb that left Kaleka fatherless. The gunman, Wade Michael Page, who killed Pardeep’s dad and five others, was a member of the white power group that Arno had founded years earlier. (Arno had since left the organization and later became a Buddhist.)How Arno and Pardeep met and began working together to spread their anti-hate message is the subject of their new book, The Gift of Our Wounds. Here, they talk to Tricycle web editor Matthew Abrahams about their lives and their mission.

Arno Michaelis & Pardeep Singh: How to Fight Hate (Without Your Fists)

Acclaimed scholar of religion Elaine Pagels discusses the role of faith today, the practical consequences of religious ideas, and what led her to ask, "Why Religion?" with Tricycle's editor and publisher, James Shaheen.

Pagels is the Harrington Spear Paine Foundation Professor of Religion at Princeton University, a MacArthur Fellow, and a best-selling author who won the National Book Award for her groundbreaking 1989 work, "The Gnostic Gospels." Her latest book, "Why Religion? A Personal Story" explores why religion has persisted through a blend of meticulous research and an earnest exploration of her own struggles with faith and grief.

Elaine Pagels: Why Do We Still Have Religion?

On February 19th, 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued an executive order designating military zones along the West Coast and laying the groundwork for US authorities to remove citizens of Japanese descent from their homes and imprison them in camps. While it is widely acknowledged that racism was central to this shameful chapter of American history, the role of religious discrimination cannot be overlooked, says scholar and Soto Zen priest Duncan Ryuken Williams. Here, Williams joins Tricycle Editor and Publisher James Shaheen to discuss his new book, American Sutra, how Japanese Americans stood up for religious freedom, and how this disturbing legacy of persecution has taken on new relevance.

Duncan Ryuken Williams: When Buddhists Were a “National Security Threat”

Acclaimed travel and spirituality writer Pico Iyer has written two new books about his life in Japan, Autumn Light (Penguin, April 2019), and the forthcoming A Beginner’s Guide to Japan: Observations and Provocations (Penguin, September 2019). Iyer views the books as complimentary: while Autumn Light describes his experience within the culture, A Beginner’s Guide offers his perspective as an outsider. Since marrying and moving in with his wife in her home city of Nara three decades ago, Iyer has become one of the foremost translators of Japanese culture to Western audiences. Iyer discusses his latest books as well as the way impermanence colors Japanese life and what it means to try to understand other cultures at a time when the term globalist has become, in many parts, a dirty word.

Pico Iyer: Inside Japan as an Outsider

In recent years, school mindfulness programs have sprung up across the country, setting off a debate about whether the nominally secular programs derived from religious practices violate laws about the separation of church and state.

In her new book, Debating Yoga and Mindfulness in Public Schools, Indiana University Bloomington religious studies professor Candy Gunther Brown takes a look at the history of the separation of church and state and the mindfulness movement and makes the case that mindfulness programs have overstepped their bounds. While she does not recommend that the programs should be banned, she argues that making them mandatory is unconstitutional and that students must be asked to opt-in to the classes. (Even opt-out options, she claims, place an illegal burden on the students.)

Here, Brown talks with Tricycle Editor and Publisher James Shaheen about how her view, the legal precedents set from the school prayer debate, and the claims that mindfulness is a form of “stealth Buddhism.”

This episode is sponsored by Maitripa College. www.maitripa.org

Candy Gunther Brown: Is School Mindfulness Bringing Religion into the Classroom?

The Lotus Sutra is one of the most important Buddhist texts, but for the uninitiated reader, it can make little to no sense.  Our guests are two of the foremost scholars in Buddhist studies, Donald Lopez, Jr., Arthur E. Link Distinguished University Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies at the University of Michigan, and Jacqueline Stone, who recently retired from her position as Professor of Japanese Religions at Princeton University. They have written a chapter-by-chapter guide to the Lotus Sutra called Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side: A Guide to the Lotus Sutra (October 2019, Princeton University Press). The book is a highly readable commentary and introduction to the sutra that flips between ancient India, when the sutra was written, and medieval Japan, when it took on a new meaning for the Buddhist priest and reformationist Nichiren. Here, Stone and Lopez sit down with Tricycle Editor and Publisher James Shaheen to discuss the issues, such as religious meaning, reinvention, and adaptation, that this book brings to the surface.

Donald Lopez & Jacqueline Stone: How to Read the Lotus Sutra

Composer of music for opera, orchestra, chorus, chamber ensemble, soloists and multimedia collaborations