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Have a musical memory that you’d like to share? Throughout the month we will post listener submitted recollections here and share a few on MPBN’s Facebook page. Send your memory to us at music@mpbn.net.CLICK HERE to hear a musical memory aired on Maine Public Radio and Maine Public ClassicalCLICK HERE to learn more about MPBN’s instrument donation projectOur listeners’ favorite music recollections:

John Pickering, Orono

Over thirty years ago, in November 1987, the Surry Opera Company, a group of non-professional singers from Surry, Maine, traveled to the then USSR to sing opera with Soviet choruses in both Leningrad and parts of the Georgian Republic. I was a member of that opera company and want to tell about a special concert our group attended near the city of Telavi, Georgia, which has remained with me as a musical highlight in my life.

About twelve kilometers outside the city of Telavi our tour buses parked near the eleventh century

Georgian Orthodox Alaverdi Cathedral. It was here that we were to listen to the concert put on in our honor by the women’s chorus that had sung an opera with us the evening before in the concert hall in Telavi.

The cathedral was situated in a rural area adjacent to a state collective farm where workers were bent

over harvesting turnips. Their presence evoked the sense that I had stepped back centuries. Turning my attention to the cathedral, I noticed that rising from the roof of the large stone structure was a round tower capped by a pointed cone. The height of the tower did not fully register until I stepped inside and positioned myself directly beneath the opening of the structure. As my eyes were drawn to the top, I let out a low

sound expressing my surprise about the great distance to the peak. Then I noticed the black smudges of carbon on its whitewashed walls, caused no doubt by centuries of burning candles. Again, that feeling appeared of having stepped back in time.

By now, all of us were moving about the cathedral murmuring about the beauty of the ikons, the simplicity

of the interior, and the ornateness of the primary cross. The twenty-four Georgian singers, who had on maroon dresses and also coats because it was cold enough to see our breath, had gathered directly under the tower. We moved toward them to be able to see and hear better. Their director, who had led us in several songs at our concert in Telavi, moved his hand slightly and the group started singing the same polyphonic music sung in the Alaverdi Cathedral for centuries.

Three or four parts blended into a sound that was unlike any I had ever heard. The sound seemed to be coming from all points at once, blending, separating, then echoing for a full four seconds before dying out.

I felt myself lifted and transported back to the early days of the church in Georgia. Song after song continued, enriching and embellishing the mood and deepening the feeling of community, both past and present. Nationality became irrelevant during this time of tension between the Soviet Union and the

United States as together we shared the music.

About half way through the concert, several members of the chorus began grinning as they were singing. Somewhat puzzled about what was happening, I noticed other singers looking up toward the top of the cathedral, then smiling too. Then I heard it. Birds were adding their songs to those of the chorus.

At one point the Surry Opera singers were asked to join with the women’s chorus to sing a Georgian song

we had learned. As our blended voices filled the cathedraI, I exchanged emotional looks with others. Our music continued, gradually fading out high in the church.

Later, when the singing came to an end, there was a long silence. Finally we began to clap, knowing as we did so that there was no adequate way to express ourselves. Slowly we all made our way outside to be greeted by the sight of people still harvesting turnips in the nearby field.