Category: Our Music: Musings
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Our Music: Debate on a Hymn
by Susanne Maziarz, Music Director at Neighbourhood For this month of Hope, our hymn of the month will be the African-American spiritual, #95 – There is More Love Somewhere. The lyrics are: There is more love somewhere. (2x) I’m gonna keep on, ‘til I find it. There is more love somewhere. The word “love” is…
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Our Music: Come and Join Us
by Susanne Maziarz, Music Director at Neighbourhood Are you hiding your inner rocker? There is a chance for you to come out and be part of the music made at our Sunday service. Neighbourhood’s Spirit Band is always looking for instrumentalists and vocalists to join us in preparing for one of our Sunday services. The…
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Our Music: Finding Discipline in Chanting
by Susanne Maziarz, Music Director at Neighbourhood Have You Tried It? Since attending my first Singing Meditation service in Texas in 2013, I have made co-leading a public interfaith chant circle (along with Fred Maycock) one of my monthly spiritual practices. Last year we began a short version of our Sunday evening chant/meditation circle to…
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Our Music: Visits With the Hamilton First UU Choir
by Susanne Maziarz, Music Director at Neighbourhood In our weekly staff meetings, Wayne always asks that a piece of pop music be included in the service. Whether it is a prelude or congregational song, I try to fill this request. Having secular music in a religious service is considered sacrilegious in other faith traditions. I…
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Our Music: The Drum Circle Is Back
by Susanne Maziarz, Music Director at Neighbourhood How can we musically “be”? For some it’s through practicing, for others it’s through improvisation, or the thrill of an embodied performance. Music demands our full attention. It brings together heart, and soul, and spirit. Meditation teaches us how to be still, be aware, be in the moment,…
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Our Music: Music, A Tool For Education In African Culture
by Susanne Maziarz, Music Director at Neighbourhood To launch Black History Month on Sunday, February 7th, Tiki Mercury-Clarke performed at Neighbourhood as the first artist in our 2016 Concert Series. But this wasn’t an ordinary hour of entertainment; this was education disguised as entertainment. Through storytelling, song, and ‘herstory’, she shared with us the experience…
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Our Music: Practicing, Performing, Creating
by Susanne Maziarz, Music Director at Neighbourhood This month we are launching our 2016 Concert Series. Music is always about doing: practicing, performing, creating, active listening. At Neighbourhood, we want to honour and showcase this art form with three different performances falling on the first Sunday of the next three months. I hope you will…
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Our Music: Opening Hearts
by Susanne Maziarz, Music Director at Neighbourhood Music can help us through our challenges. For performers and their audiences, music can be a healing and life-changing experience. Music heals us by creating a space of feeling and beauty. In the congregation, and in singing with the Comfort Choir (see below), I have seen the opening…
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Our Music: Listen To The Soul Of The Music
by Susanne Maziarz, Music Director at Neighbourhood What do you hear when you listen to music? It is a very different experience to sit back and listen to music than it is to be actively involved in making it. Can you hear the musician’s breath, the sound of their body in relation to their instrument?…
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Our Music: The Strength and Wisdom of Grandmothers
by Susanne Maziarz, Music Director at Neighbourhood I first became aware of the Raging Grannies at the Melancthon Quarry protest that the Spirit Choir attended at Queen’s Park. A group of brightly dressed older women attracted a lot of attention when they began singing protest songs for all to hear. It was incredibly moving to…